Safe at last in Germany

Hello all!

I'm now safe and sound in Freiburg and enjoying myself. Getting here, however, was not the easiest thing! Jesus, it was the most horrible trip I've ever had. This is quite long, but a rather funny read, in hindsight. So let me explain.

First off, since this whole thing was decided on such short notice, getting a cheap flight out was a headache. My boyfriend had already booked a ticked on Jan 4th, going straight to Frankfurt and taking the train to Freiburg. But since I was booking this in late December, the prices were ridiculous! Instead I ended up with this:

+ Flying to Gatwick, London with a low-price airline at 7:00.
+ Arrive at 10:40, wait there for ca.8 hours.
+ Fly to Mulhouse, France at 18:00.
+ Arrive at 20:30 (local time, hour ahead), take a one hour long bus to Freiburg.
+ Take the "status test" at the German language school at 9:00 the day after.

Even though it was a little patchworky, it saved me a lot of money.

However! Oh man. You've all heard about the snow disaster over in London?

So the day before I go, I get an email from the Icelandic airline that my flight to London was delayed for about 3 hours due to the weather. Great, I thought, more sleep and less waiting in London! I then arrive at the airport around 8, the new time was now 10. But as I get there, they said it was delayed for another hour. No matter, I just got something to eat and brushed up my German.

Around 10, I get the news that Gatwick is completely closed and we have to fly to Stansted instead. Fuck, I have to catch that other flight in Gatwick! I rush to the information center (with many others!) and they tell us they'll have a bus ready for us which will go to Gatwick, but it'll take about 2 hours, since they're in the opposite side of London. People are shouting, many will apparently miss their connection flight. Thankfully I had all these hours inbetween, but they were suddenly getting fewer.

Now it says it's time to go to gate, so I get ready, but as I cross the security check, they say the flight is now going to Luton, London. I panic, but they assure said bus will just go from there instead. Great.

At the gate we face more delays, so the plane isn't leaving until almost noon. I get a nice seat on the plane, by the window, but my damn seat is broken so I can't recline back. Didn't get a lot of sleep. Also, during the process, my pillow magically vanishes! Think it slipped through the cracks between the seats. Buh.

So we finally arrive in Luton, roughly 14 o'clock now. We rush to the baggage claim and wait forever. Seriously, about half an hour passes by, and nothing. I'm getting panicked, I knew the check-in for my 18 o'clock flight would close at 5, and the bus would take 2 hours so it's getting stressful. We still wait and wait for the luggage and some workers there are telling us the whole baggage system is in chaos. It's almost been an hour now and I've been calling home and telling them the news.

Then my boyfriend calls me and tells me bad news: my flight from Gatwick to France was cancelled. I'm appalled.  But just as I hear this, the goddamn fire alarm goes off! Yes, you heard me. So we're all asked to get out in the cold, where we wait for good 20minutes. It was freezing. So cold. At this point I didn't know whether to laugh or cry!

Since there was no point for me getting to Gatwick now, having my flight cancelled, I call home. They inform me there's a flight from Heathrow going to Basel (this is actually my French destination, but it shares an airport with the Swiss city, being near the border) at 19:05. It's now nearing about 16:30 and I rush out and find a bus going to Heathrow which takes around an hour to get there.

Around 18:00 I arrive in Heathrow, panicking, since my flight is leaving in an hour! My awesome parents booked me a new ticket and then sent me the information via phone. I surprisingly manage to get through the whole check-in and such in about 20minutes, so just before 18:30, I sit down, so tired, sweaty and in pain--I was carrying so much luggage!

The information says the gate for Basel isn't yet determined. When it's about 18:45, I suddenly see this on the big information table: Basel delayed until 20:30. Great! Haha, of course it will delay! Suddenly I realized I haven't eaten for 10 hours so I use the downtime to get food. Glorious food. I see that with the current time I'd arrive in France at 23:00 (local time, once hour ahead) and then the last bus to Freiburg leaves at 23:45, so I can't lose any more time.

So now it's finally somewhat passed 20:00 and still no info about what gate to go to.   You can only imagine my nerves. I stare at the table, waiting for info and nothing. Suddenly it's over 20:30 and still no news about it. I see by now it's delayed further. I try to ask some workers there but poor people have no info for me, everything is in chaos. At this point my cellphone ran out of battery, so I could only call my parents and boyfriend via payphone from then on. Bugger.

About an hour later I suddenly get the info about going to Gate 10! Hurray! I rush down. I realize I'll have lost the bus to Freiburg by now, but I thought I could maybe find some alternatives or worst case scenario, find a room for the night. So I get down there and wait. About 10 minutes later the  screen with the info just dies. People get up. I go and call my parents and they inform me, from the Heathrow website, that the Basel flight was cancelled after all. This is when I first start to panic.

Turns out there were 10 flights cancelled at that time, so imagine the huge crowd going round and asking for info! We're all asked to go to some place to pick up our luggage. That takes its sweet time, there were huge piles of luggage everywhere that I had to look through, but finally found mine. After that I'm told that I can rebook now by calling some numbers or get a hotel room for the night. At this point I'm completely out of it and ask for a hotel. They appoint me to a queue. A very long queue. I wait for an hour and a half. There were 3 people handling many hundreds! It's nearing midnight now.

I finally get through and get a voucher to the Sheraton hotel. Not a bad place at all. I get to a bus and after another queue at the lobby, I finally get into my room. So. Tired. So. Hungry!  Thankfully they had arranged a meal for everyone, so I go down and eat. In my room I can charge my phone again and finally inform my worried parents that I had made to the hotel.

I still had to get a new flight! My parents said there were 3 flights to Basel from Heathrow tomorrow and said they'd try to get me the 14:00 flight. Obviously they wouldn't buy a new ticket, but rebook the one they bought earlier. I give them the rebooking-number, take a shower and go to sleep, now at almost 2:30.

I wake up at 8:00, so nervous about the flight, but my dad had sent me a text message that he'd already taken care of it. He'd woken up around 6 and waited for almost 45 minutes to get through (phone bill...) and managed to rebook it. My awesome dad is the best! My boyfriend also wrote me a text saying he'd done the test at the language school and said the teachers completely understood my situation and would allow me to take it on Monday. Relieved at the good news, I pass out and wake up feeling good at 10:30.

I catch a bus to Heathow and get there around 11:30. Getting through the check-in and security was no bother and I patiently wait in the waiting room at the airport, my eyes now fixed to the time table. No sign of delay! About 13:00 the gate is announced and I get there and I'm actually inside the airplane just before 14:00.So relieved.

However, just then we get the news that there's a small delay and I wait for about 25 minutes. Typical! I was supposed to land in Basel at 16:30 and I knew the next bus I could take was at 17:30, but with the delay, we'd be landing at 17:00. Which we finally did. I was so stressed about missing the bus, but I finally got my bag around 17:25 and then I rush out and just barely got on the bus. For the first time in 2 days, I could breathe normally!

So yes, the rest went well! My boyfriend picked me up on the bus station where we then walked to our apartment. I spent yesterday walking around town and studying German! So far very impressed with Freiburg, such a beautiful city. I'm sure I'll have a great time!

I'm now off to study German for the test tomorrow. It took me forever to write this!

And a Happy New Year, everyone!