Wednesday, August 6, 2008

   Back in the USA
I'm back!!! The trip was amazing and fun. I really didn't want to go. But I am happy to see my friends and my birds again. I got a neat German flag for my car window. And a lot of nice clothes. I will be working on getting my pics on the computer and on disc at TS's this afternoon.

Getting home was quite the ordeal. My mom had called the day before we were supposed to leave Germany and everything was fine. Then the next morning we are standing in line at Frankfurt International Airport, ready to check our luggage in with American Airlines, and an airport worker approaches us. She tells us that the American Airlines Flight to Chicago was cancelled!!!!! The airplane never left Chicago the night before and thus it can't take us there. Why didn't it leave??? Mechanical problems. The same thing happended in Chicago when we left to go to Germany, but they put us on a replacement plane two hours later... This time we found out that all of the flights going ANYWHERE in the continental United States where completely booked solid! American Airlines was pretty much backed up... Under normal circumstances they would have put us on a flight with the German airline, Luftansa...But they are still recovering from their workers going on strike and most of their international planes are still grounded.



Everyone calls it Fraport (FRAnkfurt airPORT.)

Pretty much the only thing they could do was to send us to London on a British Airways airplane. So we went to London. It was an easy one hour flight. It was pretty interesting seeing London even if I only got to see a little bit of it. American Airlines payed for our hotel room and we got food and bus vouchers. The hotel was really nice and it would have been really expensive if we had to pay for it ourselves. I had fish and chips for dinner...And the waitress asked me if I wanted vinegar for my fish and chips. It was so hard not to laugh. I called TS from the hotel letting her know that I wouldn't make it to her house on Tuesday. Her dad sounded scared when the operator asked him if he would pay for the call... LOL

So the next morning we took the bus back to London Heathrow Airport. I started feeling quite ill. The employees were kind of mean, probably because we checked in for our boarding passes in the business class line and we were flying in economy class (aka the reject part of the plane.)



Grr London Heathrow...

So we finally got to Chicago. It was a rough flight. It was fun talking to the nice German people next to us though. It is kind of weird but what I've noticed through my travels (I'm not being racist but this is just what I've noticed.) is that British women tend to be more edgy and touchy travelers. American women tend to be more patient when things go bad. British men are more laid back and are usually thinking about things that have nothing to do with travelling. American men are the most aggressive travelers and they complain a lot. German travelers tend keep to themselves (and people may see them as distant) but are usually nice if you need help. Japanese travellers are always checking out all of the sights around them, they are window and people watchers, quiet and patient observers. Muslim women (the cloaked kind) tend to act paranoid. Muslim men act as if they feel awkward in unfamilar settings. And of course business men and women of any nationality are always on their phone when on the ground or on their laptop when in the air. The way airport workers act also depends on where you go. At a small national airport anywhere, the workers are more laid back because less travellers means less stress. Chicago O'Hare is a big airport with a lot of people but it is nearly impossible to get lost there and the staff is still friendly, going through customs there is a hassle though. Frankfurt is another big airport, it is more confusing to find your way around than O'Hare but I think the people that work in Frankfurt are some of the nicest people I've never met...Maybe it just seems that way to me because I understand German and I have a thing for young German men. Anyway...London Heathrow was the most confusing airport I've ever seen...It is huge- a ten minute bus ride to get from one terminal from another. And London Heathrow has some of the snobbist workers I've ever incountered. EVER! They need to get over themselves...British people themselves are nice, but the people who work at the airport need a chill pill.

Anyway in Chicago, we pretty much had to run to get on our Cedar Rapids flight on time. I accidentaly pushed this British woman out of the way and she was pissed. I ended up in a line next to her later and she told me "doun't evah poosh me againe." (don't ever push me again) And I just thought what a snob. She must have lived a really sheltered life. It's called international airports are always busy and people don't have time to wait for Miss Delicate to slowly walk by, especially when they have under an hour to go through security and catch a connecting flight!!!! So her high and mighty attitude ticked me off.

Luckily the workers in Chicago are nice as I said and let us through security faster when they saw what time our flight was leaving. We made the flight. YAY!!!!! There were these two British guys behind us on the plane that were extremely entertaining. They seriously thought that the plane was going to land in a cornfield!!! That was so amusing.

So I made it back home a bit after five in the evening. I slept for 12 hours and I'm starting to feel normal again.

YAY!!!!! KawaiiMelody out!!!! ^_^
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