So, continuing on in our saga. We left our young heroes stranded at the gates of Mordor. Samwise and Frodo…no wait a second, wrong story….

Where were we? Ah yes, upon entering the sea of masses at Manchester lobby we found our way to the BMI counter. Apparently they already knew we were bumped and had reissued tickets for us. The nice gentlemen personally saw to it that our luggage would be accounted for as well, or so we thought anyway. So, he tells us to go to this other counter and check in, in fact he walks us over. This airline is called Flybe.com, in our fogginess at the time we did not know this was not part of BMI. We thought we were rebooked on the next Lufthansa flight. Nope, turns out we were thrown on this cheapo flight service, which literally began service that day. Nice friggin timing lads. So our turn comes, and we get checked in and once again we have to explain the luggage problem to this lady. We got nothing but a blank look. Listen lady, we need to make sure our luggage is transferred with us! “I’m not sure what you mean? You have no luggage to check in?” Arrghh!!! Somehow her supervisor sitting next to her knew what to do, and she took care of us. I have no idea what she typed into the computer, but I think she just added our luggage tags to the manifest knowing full well they could have been thrown on an airplane going to Norway in the meantime. We had no physical confirmation. Whatever, fine. So now we had until 2 PM, and its only 10 AM.

We found our way to the main concourse area, after going through security again. Oh yeah, I forgot to mention that we needed to change some cash there to buy some food. My dad plunks down a 20 at the exchange counter, he gets back 7 pounds. “Sir thats not enough for drinking here.” Holy crap its expensive here! We bought 2 coffees and it came to the equivalent of $10! So anyways, we trudged into the food/bar area. At this point I didn’t care what time it was, it was time to drink. The only highlight during this ordeal is at least I got to sample the Guiness from its place of origin, or at least one island over so you know its fresh. Man that was tasty.

We decided to get something to eat, let me tell you the British are not known for their cuisine, and airport cuisine is even worse. My dad was insane and ordered steak and kidney pie, and I had something called English brunch which consisted of 2 fried eggs, two ancient sausages that resembled leather, some navy beans fresh from the can, and half fried chips, er french fries. Big mistake. Both were awful. No wonder they have terrible teeth . At least I had internet access!

So the rest of the time was spent sitting there waiting for our flight’s gate assignment, which apparently they don’t figure out until the plane shows up. With our stomachs churning,we observed the two scotsmen in full regalia pound one beer after another. Aye laddie!

So finally, 1:30 our gate gets assigned. We pick up and walk down there, only theres no airplane yet. 1:50, still no airplane and theres been no announcements. The crew stands around in huddled whispers and sqawk into the radio. Nope nothing and when asked they have no idea either. What the hell airline is this? Finally some lady in a suit decides to make some phone calls its now 2:15. She announces we will be boarding in 15 minutes..uh but theres no plane.

Finally a new airplane is seen towing into the gate, one of those 50 seat Learjet deals, at least it wasn’t a prop. So, the plane is sitting there, not a ground crew or pilot to be seen. Eventually the pilot shows up, must have had to finish that one last beer. So finally we all line up and go down the gangway, and literally walk out onto the tarmac into the plane. We take our seats, and are directed to keep our seatbelts unfastened as the friggin plane must be fueled. What the hell! So the plane is being gassed up, hey I see no luggage guy yet. The plane crew starts hemming and hawing with the ground crew, over what I’m not sure but eventually the pilot gets involved. Finally the luggage shows up, and an hour and half later we get airborn. Minus any sort of refreshment of course. Thats what they were arguing about, should they wait even longer to load some food? The captain I guess vetoed that decision.

Finally we reach Frankfurt, and I’ve been awake for 24 hours at this point. So we walk into the luggage area, wanna take bets if our luggage came out? You guessed it…nope. @##$%$%&#! We wander to the lost luggage desk. After some insistence they check the computers, we finally have a break. Our luggage was indeed there at the airport, it was transferred to our original flight and was in the lost and found holding area. The lady was even nice enough to escort us to it because there was no way we would have found it by ourselves.

So luggage in hand, we made our way to Urberach..and to bed eventually.

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