Back in Germany

I made it back safe and sound to Germany, if on a different flight than originally planned – I was booked on a Lufthansa flight from Atlanta to Frankfurt for Monday evening, local time, but when I got to the airport my flight was cancelled due to a strike that was planned for Frankfurt airport for Tuesday. So, no flying to Frankfurt. After about an hour of waiting, I was rebooked on two United Flights, first Atlanta-Chicago (ORD) and then Chicago-Frankfurt. The itiniary gave me 35 minutes in ORD to make the connection, which left me somewhat skeptical, what with ORD being huge and needing to change terminals and all … . But I was game – I have friends in the Chicago area and I figured the worst that could happen would be an overnight stay in the Windy City, with possible no-warning meetup with friends, dinner on me. Or something like that. So I took myself and my luggage over to the United check in area, and what do you know, turns out the computer only had me on a flight to Chicago, but the connection to Frankfurt was missing … because the flight from ORD to FRA was … also cancelled. I was ready to hie myself back to Lufthansa and that point and to let them assign me a hotel or something (rueing only that I had had no advance warning, and so returned my rental car already), but the nice lady at the United booth whom I had inquired about my missing international connection about said “oh, but there’s a Delta plane leaving for Frankfurt at 4pm … let me see if that one’s still going and if they have room!”

The answer to both was yes, and so I got rebooked on that one, and ended up leaving two hours earlier than planned, on a plane that was about 20% empty. So much for the Lufthansa lady’s “we’re trying everything to get you all home” – everything Star Alliance, maybe, but not everything – I know some people (hey, you make contacts when waiting around with other people for different flights for 1h+) who got stranded for 24 hours, or who got a connection via Newark (where they got stranded), or, like me, got assigned the Chicago flight, but then not rebooked to Delta. It makes sense from a airline-network-rivalry point of view, but also makes the “we’re doing everything” a heap of untruth … I mean, having three seats to myself was nice, but I’d gladly have had less room and the guy that wanted to get home for his daughter’s birthday along for the trip … ya know?

But, home I am, and home-home at that, as I am in Mannheim right now, and shall remain here until Sunday – it’s my dad’s job leaving-do tomorrow, and it looks to be a grand party!

I’ve also had the two one-way disposable underwater camera films developed, the above photo being one of the pictures from them – more to follow, but once I’m reunited with my scanner – this one is here courtesy of the camera in my telephone only.