A Festive Fiasco

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After an amazing lead up to Christmas, the grand event was a complete disappointment for Adam and I this year. We started out with high hopes and tried to remain in high spirits despite a growing fiasco of travel woes. But alas, the festive cheer did run low as we faced repeated delays, flight cancellations and the threat of an impending blizzard all standing between us and home. All the signs were bad from the outset and I think both of us wished we'd called it a day at the first sign of trouble. But our endless optimism buoyed us along and despite the heavy snowfalls in England in the days leading up to our departure to Sweden, we were completely confident it would all be okay. We were completely certain we would make it to Sweden for Christmas right up until the moment that we didn't make it. That’s an awful lot of finger crossing and positive thinking for two people and as I write this, we've both feeling pretty spent.

The fact that we struggled to find flights to Sweden this year and that we had to commit to flying out of Gatwick in order to get there in time for Christmas might have been deterrents to others. But not us. Hey, what’s a 5 hour drive to Gatwick? We can do it! When the snow loomed and the travel disruptions began, we decided not to drive to Gatwick after all. Why drive when you could fly right? It all seemed to make so much sense. And so we booked our flights from Leeds and as we met on the bus the day of our departure, it seemed all would be well. 90 minutes later, on what should have been a 30 minute bus ride, our hopes were fading a little. Stuck in a traffic jam, with traffic moving at snail pace in any case due to the snowy, icy roads, we were cutting it dangerously close to making our check in time for our Gatwick flight. We needn't have leapt of the bus and sprinted to the airport check in desk as we were met with a flight delay in any case. More information to follow in thirty minutes. Then an hour. Then another ninety minutes. Then two hours. As we sat in the airport lounge we convinced ourselves it would be fine. So long as we were in the air by 6pm, we'd make our connecting flight from Gatwick to Stockholm. If we weren't going to be airbourne by 6pm, we'd simply turn around and go back home. It would all be okay. You can imagine our excitement when at 450 our flight began to board (at last!!!) and you can imagine our distress at 610pm as we still sat on the runway at Leeds Bradford Airport. Despite the near certainty we were not going to make our connecting flight, when we were finally airbourne at 620pm we hoped against hope that we would make it. Given we were on a plane to a destination 5 hours from home the day before our Swedish Christmas, we had to hope. The reality of being stranded in London at Christmas time with travel disruptions from all corners was a reality too harsh to even contemplate. And we were so close. It might have been okay, if not fro the baggage delay when we arrived. I sprinted to the airline check in desk while Adam stayed behind to collect our bag. Our flight had been delayed from Gatwick too so there was still time to check-in. We had 5 minutes...hooray! If only our bag had appeared with the first load off the plane. But it didn't. And as Adam watched the luggage conveyor keep turning without our bag appearing, I could say nothing as the check in person I'd pleaded with to let us on the flight finally had to close the flight. Five minutes too late our bag arrived and so we sat in Gatwick airport on December 23rd wondering what on earth to do now.

If that had been the end of it, it might have been okay. If we could've gotten back on a flight to Leeds, we would've gone home disappointed but optimism intact. But after time spent at various flight desks, it became very evident we were not getting out of Gatwick before Christmas to anywhere. There were simply no flights left. So we headed to a budget hotel nearby-not that I understood where nearby was as I had no concept of where on earth Gatwick even is! As fate would have it, Gatwick was nowhere near anywhere and so after some hasty rebooking the next day, confirming we would not make it to Sweden until Boxing Day, we headed to London where we felt sure we could make the most of our sorry situation and at least have some kind of Christmas celebration.

Christmas Eve in London was a half-hearted affair to say the least. If only we'd known what was come, we might have been more upbeat. There were after all shops and restaurants open. We wandered around the Winter Wonderland Fair in Hyde Park, stopping to eat a bratwurst and drink some mulled wine. We wandered along Oxford Street, watching the crazed shoppers making last minute purchases and later, when it all got quiet as people travelled home to their families, we still managed some cheer as we ate at a wonderful Moroccan restaurant in Soho. It was Christmas Day itself that really laid the boot in. Waking up in our hotel in Kensington, we wandered downstairs to the breakfast room only to be met with the worst hotel breakfast I've ever eaten in my life. Still though, the worst was to come when we ventured beyond our hotel to find London at a complete standstill. Empty. No tube, no buses, few restaurants. Other tourists were wandering the streets much as we were, aimless. Killing time. It was horrible. It was all I could do not to cry. I had the words to 'Streets of London' flowing through my mind and I felt every bit as lonely as I imagine the homeless feel on a daily basis. It’s sad to say that we found some comfort from an internet cafe. Being that there was no public transport in operation, this was as much by necessity as it was choice as we needed to find some way to Heathrow for our early morning flight. 30 minutes and a 45 quid taxi fare later, we found ourselves at yet another chain hotel on the airport grounds. We spent what was left of Christmas watching TV movies and eating Christmas dinner from a buffet, which to be fair was probably the highlight of the day.

Things greatly improved when we finally arrived in Sweden the following day. We spent a night in a hotel in Stockholm which gave us the opportunity to wander around Gamla Stan and visit Sweden's national art gallery. It was bitingly cold and crisp but Sweden is built for such conditions and so it felt much warmer than it ought to. Meeting up with Luke, Maria and Liam the next day was lovely and we settled into a happy lull in the days that followed- playing with Liam and catching up with our Swedish family. Before we knew it, New Years Eve had arrived and we stayed in, cooked a fabulous meal and made cocktails once Liam was sound asleep. Huddled by the window in the warmth, we watched the fireworks heralding in the arrival of 2010.

