Why a Vacation in Germany?

Brandenburg Gate, Berlin

For someone who doesn’t go on vacations much and so far the only two countries I’ve been in are the Philippines and USA, other than layovers in South Korea, China, and Canada, how on earth did I end up taking a vacation in Germany? Well, that took more than a year in the making. Early in 2016, my friend Emy who lives in Germany was planning on having a grand 60^th birthday party, inviting friends near and far. The party’s theme was supposed to be the hippie culture of the 1960’s, so I started checking out costumes on the internet, you know: bell bottoms, flower power, long hair, LSD, and the like. Well, OK, not LSD. I also started looking into airline flights, but the websites were unable to show me anything more than a year in advance. When that cutoff time finally came, I immediately booked a flight on Air France from Los Angeles to Bremen (the closest airport to where Emy lives), with a connecting flight in Paris Charles de Gaulle airport. Having had a bad experience with very long layovers during last year’s trip to the Philippines (8 hours in Guangzhou!), I found a flight with the least amount of layover time. Little did I know that it would end up biting me in the butt later. Another lesson learned with that one: book a flight with a layover time that accommodates for delays.

Well, about two months before my trip, and after the invitation arrived, Emy calls me tearfully saying that the birthday party is cancelled due to a drastic change in her life. She had to find a job, sell her house in the suburbs, separate from her husband, and find a new place to move in. Additionally, she had to sell her excess but valuable items and find storage space for all her possessions. Since I hadn’t seen her since 1992 when she stopped by briefly in my home, I told her that I wasn’t going to Germany for the party, but rather to visit her after all these years. Prior to 1992, the last time I saw her was in 1979 when we worked together as physical fitness instructors in a gym called The Sweat Shop in Makati, Philippines. I suggested that I could make other plans for my vacation, but she said it was ok for me to come to Germany anyway.

Luggage packing test before trip

As the day of my flight approached, I did several suitcase packing trials taking into account that the July weather in Germany was similar to winter weather in California. I tried packing 6 microfleece long sleeved shirts and 3 pairs of jeans along with my packable North Face jacket which I bought specifically for this trip. I ended up packing 3 microfleece shirts and a couple of thinner shirts and had to ditch the jeans for regular slacks because they wouldn’t fit in my carry on suitcase. Having done that, my other checked luggage was for presents. I also bought some Euro currency from Travelex and with that, I was good to go other than not knowing the language. So I downloaded a German/English translation app, as well as Google Translate, none of which I ended up using, or barely anyway.

The rest of the trip to follow.

Germany – The Adventure of the Last Two Days (Part 3) Paris to San Francisco to Los Angeles

Shackled in Germany

I had requested the customer service attendant for an aisle seat.  Unfortunately the only seat available was a middle one, so I was sandwiched between an Armenian lady on the aisle side and a Greek man who liked to manspread on the window side. However they were very pleasant people so it wasn’t a difficult trip in that regard. The Armenian lady noted that at least I was good natured about missing my connection. And I said that’s because I couldn’t really do anything about it since it was beyond my control. The flight felt longer than it was and despite watching a couple of movies and imbibing two glasses of wine, I couldn’t sleep. So when I started feeling antsy because I don’t like sitting for long periods of time, I got up and hanged out near the galley for a couple of hours. It was then when I noticed the difference between the other airlines I had flown with and Air France. Air France had a pretty much unlimited supply of snacks and drinks that they just left in their two galleys in coach class for any passenger to partake in and one particular woman kept coming back for more. That kind of perk was indeed very nice for coach class.

Gaming area in Charles de Gaulle Airport

When we landed in San Francisco, we went to the baggage claim area, but since I wasn’t sure if my baggage was going to be transferred by Air France to Delta, I asked customer service and the man said yes. So I proceeded to Customs and asked the officer to direct me to my connecting flight. He did, but asked me first where I was coming from. I told him about how I missed my flight to L.A., and he said that I should wait for my baggage because it would not be forwarded to L.A. Thank goodness that customs officer gave me the correct information which was not part of his job, and was very nice because some of them can be surly. I found my baggage and went through the same officer and thanked him profusely. Much to my surprise, even though the zipper of the front pocket of my checked baggage was slightly open, none of my belongings were missing!

