Babymoon 1

August 31, 2012

The trip that almost wasn’t

It’s never a good sign when they’re giving away free snacks and drinks at your airport terminal… especially in these times when the airlines charge for every little thing.

Dan and I were so excited for our trip to Turkey, Greece, Israel and Jordan that we had planned since last winter; but when we got to the airport, we were told that Lufthanza flight attendants had gone on strike and there were no flights, nor would there be any flights throughout the weekend.

We were in shock.

We were told to call a phone number to the company that left us on hold forever. Most of the counter attendants were extremely unhelpful, all they would say is “I’m sorry, no flights. Go home and come back on Sunday.” I refused to leave the counter, and they just ignored me.

There WAS one woman there who felt bad for us. When I thought we were actually going to miss our sailboat cruise in Turkey and our entire vacation, I couldn’t help it; I started to cry in the airport. Loudly. Perhaps it was the pregnancy hormones but I just couldn’t stop. The Lufthanza sandwich lady offered me a free apple juice. That just made me cry harder. Dan and I told one of the representatives that we were pregnant and likely wouldn’t be able to go on a trip like this in a very long time, and she told one of the employees to look in the computer for us. This mean guy who had previously told us to go home because “all flights from the east coast were booked full” was reluctant to help us, but the woman who I presume was his boss, forced him to. Suddenly, a magical flight became available! I guess the Lufthanza employees were hoping we would just forfeit our trip and only accommodated us when it became clear we weren’t leaving the airport unless it was to go catch a flight.

So the good part was that we got re-booked on another flight.

The bad part was that it was leaving out of JFK airport in New York in about 6 hours. The customer service rep who re-booked us gave us directions to get to JFK by train… FOUR trains to be exact. In Dan’s words, “The adventure begins!”

Train #1: Philadelphia International Airport regional rail line to 30th Street Station:

Train #2: Acela Express from 30th Street Station to Penn Station in New York:

Train #3: Long Island Railroad to Jamaica, Queens:

Train #4: Air Train from Jamaica Station to JFK Airport… and FINALLY on the plane!

Dan and I got middle seats on a cramped airline for 9 hours, but at least we were on our way!

We managed to take a later connecting light from Istanbul to Bodrum, a port city in Southern Turkey where we met the driver who drove us to another driver, and finally to the boat!