Mannnn. I thought I had ended this blog too nicely to add in any sort of "P.S." or "Oh by the way..." but I've been presented with a story that needs to be told. I chose to fly home during one of the biggest snowstorms of the decade, and prices were paid.
So, I woke up at 6am on Sunday morning & Iben and I carried my overweight (maybe even obese) bags to the car, and drove to the airport in the snow. I should have known our experience would be interesting when the line at the check-in counter extended back into the next terminal. I also had chosen to fly at the end of the climate conference, when everyone else and their mothers were leaving CPH. I checked in, met up with Becky, Sara, Megan, and this kid Ben, who I incidentally met for the first time as we were leaving Copenhagen. We were all on the 10:10 flight to Frankfurt, and Ben, Becky, Sara and I were continuing on to the land of soft pretzels & cheesesteaks.
The flight was a little delayed, so when we landed we had to hustle to our next gate. Ben checked the gate # on his boarding pass, and we blindly followed, only to realize that he was flying to Philly on Lufthansa, and we were supposed to be taking U.S. Airways. Didn't matter that we were late though, as we soon found out our flight had been cancelled. That's when the real adventure began.
The 3 of us were sent on a wild goose chase around the Frankfurt airport, in pursuit of the U.S. Air desk. We finally got there, and found a 4 hour long line to get re-booked and all that. At one point, Sara asked some official looking man if he thought we'd be able to get home for Christmas...... to which he responded, "Pshhh I don't even know if I will be home for Christmas." SO reassuring.
When it was finally our turn to get some help, we discovered that flights weren't leaving from Frankfurt to Philly until Wednesday (keep in mind it was Sunday) but we learned that we could get home on Tuesday if we re-routed to Lisbon, Portugal and then flew to Newark. We jumped on the opportunity to get home ASAP.... plus, Portugal? That's kinda cool, right? In hindsight, we probably should have just stuck it out the extra day in Frankfurt, but that wouldn't have made as good of a story.
Our next flight was delayed by a few hours, and we didn't land in Lisbon until 2:30 local time. We waited at baggage claim, where Becky got both of her suitcases, but Sara and I didn't see either of ours. This began the process of fighting with an army of Portuguese airport workers. We had remained surprisingly calm this entire time.... but by 5am, after being deferred to a million different places in the airport, I had just about lost it. The man at the Lufthansa desk kept trying to tell me that my final destination was Philly "because that's what it says on the ticket." I hate being treated like an idiot, and I hadn't slept in 24 hours, so believe me when I tell you I was practically climbing over the desk, with tears in my eyes, yelling and ready to strangle the guy. I remained all fired up until I called my Dad, who was just like, "go get yourself to a hotel, we'll figure it out tomorrow, call me when you're ready."
We got a cab, but legitimately no one in Portugal speaks English (and our proficiency in Spanish was more useless than we thought it would be). We ended up just saying "hotel" and giving hand signals to indicate "3 stars?" We didn't want to spend TOO much money. Well, after a drive to God-knows-where, Portugal, we were left at a strange hotel run by a single man that had lots of mirrors and smelled oddly like my SAT tutor's house from when I was 16. The cab driver was really nice, and handled most of the check in process for us. Then, we were led to a dark room that I swear was colder than the temperature outside. We slept from roughly 6:30am to 3:00 pm. Much needed.
Monday was spent basically killing time. We would have liked to have seen the city of Lisbon, but we didn't really know where we were, and didn't want to mess with too much transportation. So we settled for a pretty gross meal at a cafe, and a little place where we got an hour of internet for a euro. Not bad, not bad. Then we watched some strange movie on Portuguese MTV & slept..... again.
The flight to Newark was great. We left on time, I watched 2 really good movies, got a surprisingly good meal (way better than I expected from TAP Portugal.....which I had never heard of). Unsurprisingly, when we landed our bags were still nowhere to be found. So poor Becky had to wait with Sara's and my parents for a couple hours while the 2 of us fought with more airline people, all of whom wanted to blame our problems on someone else. Finally, we filed a claim for the bags, put it all behind us, and crossed our fingers that we would hear something in the next couple of days. The nightmare was over, & I was in my beloved state of NJ.
UNTIL..... we were around exit 5 on the Turnpike & got a flat tire. REALLY?! We had to awkwardly chill on the side of the road until a flatbed came and picked us up and we rode way up high (still inside the car) to the nearest NTB station. Meanwhile, Becky's mom and uncle were at my house being entertained by my unsuspecting 16 yr old brother.
Ultimately, it was all okay, and we all got home. The only problem is I still don't have my bags, which contain all of my clothes, all of my souvenirs from the past semester, my acne medicine, and all of my Christmas presents for EVERYONE. Booooo. I called the airline today, but got nothing. They are PROBABLY still in Frankfurt, but realistically they could be in Frankfurt, Copenhagen, Lisbon, Newark, or Philadelphia. Ideally Philadelphia..... but most likely Frankfurt or Lisbon. Just so happens that we were forced to file the claim with TAP, and the workers are all Portuguese and not as easy to communicate with.
So for now, I'll just be sitting, waiting, wishing (thank you Jack Johnson) and enjoying Christmas in the land of the free with my family & friends. It's just a shame that I'll have to be naked the whole time since I am without my wardrobe.
This is not the most positive way to end the blog. Maybe I'll be back. But at any rate, Happy Holidays to everyone && I hope that the rest of you make it home easier than I did!
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