EuroLife: Day 186

The first time Michael saw this little bag sitting on our assigned seats in the airplane, he said "Well, that's a little disconcerting..." He was right. Delta only gives these babies out to passengers who are planning on spending entirely too much time in the air. They are actually quite handy, and contain ear plugs and an eye mask as well as a variety of odds and ends like a toothbrush, some hand lotion, a headset...and I can't remember what else. Still, they are reserved only for us "long haul" travelers, and I'd be happy not to have to see one again for a while.

We'll start writing about Germany again soon, but first I thought I'd write about our return to Germany. All in all, it took 20 hours to get from the door of my parents house in NY to the door of our apartment in Jena. (Incidentally, I am of the position that it should never take 20 hours to get home from your parents' house.)

We made excellent time getting to the airport. There were no lines, and the international terminal is quite small, so we had 3 hours or so to wait for our plane, though they boarded an hour before the scheduled departure so it was really only 2 hours. When they announced that our flight was boarding, I heard them tell a flight attendant that they would be using the "people mover." It was an odd sort of vehicle--somewhere between a bus and a train-car on wheels--and it "moved" us people out to where the plane was parked. Then we sat there, in the people mover, for quite some time. And we sat there. And we wondered why the people mover was no longer moving the people, but simply containing them. At last, they let us on the plane (after raising the people-mover to the proper height--I'm telling you, it's an odd vehicle.)

Once on the plane, we had to wait for a second people-mover trip to go get the rest of the passengers. Then we began to taxi, and heard the following announcement: "Due to the fog outside, there is a build-up on the runway. We have not yet been assigned a number, but we are anticipating at least an hour of taxi-ing before takeoff." There were some groans, but not too many. Then, about an hour later, we got the really bad news: We still had not been assigned a position in the take-off line. We were not facing the right direction, and only planes that are facing the right direction get assigned a number. ("Why," I thought, "don't you just turn the plane around? And why exactly are you telling us this?") Still, judging from the captain's count, there were 36 or 37 planes ahead of us...planes that had been assigned positions in line. We should expect "an hour to an hour and 50 minutes" of additional taxi time. Then people started to groan. I asked for some water, and the flight attendant brought a bottle for Michael and I--hidden behind her back! I guess she didn't want to start some water demand riot. They did eventually give us all water, and they got the TVs working so it actually wasn't that bad.

The flight was fine once it took off. The Delta 757s have individual TV screens with about 20 movies to choose from--as well as TV shows and games--all of which are available for free and on demand. It makes a HUGE difference on an 8 hour flight. We slept some, watched some TV, watched some movies, and as I said, it really wasn't bad.

We had purchased our train tickets weeks ago and, fortunately, there were about 3 hours between our scheduled arrival and the departure of our train. Because our plane was 2 hours late, we were quite happy about this and made it to our train with time to spare. Once on the train, things got tricky. It very quickly became clear, through some announcements in German that Michael was diligent enough to pay attention to, that the train was not stopping at the station at which we were scheduled to transfer. A fellow passenger said that there was construction, but that we could transfer somewhere else and take an alternate train. We did so, but our tickets were only for the specified lines, so we were a little worried. Eventually, the conductor came by and took our tickets. He looked at them, and looked at them, and finally said "Ah, I'm sorry, but this are not valid." Michael, prepared for this, gave him a detailed explanation of what had happened, and why we had no other options, etc. He smiled politely and said "Yes, I understand, but these tickets aren't good because they were for yesterday."

Fortunately, Michael laughed. I booked these tickets. I was SURE I booked them for the right day. However, I booked them for the day of our flight home, and it was on overnight flight. The thing about overnight flights is that they carry you from one day clear into another one. Train tickets for the one day are not very useful on the next. So, we paid the (full, on-the-train) fare for two new tickets, and I sat there wondering how Michael could find this so very funny.

After that, things went quite smoothly :) We transferred once more, new tickets in hand, and arrived at Jena. We took a cab home and fell into our apartment at 5pm Jena time, or 11 am NY time. (We had left the day before at 3pm NY time.) We dropped our bags off, and set out for the grocery store because nothing is open on Sunday, and we had no food. I think the walking was good, though, because it kept us awake!

One last story: Michael went to bed at around 8. I went to bed at 9, after falling asleep in the bathtub and deciding that that was probably not super safe. I fell asleep immediately, and woke up in what I was sure was the middle of the night, feeling quite rested. I checked the clock, and it was 10pm. I went back to sleep, and woke up again certain that the night was nearly over only to find that it was 1am. Again at 1:30, then at 3 where I stayed awake until about 3:30 (and Michael disappeared for a midnight snack.) Finally, sometime after 3:30, I fell into a super deep sleep and could barely get up for church at 9am.

I spent the day trying to stay awake, and now that it's nearing bedtime, I'm beginning to pick-up speed again! I've never had jet lag quite this bad, and I'm not sure why. It's very strange. I'm sure it will be better soon, but it's a funny feeling!

So that's our "long haul" travel story.

I hope this post wasn't too grumbly. I should say, we had an absolutely wonderful trip home! We had a great visit with both of our families and between Girls Week 2008 (hosted by my wonderfully agreeable parents) and our South Bend trip, we were able to see quite a few of our friends. It was hard to leave, but only because it was so nice to see everyone. So on the whole, we don't really have anything worth complaining about. It was just a very long trip.