Hi Y‘all!
When you go on a journey, usually you
have something to tell afterwards. However, I would never in my life have thought that it would be the story that
is coming now... Sit back, get comfortable and yourself a tea, or even a Snickers bar, because it might take
longer!
Some time ago last year, our
older daughter brought
the happy news that she and her dearest significant other wanted to get married. We, the proud parents, were
very happy, organized a chic outfit right away, because the occasion calls for celebrating in style, and instantly we booked the flights.
Lufthansa Business Class - of course - because hubby didn't want to leave anything to
chance with such an important event. Only LH (and AirMalta) take
you from Malta to
Stuttgart, and unfortunately not directly, but only
with connected flights.
So we were supposed
to fly from Malta via Munich to Stuttgart and the return flight was to be via
Frankfurt. So far so good.
I finished work extra early
on the Wednesday before,
in order to take Heinrich
to the dog sitter without any hassle, pack our suitcase in no stress and then take the airport bus
line to the airport the next morning. That worked out
wonderfully. After checking in at the business lounge, we merrily
passed our time and were ready
for boarding. A sip
of champagne to get you
in the mood and off we went.
When we landed in Munich, our
plane was rescheduled at short notice to a place far out on the airfield, which
was okay. But they didn't
think about the fact that in that case we
would also need stairs and a bus. So we had to wait a quarter of an hour for the stairs,
and when it arrived, we had to wait another twenty minutes for the bus. With a
connecting flight, that's always great. But no problem at all - the
connecting plane was also a good half hour late, haha! Supposedly due to a lack
of staff, but I heard that excuse so often lately, I won’t
comment on in any more...
A while ago, we
bought two AirTags for our luggage, to be able to track the suitcases via GPS.
Immediately after landing in Stuttgart, hubby told me: I think our suitcase is still in
Munich. I thought he was making fun at first, but apparently he was not
joking at all. He then
contacted Lufthansa support right away,
but it seemed as if we knew better than them where our suitcase was
located. We then went with our youngest daughter, who kindly picked
us up, to her home in Ditzingen, because we were supposed to set up camp there. At that point we were still relatively relaxed; after all, we had experienced something like
this years ago with Delta Airlines on the flight to Austin/Texas. A suitcase
had gotten stuck in Atlanta, but was forwarded on the next plane and delivered
directly to our hotel the same night.
And as it was only
Thursday late afternoon, we assumed there was plenty of time.
We had actually planned a
cosy evening at the Wichtel brewery in
Ditzingen with Sarah, her boyfriend
and his family - we finally wanted to get to know them. Since we didn't know
when the suitcase would come, we considered moving the event to Sarah and
Eric's home at short notice. But then, oh wonder, we received a notification
that the suitcase was approaching Stuttgart and was scheduled to land at 10:50
pm. OK, we thought, then we'll have to stay up a little longer than planned,
but now let's go
for dinner with
the family.
It goes without saying that hubby had already made it
perfectly clear
at the first contact with
Lufthansa, that time was of the essence. He had provided them
with our temporary address in Ditzingen with the remark that we, as parents of the bride, needed
the suitcase by 10:00 am next morning at
the latest, because it contained our outfits, shoes, hair clips, makeup...
even my thyroid hormones were in it (ok, for a day I had them in my hand
luggage). So it was really urgent. The evening progressed - we tried again and
again to get someone on the line, but in vain, because from 8:00 pm everyone had
finished work.
The next morning from
seven o’clock on we incessantly tried to move mountains and get the suitcase
to Ditzingen. A call to Stuttgart Airport revealed that Lufthansa always
commissions a specific courier service to forward baggage. They
told us to send them an
email, because Stuttgart Airport is not responsible, only
Lufthansa is. We sent said email and at the same time tried to
call the courier service. There was only one phone number available in Hanover, and I was kicked out
several times after hanging on
the line for ten
minutes each time
(btw the waiting message pointed out that if the call didn't work out, you should email instead – as if they knew very well that nobody would ever pick up
these calls)...
At the same time, hubby had a so-called Lufthansa service
employee on the line, from whom he wanted to know why we paid for priority
luggage if no one gives a f’ing fuck now? The employee said dryly: I know that this is very bad
service, but that's all I can do. The suitcase will come to you, but I can't
tell you when. Why don't you get it yourself if it's urgent? There is simply a
shortage of personnel." I'm still very impressed by the hubby's self-control...
