The Jetpacker

*Our journey in Germany lasted from December 21st to January 1st, but we weren’t going to shell out a ridiculous €25 a day for the internet. Now that we’re back home, we’ll be posting the day-by-day blogs that we wrote on the road.

Our flight from LAX to London was scheduled for 8:35 p.m. and we got to the airport more than three hours early, excited that the British Airways strike had been adverted and our trip was actually going forth as planned.  For a few days, we were two of the 1 million people who were stuck in limbo as the BA workforce planed to strike during the holidays.

But when we checked the flight board, our hearts sank just a little bit. It was just after 5 p.m. and our flight had been delayed more than 4 hours, to 12:45 a.m.

Before I could filter my reaction, I immediately verbalized my frustration with a protracted

“Shhhhhhhiii –”

And just before I was about to punctuate my curse with an emphatic “t”, a group of kids looked up at me, forcing me to revert to the PG-rated “oot” to finish it off.

Shoot. Shoot. Shoot.

To add insult to injury, there was another flight leaving for London at 6:10, and everyone in front of us was impatiently waiting to get on that flight.

Since we got to the airport so early, we were the first people in line for the later flight.  I jokingly said to Jackie, “Wouldn’t it be awesome if we could get on that 6:10 flight?”

6:25 rolls around and the last passenger on the earlier flight checks-in and sprints for the gate. Then it was our turn to check-in for a flight that wasn’t leaving for more than 6 hours.

We went through the usual motions of weighing our bags and scanning our passports.  Then the lady noticed that we were going to miss our connection to Frankfurt because our flight was delayed.  She excused herself and suddenly there was a glimmer of hope.

When she came back to the counter she said, “We’re putting you on the flight leaving right now.”

It was like Publisher’s Clearing House appeared with an over-sized check. Those awards for punctuality mean nothing in high school, but in real life being on time breeds rewards.

Our four-hour delay suddenly turned into a two-and-a-half hour head start.

We rushed through security and jogged through the terminal.  Of course, our gate had to be the very last one.  Sweating and heaving, we got onto the plane where the stewardess led us to our seat.

As if things couldn’t get any better, we got the bulkhead seats. Not only did we leave early, we had better seats!

I hope we’re not using our allotment of luck this early in our travel careers because this was the second time the airline gods smiled upon us. Last year, we were scheduled to fly from Budapest to Munich to Washington D.C. to L.A.  But when we got to Munich, Jackie noticed there was a flight direct to L.A. departing at the same time as the one to D.C., so she asked if we could take that flight instead.  And Lufthansa made it happen.

The extra leg room on our flight to London must have helped me get to sleep easier because we were at Heathrow in no time. Originally we were only going to have an hour in between flights, but arriving early afforded us the opportunity to sit down and enjoy the deliciousness that is Wagamama.

Wagamama is a restaurant chain that serves Asian fusion fare like Japanese-style noodles in Thai sauces. I had the amai udon, which is teppan-fried udon noodles with shrimp in a tamarind sauce, and Jackie had the chicken curry katsu, a fried chicken breast covered in a creamy curry sauce.

This restaurant is already phenomenal, but we were so hungry by that point that it tasted otherworldly. Challenge of the day: take a look at this menu and try not to salivate all over your keyboard.

After a hearty meal, we were ready for our next flight to Frankfurt where we could hit the sack at a reasonable time and refresh for tomorrow.

But then we saw these worrisome words when we checked the flight board: “Inquire with airline.”

Every other flight had times listed. Not ours.

We walked down to the gate where our flight was supposed to leave… and there was no plane.

Frankfurt airport had been shut down.

Our luck had finally run out.

The city was suffering from bad weather conditions that turned the runway into ice. Supposedly it’s a very rare instance because Frankfurt often faces inclement weather, but usually the airport is able to handle it. Not this time.

The BA staff directed us to the baggage carousel where we were instructed to retrieve our bags and try to find other flights. Thankfully we had trip insurance.

It was a two-hour hassle with Expedia, but we finally got booked on another flight.

Problem was, it wasn’t until the next day.  So British Airways gave us $100 to use on a hotel for the night.  Expedia told us our options were a 1-star hotel for $95 or a 4-star hotel for $120.  We had no way of knowing whether Expedia was jerking us around on this one, but the second option worked out to $5 per star and we couldn’t really argue with that.

The Radisson Edwardian is what I imagine a haunted hotel would look like. It looked very old — dim hallways, dark wood paneling, paintings of wealthy and most likely dead Brits — and for some reason every word with the letter “o” in it was spelled with zeroes instead. So “POOL” was spelled “P00L”.

We didn’t check-in to the hotel until about 11 p.m. and we had to be up at 4:15 a.m. to catch a bus back to the airport. I was so paranoid that the wake-up alarm on the TV wouldn’t go off that I woke up every few minutes until I finally gave up at about 3 a.m. and hopped in the shower.

Of course, being Europe and all, there was no shower door. And the shower head was so low that even a dwarf would have been inconvenienced. But at least the towels were hot thanks to the warming towel rack.

We’ll see what the tide brings in Frankfurt.