bLog jAm

Hallo from Luneburg I finally made it. Sitting here after dinner in my room, cruisin the net with my trusty laptop doing some school work, some work work and drinking a..Becks? Yeah, I come half way around the world and I get a Becks. Thats what you get when you send your father into the gas station to buy a six pack. Its like sending him to the video store and he comes back with some B-movie POS film he was told was good. Thats ok.

Anyway I have a moment to catch my breath, as the last day was from hell as you can see, but that was only part of the story. Now I shall recap the ordeal before I forget it among the fog of jetlag and let it be recorded for future generations to study. So, we got on the first half of the flight no problem. In fact we upgraded ourselves to economy plus with BMI. What does that mean? Well its not coach, and it certainly isn’t first or business class, its somewhere halfway between business and coach. You still get the same seats as in coach, but more leg room, the drinks are non stop and free (wow that wine was good), we had a menu to choose from and we each had our own little tv in the seat. Even with all this pampered luxury I still couldn’t sleep worth a damn. I tried, oh I tried. I thought no big deal I can sleep in the car later…not knowing our odyssey was about to unfold in England.

So, for all of you reading this please be warned: If you must fly to Europe, do not, I repeat DO NOT fly through England! I have never experienced such a botched up, poorly designed, clueless polite people, horrid and expensive food anywhere else. We landed and knew we had 1 hour between flights. Naturally we arrived about 20 minutes late…so we run up the ramp, and find in order to change planes we must also change terminals. So we see the sign, arrivals to the left, transfer to the right. Screeeeeeech! Damn, security gate! “Good morning gentlemen, are you on a connecting flight?” (Thick cockney accent here). Yes, we’re going on Lufthansa. “May I see your passports and boarding pass?” We don’t have boarding passes, it was an E ticket. “I see…” He turns around at the lady picking her nose behind the desk. Mind you everyone else on the plane is gone. So the lady shrugs I don’t know and don’t care like, “See the gentleman around the corner”. Allright, we go to him and explain ourselves. So this guy says, “Ahh right a transfer eh? Yes, please go through this gate and take the transfer bus”. So mind you hes the wall right behind the first gate, with a door to it in the back. He climbs OVER the counter to tell the other chap to let us through. Fine Fine, we go through the typical routine, take off your shit, unpack your bags, check your prostrate. Now the lady gets off her tush and takes us downstairs, the bus will get us from here in a few minutes.

She closes the door, we are now locked in this holding pen with no way to get out. Time ticks away, where the f$%$! is this bus? My dad picks up the phone in there to call the desk about the damn bus. Just as they answer the bus shows up. We have now 15 minutes to make the plane. We hop on, the bus starts driving, and it was a bit jarring because even at the airport we drive on the left side. So we keep going…and going..hey look theres our bird…and there goes our bird…what the? Hey sir! Where are you taking us? “I don’t know, where do you need to go??” Lufthansa! “OHHHH righto!” By this time we were almost to terminal 1, he turns the bus around right on the tarmac. Naturally we get stuck behind a baggage train. DAMMIT DAMMIT DAMMIT! So we finally get out, of course we can’t open the door, he has to get out and swipe his card…So we race up the stairs and reach the landing only to find…another security check point. Same fucking routine….May I see your boarding cards please? Same explanation…and now the phone call is made. “Sorry, the plane has been overbooked and we can’t let you through here.” WHAT!!!! “I’m sorry, now what you’ll have to do is go through this door, down stairs, through passport control and back into the lobby.”

Now you realize in America something like this is not possible. We go down there and find the huge line for entering the country. Lucky for us being EU citizens we can choose the quicker line. I told my dad we’re screwed now because we don’t have the proper paperwork. So miraculously they let us in..essentially we could have snuck into England at this point. So we end up at the service desk to find out what the hell to do. The problem being of course the luggage, which surely did not make it here.

Part 2 to be continued…..

Coming to blog post near you…

What the hell is a quid…

Local cuisine…

Where is our plane…I don’t know either…but you are the gate person….

Where is our luggage…

You don’t want to miss it!