Since my former company is
located at the airport, I even
called a former colleague to see if he could bring the suitcase to us. Unfortunately, he
was already on his way to Mannheim, but recommended a specific taxi company. Unfortunately (I sense an inflationary use of that word in this blogpost...), Lufthansa
doesn't just hand over the luggage to a taxi driver, but only if it orders it
itself - but obviously they
didn't have the capacity to do so due to a lack of staff. Going there ourselves
was no longer an option, because getting a taxi not only expensive, but also difficult when you are in a hurry. With
the S-Bahn it would not have been possible in time.
So we bit the bullet, ironed
the hubby's shirt
from the day before, washed his socks and ironed them dry, and I borrowed one
of my ex-dresses from my youngest daughter. I hardly
ever had worn it, thus I had given it to her before we moved to
Malta - that came
in very handy now. Maybe
the hubs should have gifted one of his suits to Sarah's boyfriend Eric before
moving :-) It was also very practical that I wore a pair of fancy sandals on the flight instead of
sneakers. With the semi-elegant red dress that would have created a weird combo…
Well, thanks to Sarah's
makeup palette, toothbrushes and other help, we were reasonably presentable, only not as impeccable as we had planned. Thank God I had my
jewelry in my purse and not in my suitcase. Due to track works, the tram was not really an option
(anyone who has ever heard the word rail replacement service knows what I
mean), so hubby had already ordered a taxi in the morning to pick us up at 12:30 pm and take us to the registry office. So we were waiting in the road, when
he got the call from the taxi driver at exactly 12:30 pm, he was stuck in a
traffic jam and could not come! Ahhhhh!! Uber wasn't available, so we called
six to eight local taxi companies, but they weren't in the mood for customers.
One said: "I can't do it for another three quarters of an hour," the
next bluntly
told us that he had lunch break now. Service - what's that???
We didn’t want to bother the bride and groom with these hickups but at that time we had no choice but to inform them, and thanks to Marie's ingenious
organizational talent, her brother-in-law-to-be was on the doorstep shortly
before one (remember: marriage ceremony was to start at 1:00 pm) and took us to the registry
office in Weilimdorf, disregarding all speed limits (shoutout to Sebi aka Schumi!). In the meantime, the bride
and groom had softened the registrar to wait for the bride's parents before
starting the wedding
ceremony (this is quite remarkable
for officials on a Friday afternoon...), and at 1:15
pm we arrived
at the registry office - just within the academic quarter.
But doors were closed already,
because it was Friday afternoon! So we called again for someone to come down to open the door for us.
The gatekeeper wanted to brush us off, but we just overran her, and the wedding
ceremony could finally begin!
We were then driven from the
registry office to the event hall in a VW bus from 1968.
Shortly after six
on this memorable Friday, Sarah was finished with her university
work, and since she passes the airport from Tübingen on her way back home,
I sent her a photo of the luggage receipt, and she just tried her luck at the
airport. She was
sent to a hall where hundreds of suitcases were standing around waiting
for their owners, but
ours was not there. She was then led
into a second hall where even twice as many suitcases were waiting
to be picked up. (Imagine the amount of money standing there and the huge bag of emotions attached to all that luggage...) My suitcase has a very significant pattern, so she was able to identify
it quickly, and it was handed to her just like that (without any
signature or anything).
Right when she
told us via WhatsApp that she had the suitcase in her hands, the courier
service informed us that they
had never received an order from Lufthansa to deliver our suitcase. I don't
have to mention that according to the last mail from Lufthansa, our suitcase is
now considered lost...
Well, we had a terrific
wedding and spent a great weekend with the in-laws of our two girls, and on
Sunday, as mentioned above, we were supposed to travel from Stuttgart via Frankfurt
to Malta. But Lufthansa had rebooked us from the flight to the train, and we
were supposed to leave Stuttgart main station at 5:23 pm - does Stuttgart 21
and the corresponding construction site chaos ring a bell? Bearing that
in mind we took the
S-Bahn from Ditzingen to Stuttgart very much in
advance.
Unfortunately, we had to
leave the S6 due to route work in Zuffenhausen and change to the S4. The S4 then
had to make an unscheduled stop at the Nordbahnhof, because another S-Bahn had
broken down in the tunnel in front of the main station... Nevertheless, we reached
our train to Frankfurt Airport and
were just about to find our seats, when I saw on the display board: This train
is a) delayed and b) does not stop in Frankfurt today. Am I
in a very bad dream right now???
