Sun - The flight home
Time to sadly leave, but also to go
home.
So there we were, rushing through
Frankfurt, losing hope, but still making the bus to the
plane.
And when we got on the
bus?
We spent the final in a Jr. Suite in one of the
Scandic hotels... perhaps not worth it since we had a
4:30am
departure from the hotel! The room came with
breakfast, hmmm, I asked about that at the desk and they assured me "breakfast
packs" would be made available to
us.
After awakening from our nap, yes,
we didn't sleep well... we put the last few items in the pre-packed bags and
went downstairs to catch the hopefully waiting cab to the train station to
hopefully catch the first train to the airport to hopefully catch the first
flight of the day... or so we hoped.
Anyway, breakfast packs... or should I
say "Breakfast" packs. We were given one stinky Norwegian goat cheese and
something resembling ham on something resembling a baguette, each. Now that's
breakfast! (Actually, the sammies were good, I'm just taking
license.)
Oh yeah - when checking out,
the computer was down. They just took my word for it that the room was prepaid!
Should have had more from the mini-bar. (Just to be clear, the room
was
prepaid... honest.)
We hop in the cab
and head off to the train station (with our purchased in advance tickets - we
learned something in Hungary). The first entrance the driver tries is not open
yet... yikes. Thankfully, the next one was and we were able to walk across the
entire Central Station (thankfully smaller than those in Beijing) and onto the
departing airport express train. So far, so good - just as we'd
hoped.
Okay, there's no line for
United, or Lufthansa? Hmmm... how do we check in? Let's try SAS, also a "Star
Alliance Airline." I guess that wasn't just a lucky guess. "Oh, the flight is
delayed. Maybe we can get some duty-free shopping in at
5:00am?"
"Hey, they have Jon Bertelsmen
cognac - Berit and Ruth's brother's stuff - let's get
some."
"Are you going to the US?, " queries
the cashier.
"Yes,
why?"
"You can't take this cognac to the
US."
"Really? No cognac
allowed?"
"No liquids in
carry-ons."
Ugh. Thank you TSA... and
thank you Oslo for not having those little bags that officially seal duty free
booze and then it arrives at your gate as you leave...
grrr.
Well, we get to the gate (after
spending most of extra NOK coins on coffee) and voila, the plane is a "little
later."
We board, we wait.
It's Oslo, we have to de-ice, again,
an already late flight.
Yes, I know, I
didn't mention that we know we have a 1.25 hour layover in Frankfurt which is
barely enough time to get through the 80 security checkpoints - when NOT late -
now we're a little concerned.
After
we're airbound the pilot says he'll make up about 25 minutes in the air...
excellent!
After we arrive at
Frankfurt, indeed, 25 minutes faster than normal, we circle... seems you can't
land two planes at once and everyone is arriving
now.
So we arrive 10 minutes before our
flight is supposed to take us home! Yes, 10 minutes to go through ALL of
Frankfurt airport. Run run run!!!!!
Generous people allow us to cut in
line in the
first
checkpoint, for passports, and then at EU security. No such luck for the
second
checkpoint - 'flights to the US security line"
- getting later and later... but finally we get through and run to, what!, a
third
checkpoint, but for boarding passes. Hey,
they're saying it hasn't left yet - phew. (It's not 1.25 hours after we
arrived.)
There we were, rushing
through Frankfurt, losing hope, but still making it onto the bus to the plane.
And when we got on the bus? We waited - for 15 minutes... just sitting there...
making even later passengers very
happy.
And voila, back to Portland...
home again, home again, jiggedy jig.
Posted: Sun - February 25, 2007 at 10:41 AM