When Ciara/Sabine came

I travel a lot and when you do that it does not always turns out in a perfect journey. Usually once or twice a year my trips gets a mess. But what can you do about it when the journey already have started? Actually absolutely nothing. It’s just to go with the flow and that was exactly what I did Monday two weeks ago when I was heading to Poland for work when the storm Ciara it Sabine which was the name in Germany hit Europe with rain and strong winds.

A long journey through Europe

Everything started on Sunday. My early morning departure with Lufthansa got canceled and I got re-booked to an afternoon flight. Fine, I was gone the whole weekend for a ski trip and Sunday evening I was playing soccer so it suited me well to spend the morning at home.

With phones, iPad and laptop loaded to 100% plus reading material I was well prepared for the 4 hours trip to Rzeczow in Poland with Lufthansa. I came to Arlanda and the flight was half an hour delayed due to the aftermath of the storm that had hit Germany. Fine.

Fine. We were up in the air and we got our lunch trays. I was watching some Netflix and we were about to land in Munich. I thought. But just before going down the pilot announced that we would divert to Nüernberg since MUC was closed due to heavy winds that made it impossible to dock aircrafts. Shortly after that we landed in Nüernberg.

The Lufthansa crew informed us that in three hours, 21:00 we would depart to MUC since the winds should be calmer. The ones who wanted could leave the aircraft but without their bags since there was no ground handling available. More and more flights started to arrive in Nürnberg and I was hanging out with a SAS captain that I met at the gate. She was going to the A350 course in Toulouse. Not that fun to miss the introduction I guess. The Lufthansa crew was really nice and we didn’t had a bad time at all except that we of course all wanted to be at our destinations. Not surprisingly I also got a message that my flight to RZE was canceled. Well. That’s life, could be worse and so on.

At 21:30 it was clear. We would not depart to MUC as planned. Instead plan B or even C was activated. They would offload our bags, then we would get on a bus to MUC which is two hours away by car. The lucky ones that got their bags offloaded first could take the available taxies and I was one of those thanks for my priority tag at my bag. I was starving at this point and luckily the taxi driver stopped to refuel at a gas station so I got some nuts then I fell asleep when he drove like crazy to Munich at Authobahn.

And so we arrived. 1,5 hours later and time for the next que. There were stranded people everywhere in MUC sleeping on the floor. I was hoping for a hotel room and thanks to my confirmed C-class ticket I convinced the kind lady that I needed a hotel. She got me one of the few rooms available but 45 minutes from MUC. Just to get into another taxi and go there. Just to make sure to have pickup the following day I asked for the details of the driver and he got mine. You never know…

The hotel room was okey. I fell asleep like a baby but since my flight was not before noon the following day and there was no gym at the hotel I decided to get up rather early to see where I have ended up.

It was a 10 out of 10 Bavarian town. Landshut. I walked around there and wished I would have stayed longer. It was spring in the air and one of the really nice places you see in travel guides. But I had to get to my flight so after a while I walked back to the hotel to meet my pickup. He was there on time but some other stranded Lufthansa passengers were standing there looking jellousy at me when I got a ride. They were pretty stressed and they to find a taxi this morning was mission impossible. But for karma purposes I offered them to come with me and they did of course got very happy.

Some more waiting at MUC since my flight was a bit late. Then guess what, finally time to board. It was a bus gate so when lining up for the bus the business attire dressed guy in front throw up in the line. In these Cronoadays everyone backed off. If you are stick you shouldn’t fly. I go really disgust as everyone else and chatted with a Polish guy on the bus out to the plane that we wished we would not sit in his area. But I had 2A and he had 1A. The flight was almost full but I asked the flight attendant to get any other seat and I was lucky there was one more business seat available and told her he just throw up. We took off and what happens? just after the seatbelt sign the sick guy runs into the lavatory and stays there for most of the remaining flight. Perfect. NOT. It was probably not too many beers last night. That of something is a big no-no in my eyes. He could probably got re-booked until he felt better. Luckily I didn’t got sick from him and hope no-one else did. 25 hours later than planned I happily arrived in Rzeszow! The adventure in Poland to be continued. Have you also been caught my the weather when traveling? tell me.

/ Pernilla that have yet another travelstory to share