Despite the lovely beginning, the New Year didn't get off to an auspicious beginning. Day one we had some unsettling news from home and so I think we were all feeling uneasy at the time of saying goodbye to our Swedish family. Heading on to Bratislava, we spent that evening exploring the Slovakian capital. With Adam starting to feel unwell, we had an early night with every intention of exploring the rest of the city the following day. Little did we know, the next day was a national holiday in Slovakia and so we found ourselves with a day of killing time. We managed to do so with a long walk up to the castle and down through the town, visits to a few random galleries and consumption of the most enormous cheese platter in another Moroccan themed restaurant. We continued the theme of long walks the following day when we decided to walk to the train station to travel across to Vienna, our final destination. After walking across the bridge joining the old and the new in Bratislava, complete with UFO restaurant, we continued on foot for what felt like kilometres until we eventually had to concede that we couldn't see the way through the tangled conglomeration of roadways to make our way to train station. We eventually had to catch a bus, only to discover we were all of a 40 second bus ride away from our intended destination! Aargh!!!

Arriving in Vienna, we happily checked ourselves into Wombats Hostel and set out to explore this beautiful city. On our first trip to Vienna, the focus was all about seeing some music and we were fortunate to make it to the State Opera and the People's theatre. This year, we hoped to see more of the same, preferably listening to an orchestra perform. Unfortunately though, no tickets were available and so we focussed instead on visiting some of the wonderful galleries Vienna has to offer. Our first port of call was undoubtedly the highlight for me-the Belvedere Galleries. The lower Belvedere was showcasing the works of Boeckl who I'd never heard of prior to being completely inspired by the amazing portfolio on display at the gallery. But the main draw card was the Upper Belvedere which houses the world famous piece 'The Kiss'. And it was quite a magic moment when Adam and I had a little peck right in front of Gustav Klimt's masterpiece. This gallery also housed many of his other great works as well as a rather bizarre (but very fun) high ceilinged room. The sign as you entered encouraged you to yell or scream as loud as you could-which wholly explained the constant shrieking we queried as we wandered throughout the lower level of the gallery. When I successfully screamed loud enough, the lights and sound in the room pulsated with what can only be described as a huffing groaning sound. It was definitely amusing. But undoubtedly, 'The Kiss' drew me in wholeheartedly and I had to keep returning to it time and again before I eventually agreed to leave the gallery.

After so much art and culture, we relaxed that night with a visit to the cinema to watch Avatar in 3D. Again, I went in noncommittal and came out a huge fan. I thought the film was amazing which surprised me. Coming out the cinema late that night was another surprise-snow. Not the could-be-sleet-but-might-be snow-type, but the full-on fat swirly type which comes down heavy and gets caught in your eyelashes. With all our travel problems up until then, Adam still sick with a bad cold and me coming down with one, we had by this point both become quite travel weary. And yet, on seeing snow, I found myself feeling happy and optimistic once again. Walking back to our hostel that night, I remember very clearly saying that it was these types of nights that made the crappy stuff so worthwhile. The fact that we could emerge out of the cinema to a city blanketed in white and walk home holding hands in the snow seemed to make all the travel drama worthwhile. This is exactly why we came to this side of the world. To embrace these experiences we could never have at home.

The next day we were quite surprised to find Vienna was all but completely shut down. It was a national holiday but fortunate for us, museums in the city were open. So wandered to the Museum Quarter and went to the Leopold Museum. This gallery showcased many of the works of Ergon Shiele and again, I came away a huge fan having known little of his work prior to this visit. The temporary exhibition on show encased many of the works of Edvard Munch, including lithographs of his famous 'The Scream'. The combination of this, as well as the Shiele and further Klimt works on offer, made this gallery very memorable. We then stumbled across a fantastic little pub that night which served great food and wine. We wandered home yet again along the snowy streets with a warm fuzzy feeling, feeling once again grateful for all that we were able to experience during our travels.

Unfortunately, this warm fuzzy feeling lasted only as long as it took for us to get back to hostel room and be greeted with a text message saying our flight to London the following day had been cancelled. I think we were both in complete disbelief as we sat at the internet stations until well after midnight that night trying to figure out how on earth we were going to make it home in time to both be at work on Friday as our bosses expected. Given the closure of the airport in Vienna that day combined with the closures in London, we were left with little choice but to take a gamble and head to Salzburg where we could take a flight directly back to Leeds on Saturday. And so, after yet another scramble to find transport and accommodation, we hit the road again.

It was only when we arrived in Salzburg that we saw the weather report predicting a huge blizzard that was to arrive within the next 36 hours and blanket Germany and most of Austria in a huge dump of the white stuff. By his stage, the ridiculousness of our few weeks of travel along with our spiralling out of control costs left us with little choice but to laugh, albeit slightly deliriously, but laugh nonetheless at our misfortunes. And so it was that the two days that followed were as relaxing as one could expect under the circumstances. Although fearful of being stuck in Austria and hoping against hope that the snow would hold off, we found ourselves totally captivated once again by the charm of Salzburg. It is one of my most favourite destinations and I'd always hoped to return. On our last visit here we'd both said how wonderful it would be to see Salzburg in the snow and this was the opportunity for that. So we spent a lovely two days wandering the cobbled streets, cupping our hands around mugs of hit drinks and eating lots of hearty sausage dumplings (any excuse will do!)

Despite the threat of the blizzard, we found ourselves flying out on Saturday as we'd hoped. Coming back over England we were amazed at how much snow had fallen in the previous weeks. It was completely white. One bus and one cab ride later, we were home again at last. I have never ever felt so happy to be back in Leeds. Home too was covered in snow and as we sneezed and sniffled our way through that first evening back, nothing could dampen our spirits. There's no place like home and after the huge fiasco our supposed 'holiday' had been, we had no intention of leaving home again any time soon.

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