Travelling, ain't it a bitch

The time has come to book my flight to go see the folks in Finland for Christmas. Last Christmas didn't go exactly as planned, thanks to the good people at Air Berlin.

I had booked the flight from Venice via Berlin to Helsinki for the evening of 23.12.2012. A bit of a close call considering that in Finland we celebrate Christmas already on the 24th ("celebrating on Christmas day is for sissies and old folk" says the little Finn). Still, I was confident as I left my home to go to the airport.

Only to find out that my flight had been cancelled "until further notice" because in Berlin they had had a little snow and the pilots were shitting their pants trying to land on the icy runway. Sissies. In Finland we have this thing called "Reilu meininki" which includes landing airplanes even if you have little elves running a gift-wrapping service on the runway.

 After a while the airline send some poor girl out to tell all the angry passengers what to do. Everybody was sent home (or to a hotel), and were told to return the next morning at 9.30, only the flight didn't leave from Venice anymore, but from Treviso. All the same to me where I drag my ass in the morning, as long as the plane would leave.

The next morning I went to the sad sad airport at Treviso (for all the Finns: it's like Pirkkala airport at Tampere). The lady at the service desk knows nothing about anything, but somehow they let me through to check-in. They tell me that today they would be so kind to fly me to Kòln, and then to Berlin. I said I was going to Helsinki, not Berlin, and certainly not to Kòln. "Look lady, do you want to leave this airport today or not?" "Yes please?" "Ok, then off you go to Kòln". Nough said.

So I checked my luggage and went to see the shops. Bought a cashmere scarf to lift my spirits (it was on sale -70%, the only way for me to afford a cashmere scarf). I go to my gate and wait. In the meantime I see that a lot of the flights are being moved to Venice due to heavy fog at Treviso. In fact, you couldn't see the planes that were 50m away from the window, so I assume that flying in those conditions might be slightly dangerous. After my flight was already 30 min late, they tell us that "oh, by the way, it's a bit foggy, better to move you guys over to Venice". Like they had figured it out only now that it was impossible to take off from Treviso.

So, the bus comes to take us from Treviso to Venice. My luggage is hopefully inside the bus, but I'm not sure. We arrive at Venice airport, I finally find my luggage, and me +30 other passengers go in, only to find out that we have no idea where to go next, and there's no one waiting for us. Lovely.

So we run around like bewildered mongoose, stopping every 50m and popping our heads up to see if we had found the right place. After about 15 minutes they open the check in for us. I let the angry Italians and bulky Russians go first (seeing also that I was also the only one going to Helsinki), and finally arrive at the lady. "Oh, you're not going to Kòln?" "Nope" "Ok..... well.... let's get you to Berlin first, and I'll try to figure out where to go from there" "Superduper". I hand in my luggage and as I was waiting in line for the security check the lady comes to tell me that I would have to spend the night at Berlin. Lovely.

Finally, I arrive at Berlin airport. Only to find out that they had lost my luggage. I didn't have even a tooth brush with me. The lady at the service desk says not to bother reporting my lost luggage, and to do it from Helsinki instead. She offers me a piece of chocolate as a consolation. Great, I'll just brush my teeth with this then, shall I?

They take me at the airport hotel near by, a lovely squeaky clean Holiday inn. They told me that there would be Christmas dinner served later on (only 10€), but seeing that it was already 7pm, I was dead tired and didn't have a hankering for knockwurst, I decided to go to my room.

It was Christmas Eve, and as my family was enjoying a nice Finnish Christmas dinner with ham and salmon and other goodies, I was at an airport hotel at Berlin, eating chips from the minibar.

My connecting flight to Helsinki was early the next morning. I was ready bright and early (at 6am) and went outside the hotel to wait for a taxi. The dude at the reception had called me one, so I put myself in line (there was one family waiting already outside). The family takes off with their taxi, and I'm the first in line now. As I'm waiting, this Swedish family comes outside. A taxi comes and hail it to stop. The Swedish daddy-o comes up to me and explains angrily that that's their taxi. I've never seen an angry Swede, so it was rather disturbing, but at that point I was ready to kill for that taxi so I did something very unnatural for me. I said something like "tough luck", jumped in, and left the little Swedish children crying in the dark.

I get to the airport. I go through the check in and the security check. I get inside the airplane. As we were taking off I almost couldn't believe it, and was sure that something had gone wrong again, like I was in the wrong airplane and this one was going to Iceland. I relaxed only when we landed at Helsinki-Vantaa.

I reported my luggage missing (another ordeal because on Christmas day there wasn't practically anybody working at the airport), and after that I met with daddy who had come to pick me up. Mom had packed me a little snack to eat in the car, a sandwich with ham they had saved for me the night before, and some chocolates. I felt like crying.

The luggage arrived the next day.

Air Berlin offered me a gift voucher of 120€ as a compensation. So, now, after a year has passed, I find myself booking a new flight with Air Berlin to go home for Christmas.

Sometimes I wonder if I'm not completely insane.