DISASTER IN DUSSELDORF!

Disaster in Dusseldorf! X3!!!

So after braving the rain storm inside the airport in Dublin, tolerating the lovely 10-hour layover in Santander, Ale and I reunited, caught up over dinner in the airport, and caught our flight to Dusseldorf where her friend Laura would meet us at the airport and take us to her home to stay the night. Laura had lived with Ale in Spain last year when she was studying Spanish for a few months on holiday during school. Unfortunatly, when we arrived at the airport in Dusseldorf, Ale's bag was nowhere to be found. Disaster #1! Thank goodness Laura was there because the 2 young girls at the lost baggage desk did not seem at all interested in helping us until she started speaking German to them. They still were really of no use. We just got a number to call in the morning which was only supposed to tell us "if" they knew where the bag was...totally crappy! Remember in the last post when I said I LOVED European airlines...not so much anymore!

The Dusseldorf-Wein airport is probably an hour away from the actual city of Dusseldorf. After the long drive back to Laura's, we met her parents (who she still lives with...apparently it is customary to live with your parents while you are still studying in most places in Europe) and older sister, toured her home (a 3-floor flat...totally cool) and got situated for bed because we are sooooo tired. That is when I discoverd, that the entire contents of my suitcase were soaking wet! Disaster #2! When I had left Dublin that day, there was a HUGE rain storm. The only that that I can deduce is that my bag was left out in that storm for a LONG time, so for the past 18 hours or so, my clothes had been sitting wet and smashed together in my bag. As I began to unpack and air out my things, I discovered that my new purple scarf had bled all over most of my clothes too...including my brand new white dress, white shorts, and a few of my other favorite outfits. I tried to was them out, but the dye wouldn't budge. Of the 10 full outfit options I had planned with the clothes I brought, about 4 are still in tact. SUCKY! Our new Euro Trip mantra is "Ryan Air F**** SUCKS! (btw...people really have poor mouths here! I don't normally swear, but Ryan Air has made me mad enough that, Yes, the f-bomb and a few other choice words describing that company have come out of my mouth these past few days)! We were beginning to think this vacation was turning into something like the movie "Eurotrip." YIKES!

The next morning (Saturday), Laura's father called the airline and they told him that Ale's bag had ended up in London and that they could send it back to Dusseldoff that evening so we could pick it up the following morning when we checked in for our flight to Berlin. GREAT! So Laura, Ale and I decided to get ready and take the train (like the el in Chicago) to go explore Dusseldorf for a while and return early afternoon because Laura's parents were hosting a "traditional" German BBQ. Yeah! My first taste of German food! Dusseldorf is a great little city. There is the old part of town on the Rhine River which is really beautiful. All of the buildings have a lot of character and it was exactly what I pictured "old" Germany to be. We later went to the newer part of town where they had the typical high-end shopping district. Again, it was pretty nice, but pretty typical for the "main street" of most modern cities these days. At least Ale was able to buy some necessities until she would be reunited with her bag. We ate lunch at an outdoor cafe along the river. I had some sort of traditional German meat with gravy, cabbage, and these wierd mashed potatos that had the consistency of Jello. It wasn't as disgusting as it sounds. As we were eating, a storm began to roll in. We moved inside and had a few drinks until the heavy rain moved out, then made our way back to the train station to get back to Laura's house for the BBQ.

Ale and I were super tired from all of the traveling the day before and the walking around that morning, so we decided to take a nap before the party in the evening. Our naps were great...until we were awaken by a HUGE crack of thunder/lightening and the smell of something burning. Disaster #3! The storm that had rolled in earlier had turned into an all out thunder storm and it appeared that lightening had hit Laura's house as a circuit was blown and the phones didn't work. The street out in front of her street was completely flooded and we got about an hour's worth of entertainment watching the many cars drive by trying to make the decision of if/how they would cross. One guy made his girlfriend get out of the car and go test how deep the water was in the middle of the flood. Then, he decided to drive up on the lawns of the homes to get by...the girlfriend had to stay out of the car and guide the bf around the posts, bushes, etc...I would be sooo ticked at my boyfriend if I was that girl : ) Needless to say, the BBQ was cancelled, but Laura's mom still cooked up some really excellent sausages, salads, and breads and we spent the evening just chatting about anything and everything.

Some time later, we heard on the radio that the Dusseldorf airport had been closed. This worried us because Ale's bag was supposed to fly in from London that night. After several phone calls, we discoverd that the plan had indeed not landed in Dusseldorf but was delayed and would be rerouted to The Netherlands until it was allowed to land at Dusseldorf. The Dusseldorf airport does not allow landings after 11pm which did not look likely. They assured us that if the bag did not make it to Dusseldorf, that it would meet us in Berlin the following day. Fine. Ryan Air f**** sucks. The rain has stopped after dinner, the street had cleared, so Laura, Ale and I decided to make our way to a small suburb called Duisburg to get some ice cream and walk around for a while. Not much was going on so we returned home to get a good night's sleep because we had to leave at 4am to catch our flight to Berlin in the morning.

So that is where we are now. We arrived in Berlin early this morning. Ale's bag was not in Dusseldorf and it has been promised to arrive tomorrow (Sunday) morning at the Berlin airport where we will have to go pick it up because Ryan Air will NOT deliver it to our hotel. This is definitely putting a damper on our trip for her. Our spirits were brightened briefly when we met a little old German man while transferring trains to the city, who while he spoke no English at all, insisted on helping us get to our destination. He was very grandfatherly-like, and so incredibly nice. He kept saying this word, "Spandou" which we still have not figured out what it means, but it was super cute as he just keping saying this to us. Hopefully it isn't something scandalous!

Fortunatly, we were able to check into our room right away when we arrived downtown Berlin even though we were super early. Ale is taking a nap. I just got done washing out the entire contents of my bag with laundry detergent because even though I had dried them out, my entire bag still smelled like "Rain water". Ryan Air f**** sucks. Hopefully Berlin is a cool city...I'm off to explore...