So we hopped
on the next train at the opposite
platform. According to
the train coordinator - the small man
with the big
red cap - the train would be delayed, but if nothing went wrong, the train
should be at the airport at 6:57 pm. Boarding was scheduled for 7:30 pm, so
it was a close call,
but we had high hopes.
Approaching the
Frankfurt main station, the train driver announced: "Dear passengers, we
will reach the main station at 7:01 pm, and unfortunately we have to uncouple
cars 31 to 39 due to defects, because otherwise we will not be able to take the
high-speed line in the direction of Cologne. Because this uncoupling can take
ten to fifteen minutes, we recommend that travelers to the airport take the ICE
120 from platform 9. (Small pause...) I correct myself: we will not reach the
main station until 7:20 pm, and then the uncoupling will happen, so we strongly recommend switching
to the ICE 120. (Another little pause...) I correct myself again: We just get
the message via the Internet that the ICE 120 has been cancelled completely."
Hubby was already chatting
with LH support again, but of course their hands were tied, because our flight was the last
connection to Malta that day. I've already joked that we had a fair chance if the plane is delayed or
defective – with our luck it wasn’t unlikely, and we were only one stop away from the airport. Then,
all of a sudden, it
became very cosy in our compartment and in the entire front part of the train, because all the
passengers from the cancelled ICE 120 boarded, and all the passengers whose
cars had been uncoupled also had to get in.
There were already heated
discussions, because everyone sat down where he or she found a place, and
actually all prior reservations
were cancelled by then,
but of course there are always people who insist on their reservation. And there are
people who don't have anything to do with it, but still interfere and strike
a very wrong note. Suddenly
the hubs lowered his voice significantly (quite impressive spectacle tbh) and the
meddler went completely silent…
But since our train now had to carry triple the amount of
passengers, there was
another announcement stating
that the train was now overloaded and wouldn’t be able to depart at
all unless some
passengers get off voluntarily!
It was now 7:30 pm, exactly
our boarding time, and so
we decided to leave this fine establishment and check if another train or S-Bahn would take us one stop
further. We luckily caught an IC that dropped us off at
the airport at 8:00 pm.
Bless us, the plane was neither defective nor delayed, it was gone. The friendly LH service employee thus handed us a hotel voucher for the
Sheraton directly at the airport, including meals. Fun fact: The lump
sum for dinner was 18 euros per person, but the cheapest dish in the hotel's
restaurant was
21 euros without drinks. So we paid a little more, but at that point we didn't care anymore. We just wanted to take a shower, grab a quick bite and off to bed.
By the way, the food was
really tasty, and one of the three waitresses was also very nice (the male rest
hadn't really internalized the idea of service yet...). So we put our tired
heads to rest and fell asleep in no time. At two o'clock, however, the hubs woke up, wanted to go to the bathroom
and just hummed: We have a burst water pipe! It was dripping from the ceiling
in front of the bathroom, and according to the reception, that was the A/C, and a technician would come by
immediately. Indeed, he
was there right away and did some repair work. But he was just gone, when it dripped again - his
repair attempt was probably not that effective… Therefore we had to change rooms at half past three,
and it took us quite some time to fall asleep again.
Every time we thought, it
can't get any worse, something even more hilarious happened. You can't make that up, except in shows like "Pranked" or in pretty bad road movies. If this is the new normal in Germany, then I am really
and truly horrified. What has become of punctuality and efficiency –
these were always our pride and joy?
Nobody cares for anything anymore,
friendly service is obviously a forgotten term, but all the time you hear about
staff shortages. That’s truly disturbing. A friend wrote me: "Oh,
how nice - you went on
vacation to a developing country..."
But apart from
that the breakfast was
good, the return flight reasonably punctual and the suitcase was also where it
should be. Because
we had to pick up the dog that
Monday morning, we ordered
a Bolt driver (that's the Maltese Uber), who was there in five minutes, and he first drove us to the dog sitter,
waited dutifully until we had collected Heini, and then brought us home
quickly, safely and extremely cheap compared to a German taxi fare. Which means:
As soon as we entered our wonderfully imperfect Malta, everything worked out
perfectly.
With
this in mind, I would like to quote my own maid of honor
with the following
advice:
Breathe,
hold on, drink alcohol!!
