It's Good To Be Home

Yesterday was an interesting day of travel. I dealt with bad software, delayed flights, beer confiscation, and then rounded it off with a really delayed flight. The whole day was just one mishap after another.

The first mishap occurred as I checked into the Munich airport. I was walking through the auto-checkin when I arrived at a screen called "Confirmation" with a list of the places that I was flying to. To the right of each destination was a button with no text on it. I assumed that the button was meant to be used as a checkbox element and that I was being presented a checklist of all the places that I was flying through that I wanted to route my bags through.

It didn't make any sense to me, but I figured I would just click through it anyway. So, I clicked on the "checkbox" next to the Frankfurt list item and was distressed to discover that it wasn't a checkbox and was actually a normal button that confirmed Frankfurt as my final destination where I would be claiming my baggage. I realized my error right away and tried to cancel the operation but there was no option to cancel. My only option was to proceed. So, I figured that I would contine through the process and then get a flight attendant to help me fix it in the computer later.

My biggest mistake was to actually place my baggage on the conveyor belt. I figured that the problem could be fixed in the computer and it wouldn't matter that the bags had already been sent packing. Little did I realize that the routing information for the bags was printed on the baggage tags and once the bags got on the conveyor belt there was nothing that could be done to change them.

I was freaking out because we had less than an hour for out connection in Frankfurt. There was no way that I could claim my bags, recheck them and then make it to my next flight on time. It wasn't very encouraging that the attendants at the check-in counter weren't very sympathetic. I couldn't understand any of the German that they were muttering under their breath, but I'm pretty sure that "Stupid American" was thrown around once or twice.

Just as I was resigned to the idea of catching a later flight out of Frankfurt, one of the attendants emerged from behind the counter and announced that, although it had been a lot of work, she managed to get someone to snag our bags and update the destination.

When we arrived at our gate we discovered that our flight was delayed by 30 minutes and then 45 minutes. It looked like it was going to be impossible to make our connection even though the baggage problem had been solved. When we arrived in Frankfurt after a short 35 minute flight, the flight crew announced that we needed to hurry to make our Chicago connection. I was surprised that it was still even waiting for us.

Greg and I ran through the airport. We took the tram to the other terminal and were just about to get to our gate when we realized that we had to go back through security. There was a huge line to get through. Luckily, we were able to talk to an attendant and get expedited through the line.

I was just about to clear security when I got a funny look from one of the security guards. "Sir, do you have 4 bottles of wine or beer in your carry-on". "Yes", I responded. "Don't you know that you're not allowed to bring any liquids with you on a flight to the U.S.?". Damnit! I had forgotten all about that. I had just spent 9 Euro buying that gift pack of beer at the Duty Free in Munich. I figured that if they sold it in the airport that I shouldn't have any problem carrying it on with me.

If I'd had more time I could have checked the beer as luggage and still gotten it to the U.S. But we were already ridiculously late for our flight. So, I had no choice but to leave the beer at Security and home that one of the security people would give it a good home. Sorry Rand, I tried :)

The flight back to the U.S. was long. I killed a good portion of the time by watching the in-flight movies. They really do make the time go by fast. I watched, "The Devil Wears Prada", "Click" (well only part of it), and "Pirates of the Carribean". The first two movies weren't great but they weren't that bad either. And I had already seen Pirates.

When we arrived in Chicago, we discovered that our bags didn't make the connection. It really wasn't a huge surprise considering how late our plane was. But no matter how ridiculous the connection you always hope that yours bags make it somehow. The frustrating thing was that their was nothing that we could do about it. The baggage people told us that we would need to file a missing baggage report when we got to Salt Lake City. It felt really strange to leave customs without our baggage and without even filing a missing baggage report.

We got our connecting flight information from one of the baggage people. We had to catch a tram to terminal 2 and then get to gate F7. As we were walking through terminal 2 it began to disturb us that our flight didn't show up on any of the signs. It was supposed to start boarding in half an hour and it wasn't even posted. Had we been sent to the wrong terminal?

It didn't take like to figure out that we were in the right terminal but our flight had been delayed by three hours. Ouch! At this point we had both been awake for like 22 hours and were starting to feel a little ragged. The thought of spending another 3 hours in an airport was almost too much to take. But we sufferred through it and did eventually make it home.

I had originally planned on working today, but it was midnight before I got home from the airport with Rosey and even later before we actually got to bed. I didn't even hear Rosey leave in the morning. I slept until nearly 11 AM. It felt great to be back in my own bed.