Final Day - Airport Hell

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I am sitting in the Frankfurt airport waiting for my flight to San Francisco and thought I would post a final blog before returning home. Well my final day in Bangalore has come and gone and I spent it much like I spent most of my days here, hanging out with friends. My day started off early as some co-workers were coming by to drop off a thank you gift. The staff here was super nice and sent me off with a number of gifts and numerous well-wishes last evening. It was very hard to say good bye as all of the folks in the office were great to me and I feel like they have been working with me forever. (OK, actually it was two evenings ago, but feels like yesterday since I have been traveling for 12 hours).

So a few of the guys stopped by the flat early in the day to drop a gift off and to chat a little about work and for some words of wisdom from me about what we do. (Never thought I would be the one people went to for advice on work, seems like just yesterday I was the one seeking out help from others). After they departed I was off for my final day of coffee shops and running around. I meet up with my friend Rakesh and exchanged goodbye/thank you gifts. After a couple hours of just hanging out it was then off to my final dinner in Bangalore with my boss. As she had never eaten at the 100ft. road we decided on dining there as it was close to the flat and I we could dine leisurely before I had to dash off to the Airport at 11:30 PM. Our friends Carol & Dave from the States surprised me by coming by for a goodbye drink (they had a prior commitment and couldn’t stay for dinner). As always the food was fantastic and the company was even better. We shared funny Bangalore stories and recanted the past 6 weeks. A humorous side story, this was my third time eating here and the first two times I ate there, the power went off just as I went into the restroom. Of course I shared this with the gang, and sure enough, when I went to the restroom this time, the power went off again. Oh, good old Bangalore. How I will miss your faulty power.

At 11:30 PM it was off to the Bangalore airport. I don’t remember much about the airport from my trip in as I was half asleep, so I really wasn’t sure what I was in for when I arrived. I was surprised by how alive it was. There were tons of little shops and coffee stands outside that were open for business. They have an interesting layout in that you enter on the ground floor (I assume floor 0) after showing your tickets and passport to a guard, then you have to put all of your luggage on a conveyor belt which takes it up to the second floor (I assume actually this is floor 1). So while your luggage is going up the conveyor belt, you have to bound up the stairs to retrieve it, then you have to go check in with your airline. This kind of sucked because I had three bags; two were quite large and very heavy. Well they had carts for the ground floor, but once upstairs there were no carts, so I had to lug the bags across the airport which was kind of difficult.

Now the real fun began. So I get in line at Lufthansa and when it is finally my turn, the agent looks at one of my bags and says “it’s over the limit”. I am not sure what he is talking about since I flew in with the bag and it wasn’t too big then, and he had not put it on a scale to see how heavy it was. I ask what he means and he tells me “it weighs too much; you have to pay more money”. Well I kind of though it was going to be a little on the heavy side with all the stuff I bought, but he never even weighed the bag, so how would he know? So I ask how much and he tells me “$8800”, well that is $200.00 which is more than I pay in the US for a round trip ticket back home to Chicago. So I ask him how much weight it is over and he tells me “that doesn’t matter, it is too heavy”. Well I am getting a bit pissed now and I ask him how he knows he didn’t even weigh it. And his reply was “you can pay or leave the bag” Well of course I am not going to leave the bag, so I have to fork over $8800.00 to Lufthansa before they will even check me in, so after that is done with, he hands me one ticket.

Well my trip was in three legs, Bangalore to Frankfurt, Frankfurt to San Francisco, and San Francisco to San Diego. When I flew here, they gave me all of the tickets and boarding passes at the beginning of the trip. So I ask him where the rest of my tickets are and he tells me I don’t need them. Well of course I know this is not true, so I ask to speak with his supervisor. So she comes over and I explain the luggage thing, and then not having tickets. So she asks me if I want to leave today or if I would rather stay in Bangalore, because she can make me stay if I want. Well of course I am debating what to do here do I raise a stink and possibly not get home, or do I press my luck.

Well those of you that know me can predict what I do, I press my luck. I ask to speak to her manager. So he comes over and I explain everything to him. He actually was quite nice and kind of yelled at her for threatening me, but tells me there is nothing I can do about the bag now as it has already been sent to the plane and he can’t have it brought back to weigh. But he can help with the tickets. So he prints out a boarding pass for my Frankfurt leg as well, and then a ticket for the SF leg, and tells me that he cannot print out a boarding pass for SF as I have to clear customs first. Ok, so crises averted. So I go in the holding cell, um I mean the waiting area for the flight, and proceed to sit with the other 10,000 people waiting for the Frankfurt flight.

Ok, so finally we board, late of course and now I am kind of hungry since it has been about 4 hours since dinner. Luckily I am in business class so I will be eating like 5 meals. Well I don’t know if the ticket agent called the air hostesses (that’s what flight attendants are called here) and told them I was a problem person, but from the minute I got on the plane they were rude to me. They would barely speak to me in English, and the guy next to me kept having to translate their German into English for me so I knew what they were saying. Now I know they spoke English, because they were talking to everybody else in English, except me. So the first meal comes and based on the menu I have the following to choose from:

1. Stuffed Portobello Mushroom.
2. Shrimp Salad
3. Strip steak with mushroom sauce.

Well needless to say, I did not eat the first meal (since I don’t eat mushrooms or shrimp). So I try sleeping for a bit, but apparently in Germany, if you have ear plugs in, you are wearing one of the eye masks and have a blanket over your head, it means “please Air Hostess, come by every 15 minutes and talk to me in German.” So meal two comes, and wow, here are my choices:

1. Shrimp Scampi and linguini
2. Ziti pasta with a Red Mushroom Sauce
3. Cashew Chicken Stir Fry, made with red and green peppers and Portobello mushrooms.

Well I am seeing a theme here tonight on the flight. So I try going back to sleep and this time I am left alone. Well I figured they can’t ruin breakfast with shrimp or mushrooms, so I will sleep until then. Of course, the extremely accommodating air hostesses did not actually bother me this time and let me sleep right through breakfast. So I woke up about 15 minutes before we landed.

So I get off the plane and head to the business lounge for something to eat since it has only been 14 hours since I have actually eaten anything and I am turned away. I was in Terminal A and my next flight was in Terminal B, so the business lounge would not let me in, they instructed me to head over to Terminal B. (I suspect that the ticket agent called from Bangalore and told them to do this to me). So I spend about 45 minutes trying to find the business lounge asking everybody along the way if they know where it is. Nobody seems to know, and now I see that my gate is filling up preparing to start boarding, so I decide to ditch the business lounge and sit a bit, have a smoke, and type up a little final summary. So I will post this in SF during my 3 hour layover.

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