So I figured, a month later, that it might be time to regale you with the tale of my latest travel adventure.
You see, I had spent the summer back in Canada. I had gone to my Uncle's wedding at the beginning of June and I also took a summer job back at a department store.
But all of that is meaningless to this story. The point is to set the stage. By the end of the summer I was very eager to get back to my boyfriend and to England. It's strange having your heart and mind divided over two separate continents. You're never fully intact no matter where you are.
So I started watching prices for airline tickets. And thank you England Olympics 2012, you made that so excellent for me. Prices were over 3 times as much as the previous year, sometimes even more than that. Panic set in around my heart as day after day I scanned all the bargain sites, each wanting 4 digits or more for a one way ticket. Yes, or more. Not even for business class. I'm not sure how that works, are people actually shelling money out like that for something that is usually a quarter the price? Wackos.
So eventually I spotted one that was only a a couple hundred more than last year's one way ticket and pounced. I didn't think it was going to get any better than that. And I was right. The price went back up a few hours after I bought it. Phew.
This ticket alleged that I would have on 3 and a halfish hour stopover in Frankfurt and I was actually pretty okay with that. I was on my way, I had a date, I marked my calendar.
My Mother and sister were lovely and came with me to Vancouver and we had a really nice day before they took me to the airport. I was secretly glad that they came with me though I was just as prepared to say adieu at the ferry terminal to save them hassle.
The gateway by the cafeteria has always been a place of tears for me, whether I'm going or someone else is going. We group hugged, cried and I sped off before I needed SERIOUS tissues. Okay. So at this point it was pretty normal. I updated my BF about my whereabouts and estimated time of departure and settled in with my kindle.
Oh yeah! I was flying on a German airline, so everything was in German and everyone (nearly) around me was German. I watched, with great interest, as someone beside me in the waiting room got up and purchased an iPad from a vending machine. Imagine if that jammed? No thank you. I like my expensive retailing to be done in person thankyouverymuchsir.
Anyway, we got onto the airplane and I inwardly cringed to see that it was not a plane which had individual tv console thingies in the headrest in front of you. It had about 4 TVs hanging from the ceiling of the aisles and from my window seat, I couldn't see the top half of it. Which was okay because they showed This Means War and Mirror Mirror in German.
This was likely the first time I've ever had a lovely stranger sit next to me. (highlights have been a Spanish man with little english showing me half clad photos of his girlfriend(s?) on his phone and another man that slept with his head on my shoulder and cried out in his sleep if I moved.) She was a Polish Canadian woman and she was very interested in my life story. She worriedly asked me, having found out I went to art school, if I thought she had done her daughter a disservice by pushing her away from the arts she loved and towards Sciences in school. I...didn't really know what to say.
It was at this point that an announcement came on (in German) and EVERYONE started talking (in German) very excitedly. I don't know if I need to express that THIS WAS VERY WORRYING. Then everyone started pressing their faces to the windows on my side of the plane and I actually thought, "There's something on the wing!". But there wasn't, so breathe. Instead I was so lucky to be able to see a green streak dancing across the sky and reflecting off the clouds below us. This was the second time I'd seen the Northern Lights, but seeing it from an airplane was very exciting.
I got my camera out and prayed that I would be able to fully capture what it was I was seeing. It's very difficult to get a photo of a low light subject through double paned windows, as you just get the reflection on the outer glass of what is behind you. So I put my jacket over my head like I was an old-timey sort of photographer (thinking at the northern lights, "Look at the biiiirdie!") to block all the excess light and I got a couple fairly okay photographs of an unearthly greenish smudge on a black background. I was beyond excited. ("I'm like a real photographer!")
We landed in Frankfurt on time and I excitedly got up and gathered my things. This was when I heard an announcement (in German) in which the word "Manchester" popped up. This was my next destination so I froze. Um. I walked by the (my brain wanted me to write plane-mistress here, I don't know why. Maybe cos she was German. And intimidating.) flight attendant and timidly asked her what the announcement had said about Manchester. She narrowed her eyes at me, puffed out her cheeks in exasperation and just pointed out the plane door where this very excited looking man was anxiously gripping a clipboard. Next to him was a bicycle. With another glance at the attendant, I walked over to the man and asked him if there was a change to the stopover to Manchester. He nodded at me but it was very clear that he wasn't listening to what I was saying. So I just stood there and looked at him. After a moment he looked back at me. I looked at him. He looked at me. He cleared his throat. I scratched my wrist. I don't know why. It wasn't even itchy. But it was awkward. So awkward.
He turned away from me and shouted into the plane, "IF DERR IS ANYONE GOINK TO MANCHESTER, SEE ME PLEASE." and immediately about 6 people slunk up to him. So I slunk too.
He glanced over at me and said, "I vill help you in a minute please miss."
I said clearly, "I think I'm on your clipboard there, I'm going to Manchester."
"OH!", said he. He looked down at his clipboard. "Oh yes, you are being Miss Silvey?", correctly pronouncing my surname.
"Yes." quoth I.
"OH!" He boomed, "I am so so sorry, I was misunderstanding you."
He looked around, counting the people in front of him with his finger, shrugged his shoulders and grabbed the bike that was leaning against the wall. He swung his leg over it and took off down the hallway. About halfway down he stopped, looked back at us all confusedly looking 'round at each other, and called, "You are coming with me please, I will explain."
Very mysterious, this was. As one, me and my peeps walked at a fast clip after the German on a bicycle.
We walked for ages, and after a short while the German on a Bike was joined by a Second German on a Bike and they spoke hurriedly to each other in German whilst bumping into people with their bikes and parting a path in the crowd for the rest of us. (who were, by now, all sweating because we were jogging in an airport with all our bags after Two Germans on Bikes.)
We reached a desk in an abandoned hallway manned by two men behind (I assume) bulletproof glass. They held out their hand for our passports and stamped them and off we trotted once more. I was very confused and getting sort of panicky. The only other times I have my passport stamped is when I'm about to leave an airport to enter a city. Even that scary time when I stopped over in Beijing. (Another story, another time.)
Finally we reached a general space that had a food court. The Germans on Bikes parked their transports and finally explained that the flight from Frankfurt to Manchester had had an electrical failure of some sort so they had replaced the flight with a smaller plane and this meant that there wasn't room from the rest of us. He told us he needed our passports and half an hour to procure us another flight which would take us to Hamburg and then to Manchester, 3 hours later than originally planned. In apologies, they gave us all vouchers to use on food.
This would have been fine, but this whole area only had about a dozen seats for some reason. And they all had someone sleeping in them already.
Anyway, after this point it all proceeded uneventfully. I got to Hamburg, then to Manchester and took the train home from there. Where I slept for about a week.
It's all fun times and bicycles in hindsight.
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