So I know I’m pretty far behind already, but I finally got a
breather today so maybe I can write some stuff out.
After finally making our way out of Baltimore we stopped off
in Germany before heading on. The system
there makes no sense whatsoever. Especially
if you are proceeding on they let you off the place and as you exit they hand
you this little plastic pass that acts as your boarding pass for the next
leg. Then as soon as you make it to the
end to the skyway and into the terminal they take it back from you
immediately. So you only hold onto it
for about 50 yards and then give it back again.
Then they tell you that you have one hour before they will 100% leave
you behind if you’re not there. It’s so
strange, it’s like they make it their goal to leave you behind and not get you
where you need to go.
Before I left I was warned not to believe any time estimates
that they give you, and I was totally ready to just ignore them and go explore
around the airport and the base a little and see what Germany was all
about. Maybe drink one of their famous
boots and have a little verylongsausagenamethatmakesnosence before I left. But once there being told in an hour I would
be ditched and forced to wait around for the next flight out; I disregarded all
the advice given to me and decided to believe them. They are German after all and there’s no way
they could ever be late/not punctual. I
mean they weren’t literally German, still Airman, but you’d think they would
have had some of that culture rub off on them.
Well two hours later, after a couple of the braver members
of the crew got back for the outside world and said it was amazing we tried to
go get our plastic passes back. Well
they would not give them to us. Their
reasoning was that once the crew showed they’d start boarding and we would get
left behind. They really love that
threat and it is very effective. So I
asked when they expected the crew to show.
Some guy goes back to check, comes back about 15 minutes later and says
he has no idea when they are going to show.
Reiterates again that we will get left the hell behind if we aren’t
there for boarding. Plus they make a
huge deal of how hard it would be to go through security and all that
stuff. Which we are the only flight out
so the security lines are totally empty, but whatever.
So thinking that the crew is going to show any time now we
go back defeated. And wait for two more
hours. So our 1 hour delay turned into a
4 hour delay. If I had known that from
the beginning I would have been fine with it.
But being a sneaky deceitful German about it really sucked. And I realized too late when we got to our
next stop and the pilot announced that we were an hour early I could have just
asked about our scheduled take off time and figured out when the crew would
show. On top of that how the hell do
they not know when the crew is going to show??
That should be sometime they keep track of. It felt like they were acting like this was
the first time there’s ever been a plane passing through there, even though it probably
happens 4 times a day. Anyway, I learned
my lesson and will not be listening to them on the way back if we pass through
there again.
We eventually made it where we were going and got there
around 0300 on Wednesday. Keep in mind
we left on Monday. I have no clue where
the hell Tuesday went, but it just up and disappeared. Maybe we’ll find it again on the way
back. But then we had to go right into
briefings and in processing and turning in paperwork. And on zero sleep I’ll tell you I had no clue
what the hell was going on. We were all
a bit delirious by the end of it, shouting things out at inappropriate times during briefings and finding the most mundane things absolutely hilarious for no reason. So
that day that started Monday evening didn’t end until Wednesday afternoon. That’s about the longest day I’ll probably
ever have.
But at least there was coffee in the library when we got
there:
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