International Travel (2)

With little else to occupy my time (okay, little else I am motivated with to occupy my time), I have come to my last international travel experience.

In August of 2009, my mom and I went to Europe for two weeks. We had a (ridiculously) ambitious agenda- 6 countries in 12 days. In hindsight, this was pretty stupid, because we barely had the energy to enjoy some of them. Regardless, it made for some fantastic memories and wonderful stories.

One such wonderful story is a travel debacle of nearly-epic proportions. I want you to picture a situation, movie-like, growing from slightly problematic to terribly exhausting. And despite it being the most stressed I had EVER been in a lifetime of stress, (for recent update on stressful scenarios, see my post titled Tumultuous-ness) it is my favorite tale of the trip. Allow me a brief screenplay.

Scene: Airport, 45 minutes outside of Athens, Greece.
Time: 15:35.

Destination: Vienna, Austria

Two females sit on the floor outside the terminal at the airport. The floor is coolly tiled and a welcome respite from the HEAT of their time spent in Athens. Without a scrap of dignity the women (clearly a mother and a daughter) talk and laugh, and the younger one checks the departure screens they are sitting next to every few minutes. Everything appears to be normal and relaxed until the younger woman seems to make some kind of terrible mental connection. With a look of frantic alarm once more at her watch and the departure screens, she jumps up with a shriek. After a few more glances at both screens, she hastily grabs up the luggage around her, screaming for the older woman to get up and join her.

Stephanie:

"Oh my GOD! I totally misread the time! We are supposed to leave in twenty minutes! Twenty minutes! Get up! Grab the stuff! Come on- GET UP!"

Theresa:

"I don't appreciate you talking to me that way. What do you mean?"

Stephanie:

"GET UP!!! We have to go to the counter and check in!"

The women run across the airport terminal to the airline counter, where they are met by a very peaceful ticket agent.

Stephanie:

(Breathing heavily) "We need to check in for our flight to Vienna! Do we have enough time?"

Peaceful Perfect Ticket Agent:

"May I please see your passports?" (REALLY LONG Pause) "It appears that your flight to Vienna has been rerouted."

Stephanie:

"Rerouted to where?? And can we get on it in time? And why?"

Peaceful Perfect Ticket Agent:

"Bratislava. And yes, you should be fine if you hurry. And honestly, I have no idea."

Theresa:

(Whispering in Stephanie's ear) "Where the h- is Bratislava?"

Stephanie:

"Um, Slovakia?"

Theresa:

"Behind the IRON CURTAIN?"

Peaceful Perfect Ticket Agent:

"Take your bags over there to be checked through to your flight. And hurry."

The women gather their luggage and run to the machine where a man is waiting to scan the bags and put them on a conveyor belt. Panic ensues when the older woman realizes she doesn't have her suitcase.

Theresa:

"I just had it. I JUST had it. Where is my suitcase?"

Stephanie:

"Mom. Seriously? You don't have it? I'll go back and grab it."

(As one could probably have guessed... ) The suitcase is not to be found. It isn't at the ticket counter, isn't amongst the masses of people waiting in line, and isn't where the women had earlier set up camp on the floor. This is all known because the younger woman ran from place to place, with a look of growing desperation on her face.

Stephanie:

"It's not over there. It's not anywhere! We have to go. We have to go now."

Theresa:

"Stephanie, we have to tell someone about this! We have to report it!"

Stephanie:

"Mom, we have approximately 15 minutes to be on a plane headed towards Austria. Or, in this case, Slovakia. Oh my word. What is going to happen to us? We have to GO!"

Theresa:

"Fine. Let's go. Let's just GO. NOT REPORT IT. JUST GO."

Much chaos ensues as the women run as quickly as possible through the crowded airport toward security. They are relatively lucky that the Grecian border guards are so lackadaisical in their efforts to stop terrorism (or they just anticipated the drama involved with stopping two harried and frantic women), and make it to the gate with approximately 5 minutes remaining before takeoff.

Stephanie:
(Running to Peaceful Perfect Ticket Agent #2) "Is there still time to get on the plane?"

Peaceful Perfect Ticket Agent #2:

"Ma'am, there is no plane."

Stephanie:

"The plane for Bratislava is supposed to leave from here in 5 minutes!"

Peaceful Perfect Ticket Agent #2:

"Ma'am, that plane has been delayed."

Stephanie:

"..."

The women move to a corner of the waiting room to gather themselves. They begin to make a recording of all that was in the stolen luggage (a desperately small and quite depressing list), and the younger woman walks to a payphone to call the States and check in with her father. The woman tries to call with a calling card, but after three tries puts it away with some frustration. Drawing out her debit card, her thoughts of the ridiculous expense of her forthcoming call seem to drift visibly out of her head. Nevertheless, she dials about four hundred numbers, and then puts the phone back on the cradle with some hesitation. She picks up the phone again, and breathing deeply in an effort to calm herself, repeats the dialing of the numbers in a more slow and deliberate manner. Again, she puts the phone back in the cradle, and begins to cry. Walking slowly back over to the older woman, she reports her findings.

Stephanie:

"My credit card has been cut off. For illicit activity. In Europe."

Theresa:

"Didn't you report it? Didn't you tell them we would be here?"

Stephanie:

(Crying AND *itching) "OF COURSE I DID!"

Theresa:

"Well, try mine. Here is my... Oh my God. My purse is gone. My purse. Are you sitting on it? Where is my purse? Are you KIDDING ME?"

Stephanie:

(Cries loudly)

Theresa:

"Stop crying! That is NOT helping!"

Camera follows the older woman to the bathroom, where she begins to cry. Pan out to the two women getting onto a tiny little airplane nearly 4 hours later, staffed by perfect peaceful women wearing pink polo shirts, short black shorts, and hot pink pageboy hats. The women are barely phased. The older woman has her purse, someone having turned it is to the gate check-in. They look hot and hassled and completely un-confident in their ability to travel, and wondering how they are going to find the hostel in Vienna when they are landing in Bratislava.

Theresa:

(After walking into the baggage claim in Bratislava) "Is that my suitcase?"

Stephanie:

"Um, yes."

The women grab the previously stolen and assumed-lost forever suitcase, and open the zippers. The inside is in disarray, but they discover that nothing is missing. Amazed, the women are slightly dejected and disappointed that the would-be thief found nothing of value to take, and they board a bus that will take them to the airport in Vienna.

Cut to scene of women walking through the dark streets of Vienna at approximately 1:00 am, with a clear sense of growing terror.

Theresa:

"I don't think we are going the right way. I think we need to ask for help."

Stephanie:

(Still *itchy) "And who exactly are we going to ask?"

Theresa:

"Well I just don't know! But we need to ask someone. What is your PROBLEM?"

Insert Karen, Angel of Mercy, riding a bicycle. Clearly recognizing the plight the two stupid and exhausted American women found themselves in, she offers to walk them back to the hostel. The women check in, lug baggage up just ONE MORE flight of stairs, and find themselves not in the private room they had reserved, but in an 8 bed dorm. 6 of the beds are occupied with naked young adults, not all of whom are female. With no regard to the wellness of others (due in part to a lack of sleep, a draining of adrenaline, and relief at the final arrival), the younger woman makes an enormous amount of noise. The older woman yells at her one last time. They both take out their sleeping bags and crawl into bed and ponder silently the day they had experienced.

Theresa:

"Goodnight, Stephanie."

Stephanie:

"...goodnight, Mom."

And thus, we made it to Vienna. It really was a fantastic trip.

I just want to say that I made it through that ENTIRE posting without a spelling error. Booyah.