I think that I have mentioned it before – that once the first challenge starts going sideways everything else gets even more exciting.
It was raining in Heidelberg. For example – I was headed to Zurich this morning. Flying for some odd reason (something about the plane not costing all that much more than trainfare and needed to be back in time to meet Maus in Frankfurt around noon tomorrow). The Eldest kindly drops me at the train station and I buy a ticket. Deciding to catch a slightly earlier connection to Mannheim than the normal connector it means that I should have 12 minutes between trains rather than the usual five. Train leaves late, in fact it leaves at the scheduled time for the S-Bahn. Since the S-Bahn leaves after us it was probably a good choice as the ICE has just about finished boarding in Mannheim as I dash up.
Like a good air travel passenger, I have preprinted my boarding pass which turns out to have done me no good. Getting to the security area, the nice guy tells me that my flight has been cancelled. Back up stairs to Lufthansa ticketing where the gate keeper tells me security is wrong; she has no record of the flight being cancelled. It is a Swiss Air flight, I inform her – booked with a Lufthansa number. Ok, she gives me a customer number. Awaiting my turn – yes, it seems that flight is cancelled. The weather in Switzerland is rapidly deteriorating and flights are being cancelled. What is more, I can standby for the 1500 flight, but there is not a free seat till 1700. Since we need to be at the dinner partly before I would arrive in at the Zurich airport, this is a non-starter. And no, they have already started boarding the 1155 – I can’t standby for that one (1130 here).
Ok, I take the standby card and slide through security (Frequent Traveler status with Lufthansa gets you through the Business Class line). The 1500 gate is A25. Just for a lark I stop at A21 where the 1155 is just about done boarding. The lovely woman at the counter looks at me when I explain that I am standby for the 1500, but wonder if there is room on this flight to standby. No – no checked luggage. She has no clue but asks. Turns out that since there are still seats she is more than willing to seat me. I am the last one but two on the plane, the door closes. We taxi out.
The flight is fine till we hit the Alps. Let us just leave it with the fact that turbulence was significant enough to shut up all the screaming babies. After trudging from the furthest gate in Zurich I managed to find the #10 Tram and get to the Hauptbahnhof by the nice leisurely method of traveling through the rain past all sorts of uninteresting buildings and neighborhoods. Finding that I could have gotten off several stops sooner and not walked the wrong way around the block.
Oh, well – got there, went to dinner, took photos, got back to the hotel.
Never did get a chance to try my new frequent traveler card at the Lufthansa Lounge.
