First installment: Getting to Stuttgart
As most of the Western World knows (and even some of the Eastern….), I was lucky enough to take a last-second, spontaneous trip to Paris a couple of weeks ago. I had just over a week to plan the trip (including acquiring a new passport), but I managed to do this, quite cheaply.
My itinerary wound up including Germany, because we were only going to be in Paris for four days and I had to be there at least 7 days in order to get a cheap flight. By complete coincidence, the cheapest flight available took me through Paris on the way to and from Germany.
In general, the trip was uneventful (for which I’m grateful), but I did encounter a few surprises along the way. For example, when I was on the last leg of my trip, I nearly missed the part where my plane was boarding. And…when I was finally on the little bus that we took to the plane, we were very gently sideswiped by another airline’s baggage cart. This led our bus driver to a discussion with the other driver that included much pointing at what can’t have been more than a little scratch or two. Eventually, another bus stopped by to pick us up and take us to our plane. By then we were already a few minutes late.
I was seated in the last row, with a birds’ eye view of the baggage handlers. Don’t ask me why our luggage wasn’t already loaded, but there were three baggage handlers on the tarmac. One of the carts was still full and there were several items on the tarmac. And, of course, the baggage handlers were not handling baggage, but rather discussing the obviously mis-loaded baggage that was on the tarmac. ::Le sigh::
After a few minutes, they proceeded to load the baggage into our plane and sent the misplaced baggage off to parts unknown.
I’ll bet you’re wondering about my fixation on baggage, aren’t you. Guess why!
Yes, when I arrived in Stuttgart, I had the joy of watching baggage go round and round and round without seeing my beloved square suitcase. The plane was small, so it only took a few minutes for all the baggage to be out. I got my tired self over to the desk and had a lovely conversation with the nice lady, where my only language issue was remembering how to say “square” in German. The nice lady gave me an emergency toiletries kit (including an extra-large Sky Team t-shirt – woo hoo!!!). She also assured me that they’d get my luggage to me by taxi, no problem!
I’ll bet you know by now that that didn’t happen. It’s a really good thing that Faraway Best Friend and I are almost the same size.
Why is it that there’s so much to tell? And I need to go to work today? While you’re waiting for the next installment (mid-evening tonight because I’m going to the movies after work), entertain yourself with the beginnings of my pictures. I’ve created a Paris collection that has most of the pictures that go with this story. Haven’t added all the descriptions and some of them are a bit scrambled, but I figure they’re ready to start looking at…. Here’s my photostreamif you want to just browse through them.
Happy Monday
At least (I gather) you did eventually get your luggage back…?
Sorry about your luggage.
You look like you were having a really grand time too.
