If I remember correctly (well, I could just open a new window and read it, but you know...) I left off last time with my first day in Switzerland, with grocery shopping in Germany (I just can't get over it...).
My parents arrived the following day and in the next couple of days were spent hanging out and eating lots of awesome food. When the day arrived for my parents to leave, I went to the airport with them as my flight was a few hours after theirs. After they checked in and I bade them goodbye, only to see them later that night in Istanbul, I started waiting for Regan (my beautiful girlfriend).
However, things were actually getting pretty interesting by this point. I was going to meet Regan (my beautiful girlfriend) at Zurich airport. To save some money, we found the cheapest ticket we could muster up on the so-called cheap airfare sites on the net. She was going to fly from Boston to Zurich with two stop-overs. One at Philly, the other at Munich. The catch was that she had about 35 minutes of lay-over at Munich. Yes, we were pushing a little bit. But, as always, I was being overly optimistic. I was checking her flight status with my BlackBerry at the airport and everything seemed fine. As I was making my way through Cormac McCarthy's can-you-be-any-more-pessimistic masterpiece The Road, my phone rang and it said "unknown number" - the dread of everyone in the cellphone universe. I knew it was her and about twenty-five different scenarios passed through my mind after I pressed the answer key and lifted the phone up to my ear. Yes, her flight in was late and she missed her connection. Well...
We had another problem. Our next flight was in four hours. And the next flight from Munich to Zurich was in an hour, but the line was way too long, she said. So, somehow she managed to pull some strings and found a place in the next flight. She also managed to have her bags checked in all the way to Istanbul. God, I wish I was blonde and beautiful...
Anyway, she came to Zurich. Kisses, hugs, etc. We made our way to our next flight to Istanbul...via Paris. For those of you who have no idea about European geography, it's like going from Boston to New York via Chicago. We made it to the flight and sat down waiting for take-off. Then we saw our bags wheeled in on a cart. After a couple of minutes, Regan's (my beautiful girlfriend) two bags were waiting on the tarmac. Surely, something must be wrong. I called the stewardess and told her the situation. She came back to me by saying that those weren't our bags. Like, how? I can see them outside. They are our bags. No, sir. How do you know they are your bags? Well, how do you know they aren't? Surely, I can recognize my bags when I see them.
While this...I don't know...ludicrous discussion was going on, the plane started to move...we were left with staring at our bags...
After landing in Paris we cracked another one for the Supervisor / Stewardess (I wanted to punch her, because she was constantly smiling). We tried to tell our predicament to ground staff, but French being the French(sorry, I don't believe in stereotypes, but this incident sort of persuaded me that stereotypes might actually be accurate when it comes to Air France staff) we received no help. After landing in Istanbul, the Turks being the Turks (when it comes to my own people, stereotypes are an understatement), they couldn't find our bags on the system. Which means that they were lost...
You have to wait for the next instalment to find out what happened next.
Peace
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