I proceeded to my proper domestic terminal, checked in the correct baggage this time, then went through TSA inspection again. Oh boy, it looked like the majority of TSA agents I saw in that terminal were Filipinos!

The 55 minute flight to L.A. was uneventful, however it was already 10 p.m. when we arrived. My original arrival time if I hadn’t missed my connection would have been about 3 p.m. We went to baggage claim again and it took a while for mine to appear. As soon as I picked it up, I exited the building and started looking for the Prime Time Shuttle stop. The first lectern I found had no agent and a note directed me to the next stop. Upon getting there, there was no agent either but there was a touch screen computer which asked me to enter my reservation number or phone number. The computer system did not find me. I found Super Shuttle and the next van happened to be going to my direction, so I boarded it even though I had to pay again because the Prime Time reservation was prepaid. There were only three stops but I was the last one, and by the time I got home it was already 11:30 at night. It had been a very arduous trip that lasted almost a day and a half, but I was very relieved to make it back home with me and my luggage intact and safe. All it took were trains, a car, planes, and a van to reach my final destination.

Germany – The Adventure of the Last Two Days (Part 2) Bremen to Paris Charles de Gaulle Airport

Airplane sculpture in park across Bremen Flughafen

The next day was my flight back home to Los Angeles by way of Charles de Gaulle airport in Paris. I checked out of the Holiday Inn Express, dragged my 2 suitcases to the airport and checked in one of them, then took a stroll in the terminal with my carry on bag. Suddenly, I realized that I had experienced at senior moment when I noticed that I checked the wrong bag! The bag I checked had my clean clothes, medications, personal items, laptop, and U.S. cellphone. The electronics were in the front pocket which was not locked. I walked back to the counter and asked the ground attendant if it was still possible to recall the luggage. She said it was too late. So I was resigned to the possibility that some of my items in that bag would get lost. In the meantime, the bag I had with me had dirty clothes and candy. But it also had a small container of pepper spray and a big bottle of body wash, both of which I had to throw away because it didn’t meet the carry on security requirements.

After going through security, I entered the waiting area and looked at the plane schedule which indicated that my flight was on time. The Air France app on my phone indicated the same thing. However, I didn’t see a plane parked at the ramp and we kept waiting for an announcement which never came. A few people including me went to talk to the Air France HOP agent and she told us that the plane was delayed at least half an hour due to technical problems. I told her about my connecting flight to L.A. which was supposed to leave an hour after my supposed arrival time in Charles de Gaulle. She told me those connecting flights are often delayed too. That didn’t make me feel any better though. Having experienced how long it took to transfer from one terminal to the next in CGD, I again resigned myself to missing my flight to L.A.

Sand sculpture depicting summer vacation in Bremen Flughafen

Our flight from Bremen to Paris was delayed an hour and sure enough, as we arrived in CDG, I saw the final boarding notice for my flight. It took a while before the shuttle bus transporting us from one terminal to another arrived and when it did, the driver drove at what seemed like 5 MPH. When we got off, I walked as fast as I could but when I got to the gate, it was already closed for boarding. It was too bad that I had left my Superman cape behind in California. It would have been useful to at least fly from one terminal to the next, if not from Germany to L.A.

 I was directed towards the Air France customer service desk, and after a short wait, I went to talk to the ground attendant who seemed to have a permanent smile on her face. I told her that it must be tiring to keep her smile several hours a day, and she told me she was already used to it, having worked in that position for 15 years.

She gave me two options: there was a flight in about an hour leaving for San Francisco, and from there, I would board a Delta flight to Los Angeles. Or wait till the next day for a direct flight to LAX and the airline would help me with accommodations in Paris. I took the first option, gave the lady a fist bump for her help, and was soon boarding the flight to SFO. Thus ended the second leg of this adventure.

My last beer in Germany the night before leaving (with apple strudel from McDonald's)