29th
I was supposed to be back with Tragos tonight. Instead, I am in a small German village outside Munich. Please appreciate the gingerbread heart I picked up near the local iceskating rink.
Last week, poor Tragos flew back from Toronto with some of my stuff, including my lingerie. At check-in they made him buy another bag and pack and repack his bags, right there amidst the sulky queue. Poor Tragos had to deal with the censorious gaze of the sulky seeing silky ____ in his bag. Today I was able to take twice as much as you, Tragos, for free…because:
Desk clerk #1: Can I ask you a question Laureen? Is the limit just one bag flying to Turkey?
Desk clerk #2: Turkey is Greece.
Me: Ermm…
Desk clerk #2: Greece is 2 bags, it’s in the European Union, otherwise it would just be 1 bag.
Desk clerk #1: Turkey isn’t Greece, is it?
Me: Well they are very close; policy’s probably the same…
Desk clerk #1: OK. Go enjoy life, Ms Love.
So everything was going really well and then we landed in a blizzard in Munich. Hundreds of flights got cancelled because of the snow and thousands of people waited in line to attack Lufthansa customer service. Lufthansa tried to keep the dissatisfaction at bay by feeding us tangerines and toblerone and giving me a hotel voucher. I was surrounded by Brits and felt most at home (Brits are superb at queuing, it’s practically a national pastime).
Those of you who excel at airport queuing know exactly how to maintain your calm while coordinating the nudging of assorted baggage forward, increment by increment, as you clasp important documents. One woman (not a Brit) failed to nudge her bags forward at the pace that was expected of her and the guy behind her (not a Brit) kicked her luggage across the floor. There was a fight and German guards with big guns appeared, it was the most excitement anyone had seen since the tangerines arrived and the Brits scoffed and tsk-ed.
Then i waited for the hotel shuttle, in the snow, for an hour and a half. There were no more tangerines and I got very cold. A woman from Moscow sheltered me with her furs but by the time I’d arrived at the tiny village hotel I felt hypothermic and a little like I was hallucinating. Tonight, for dinner, I was served an enormous plate of rahmschitzel and pommes frites by people who looked like extras from Michael Haneke’s “Das weiße Band” and everyone else I see in the hotel are stewardesses. Tomorrow, oh please god of travel, let me go home!
