Day 36 - Europe 2010

This was a terrible day and definitely the worst day of our trip.  L

We had bought a shuttle bus service to the London Airport, which is about an hour away.  We walked from our hostel to the bus stop, which was only a ten minute walk or so, and made it with plenty of time to spare.  The bus was supposed to come at 9:20am but we waited and waited and nothing came!  We saw another shuttle company coming but never the one we booked.

Finally, a shuttle came but it was there to pick up the 9:45am people.  This bus was sold out and full.  We, and others who were waiting for the 9:20am, explained to the driver that our shuttle never came.  He just shrugged, stared at the ground, and said he would only take the 9:45am people.  No apology.  No help.  He didn’t want to deal with us.  Unbelievable.

So we knew our time was short and were out of luck with our shuttle bus so we had to pay another $30 to get on with the other company there.  I thought we would still be okay on time but I wasn’t expecting that London traffic would be so horrid as to make our drive last nearly two hours instead of one!

So we got to the airport with only five minutes before our gate would be closing.  Ugh, there was just no way, not with having to check in and then go through security and all that.  I was still hopeful that Ryanair, our airline company, would somehow honor our tickets and allow us to go on a later flight.  Or maybe they would even keep the gate open and we could hurry on through, since our flight still had 35 minutes before departing.

But this was not so.  We explained our situation to them and they said it would cost us $300 to get on another flight.  WHAT!?  That is almost as much as all of the flights we’ve taken on this trip all put together!  It was extortion.  Let’s take these people who got seriously screwed in getting here and who have no other choice but to take a later flight and charge them a hefty fee for it.  Unbelievable.

I wanted to explore other option so we fed this internet computer all our change in order to do some research.  There was a military base about an hour away and if we could get the Bakers to get us there then maybe we could take a hop to Ramstein Air Base in Germany, our destination for the day, and have it cost us nothing.  But I called the base and they said they normally have quite a few flights going there every week but they had nothing for the next THREE DAYS!  Nothing at all.  No flights to anywhere.  Agh!

So we looked at other airlines and found something a bit cheaper but when we went to buy tickets none of our debit cards were being accepted.  We would have bought the tickets at the counter but we knew they would cost more than the airline price and probably end up costing more than just buying from Ryanair.  So after 45 minutes and emptying all our pockets of our change, we gave in and bought the Ryanair tickets for $300.  It was painful.

Nick and I got on the flight and wrote a poem about how it all came down to easyBus that had never come to pick us up.  Here is our poem:

Thank You easyBus
by Nick and Andrea Taylor

We got there on time.

Woo hoo!  We’ll be fine!

But we waited and waited.

“Another bus?” we debated.

We decided to wait.

It’s not like we’ll be late.

We heard a gasp in the air.

Could it be?  Is it here?

It’s true!  It’s true!

Oh, but, no room for you.

Well now we can’t wait.

Or for sure we’ll be late!

A different bus came our way.

Thirty bucks, fine, we’ll pay!

But now traffics stop and go,

And our driver drives so slow!

All we have to do it wait,

And wonder if we will be late.

So sorry you missed your flight.

300 bucks will make it right.

We fly later than expected,

Wallets empty, patience tested.

See no bus, then do not wait.

Or you’ll pay for being late!

So we arrived in Frankfurt around 4:00pm and found the information desk to be very helpful.  This guy told us how we would take bus then train then bus then train to get to Ramstein.  It was complicated but fairly inexpensive and at least we could use our Eurail passes again.

We went to the bus station just down from the airport but it was so hot that we decided to sit on the grass across the street where it was shady.  We got on the baking bus soon thereafter and really enjoyed the countryside we passed.  After about a half hour, I said to Nick, “I need my camera, this is really beautiful.”  He said he last remembered giving it to me while waiting on the grass and then it hit me that I must have left it there when boarding the bus.

I couldn’t take it anymore.  This day was terrible enough and I thought it was almost over.  Now I realize I had left my camera, and two days worth of pictures, sitting on the grass waiting to be picked up by a passer-by.  So I cried.  I sobbed.  I was just beaten and devastated.  For me, we were already on route to Ramstein and I seemed a bad idea to go off course.  Although our grassy spot wasn’t a busy area at all, I knew it would take just one person to walk by and it seemed too much of a hassle to go off course when we didn’t know if it was even there or if we could get back to Ramstein that evening.

But Nick thought it was worth a shot.  So we got off as soon as we could, after riding for 45 minutes, at this cute little town but everything was closed at that point so we couldn’t figure out if there was a bus to get back.  There were four people waiting there so we asked if anyone could speak English.  A few of them could and they confirmed that no more buses would be going back to Frankfurt Airport that evening.  See, Nick, I figured this would happen and now we just made a bad situation worse.

Then, one of the men waiting there who spoke very little English said that he was going to get picked up by a friend and that they would take us to the airport.  Wow, how nice!!!  We waited about 20 minutes and then his friend came and they talked to each other in German all the way back to the airport.  They were both super nice and I felt grateful for the help.  I prayed and said, “You’ve given us this extra help but I need one more favor.  Hide that camera.  If someone walks by, have them leave it alone.”  I didn’t want their heroic efforts to have a sad ending with no camera to be seen.

By the time we got back to the grass at the bus stop about three hours had passed since we last left it there.  I jumped out of the car and searched and found… nothing.  It was gone.  There was a police station right by the grass so the men asked about it there but nothing had been turned in.  We thanked them for their help and offered money but they said, “You have enough problems.”  Indeed!

Our last hope was that it had been turned into the airport but it was not there either and I was feeling pretty sad.  What a waste that these nice men had helped us but there was no camera there.  I was trying to let it go and move on but it was hard not to feel like this whole day had been pretty tragic overall.

It was already 9:00pm at that point and I wasn’t sure if we would make it to Ramstein that evening.  But the information desk helped us again and we would basically be traveling overnight to get there.  Oh well, at least we would get there and wouldn’t have to find a hotel or something.  We grabbed some food at the airport and I went back to the grass to eat it with some strange hope that my camera would emerge from the ground there.  Sorry, it didn’t happen.

After our meal, we still had some time before our bus came and I was parched.  So we went back up the airport to fill our water bottles and we saw all these military people there.  The information guy came up and asked if we were the ones trying to get to Ramstein.  He explained that a bus was coming to pick up these Air Force troops that had just flown in and maybe they would let us get on.  Hey, that would be nice!

But the Air Force troops were taking forever in the customs area and we couldn’t get to them to ask whether we might hop on their bus.  Meanwhile, the time for our bus to leave was getting closer and closer and I didn’t want to take my chance with the Air Force bus only to be denied and then have missed out on my other ride down there!

There were some other Americans standing around there and they seemed to be waiting for the troops as well.  So we asked them about it and they said they were waiting for their luggage that had been on that plane.  I explained I was hoping to get on the bus down to Ramstein and they said, “We’ll take you!”  I about fell over with joy!  A free ride to Ramstein!

We left pretty late, around midnight and all five of us packed into this nice ride they had rented.  Nick was quiet most of the time, I guess because these guys were pretty high rank, but I didn’t know and I wouldn’t have cared anyway so I kept conversation going on the way there.  That is until the guy who was directing us to Ramstein decided to take the scenic route.  We were on some really windy roads and I was starting to feel hot and car sick.  I asked for some air and that helped a lot but I couldn’t wait for it to be over.

We got to Ramstein around 1:30pm, feeling nice and sick but grateful for the ride.  The terminal was closed but there were a few people out there waiting to get in and telling us horror stories of waiting to get on flights for days.  I said that if we were as lucky getting home as we were unlucky getting to Germany then we would be just fine.