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choco_froshSunday, 5 January: 8:00 AM
By rights, I should have been standing on the platform in Konstanz, waiting for my train. That, at least, was the plan.
But when you’re traveling by plane, train AND automobile to the other side of Germany for the conference that your grant agency’s organized, the fates sometimes have other plans. So, apparently, did my sub-conscious, which added up the number of things that could go wrong with this program and decided that the prescribed one hour before my flight didn’t give me enough time to spare. As such, I woke up in a state of nerves at around six and eventually decided that I might as well get up and try to catch the 7:07 instead of waiting another hour.
There were, however, one or two factors that neither my conscious not my sub-conscious mind had taken into account, viz.
1) The fact that the train was, in fact, at 7:03
2) The eight inches of snow on the ground.
As such, I would have missed my train by about two minutes, had it gone at all. But with snow clogging the tracks and shorting out the electrical systems, it was canceled, and I took a Thurbo at 7:21 which (since it’s a local, Swiss train) the Bahn’s website didn’t even turn up. The Thurbo’s, btw, are only about a car and a half long, and in this case, the roof leaked the whole way. More small, ghetto forms of transportation!
As a result, at 8 I was standing on the platform in the town of Frauenfeld, waiting for a swiss express train which (fortunately for me) had been delayed half an hour by the snow, and wondering whether I should just have stayed in bed after all. But fifteen minutes later I was at Zürich airport, where (once I actually found the Air Berlin counter) I checked in without incident.
This was a bit of a miracle in itself, given what the previous Friday afternoon had been like. Air Berlin is one of the small, ghetto airlines that have sprung up in recent years to cater to the demand for short-haul flights within Europe. One of the ways that they appear to have decided to save money was on the staff of their accounting department. You see, when booking I’d paid for the ticket by the normal way in these parts (electronic transfer). I then got an email from them saying that they hadn’t received payment. Thinking that I’d mistyped (but still p.o.’d) I went down to my bank and did it again manually. On viewing my statement last Thursday, however, I found TWO entries for Air Berlin, and thinking that I had, in fact, paid them both times, I emailled them to complain. They emailed back to say that, according to their records, I had paid them zero times. This, not unnaturally, caused me some considerable panic, and so I spent far too much of the ensuing afternoon on the phone listening to their techno-jingle while waiting to get in touch with someone with a clue. I ended up doing what I should have done in the first place, which was take the whole thing down to the wonderful staff at Dresdner Bank and beg for help. In the course of the following discussion, it turned out that the two transactions were me paying them and then getting the money bounced back (adding to the confusion as to how many time I’d paid), but in the end, a call to Air Berlin’s bank revealed that I had, in fact, gotten the form right the first time; and a faxed statement to that effect from my bank jolted AB’s accounting departement into action to confirm my flight, without anyone charging me extra. (I think)
Where were we? Ah yes. I checked in, bought some chocolate for the lovely staff of the Fulbright Kommission, hurried over to my gate, and waited around for an hour to find out whether our plane was going to be canceled, delayed ad infinitum, or merely sent round to some gate on the other side of the airport. None of these things happened (which was good, although the plane was rather late). They gave us Berliner (you know, what JFK mistakenly claimed to be on a visit to Berlin), which was also good, as well as kindof amusing. My lunch bag broke as soon as I put them in, causing my lunch, the chocolate, the Berliner, and my collection of apples for future lunches to go rolling all over the ramp. This was not so good. And clearly, someone didn’t want me bringing those apples, since they spilled out of the computer case where I’d hastily stuffed them a couple more times before I got to my hotel.
Oh well. At least I’d caught my plane.
By rights, I should have been standing on the platform in Konstanz, waiting for my train. That, at least, was the plan.
But when you’re traveling by plane, train AND automobile to the other side of Germany for the conference that your grant agency’s organized, the fates sometimes have other plans. So, apparently, did my sub-conscious, which added up the number of things that could go wrong with this program and decided that the prescribed one hour before my flight didn’t give me enough time to spare. As such, I woke up in a state of nerves at around six and eventually decided that I might as well get up and try to catch the 7:07 instead of waiting another hour.
There were, however, one or two factors that neither my conscious not my sub-conscious mind had taken into account, viz.
1) The fact that the train was, in fact, at 7:03
2) The eight inches of snow on the ground.
As such, I would have missed my train by about two minutes, had it gone at all. But with snow clogging the tracks and shorting out the electrical systems, it was canceled, and I took a Thurbo at 7:21 which (since it’s a local, Swiss train) the Bahn’s website didn’t even turn up. The Thurbo’s, btw, are only about a car and a half long, and in this case, the roof leaked the whole way. More small, ghetto forms of transportation!
As a result, at 8 I was standing on the platform in the town of Frauenfeld, waiting for a swiss express train which (fortunately for me) had been delayed half an hour by the snow, and wondering whether I should just have stayed in bed after all. But fifteen minutes later I was at Zürich airport, where (once I actually found the Air Berlin counter) I checked in without incident.
This was a bit of a miracle in itself, given what the previous Friday afternoon had been like. Air Berlin is one of the small, ghetto airlines that have sprung up in recent years to cater to the demand for short-haul flights within Europe. One of the ways that they appear to have decided to save money was on the staff of their accounting department. You see, when booking I’d paid for the ticket by the normal way in these parts (electronic transfer). I then got an email from them saying that they hadn’t received payment. Thinking that I’d mistyped (but still p.o.’d) I went down to my bank and did it again manually. On viewing my statement last Thursday, however, I found TWO entries for Air Berlin, and thinking that I had, in fact, paid them both times, I emailled them to complain. They emailed back to say that, according to their records, I had paid them zero times. This, not unnaturally, caused me some considerable panic, and so I spent far too much of the ensuing afternoon on the phone listening to their techno-jingle while waiting to get in touch with someone with a clue. I ended up doing what I should have done in the first place, which was take the whole thing down to the wonderful staff at Dresdner Bank and beg for help. In the course of the following discussion, it turned out that the two transactions were me paying them and then getting the money bounced back (adding to the confusion as to how many time I’d paid), but in the end, a call to Air Berlin’s bank revealed that I had, in fact, gotten the form right the first time; and a faxed statement to that effect from my bank jolted AB’s accounting departement into action to confirm my flight, without anyone charging me extra. (I think)
Where were we? Ah yes. I checked in, bought some chocolate for the lovely staff of the Fulbright Kommission, hurried over to my gate, and waited around for an hour to find out whether our plane was going to be canceled, delayed ad infinitum, or merely sent round to some gate on the other side of the airport. None of these things happened (which was good, although the plane was rather late). They gave us Berliner (you know, what JFK mistakenly claimed to be on a visit to Berlin), which was also good, as well as kindof amusing. My lunch bag broke as soon as I put them in, causing my lunch, the chocolate, the Berliner, and my collection of apples for future lunches to go rolling all over the ramp. This was not so good. And clearly, someone didn’t want me bringing those apples, since they spilled out of the computer case where I’d hastily stuffed them a couple more times before I got to my hotel.
Oh well. At least I’d caught my plane.
