Fiasco Friday

Day 91
Friday, April 1, 2011
I woke up early again today and began calling Space Available terminals to find a flight out to the States. I was still hoping to leave Saturday on the 0545 flight to Charleston but when I called the Ramstein Inn at 0730 they still didn’t have a room available. I found a flight out of Ramstein, to Pope Air Force Base on Sunday which would actually be a lot closer for my Mom to come pick me up, so I made that my back up plan.

I went back to sleep for a couple of hours, feeling tired, and defeated. When I woke back up I called the Passenger Terminal again and found out there had been an addition made to Saturday’s departure list. This flight was at 0840 to Charleston, SC. I was so excited because this meant I wouldn’t have to stay in the hotel the night before, I could just drive up early in the morning and put my name on the list.

I took a shower, put on some gym clothes, and was just putting the lasagna that I had made in the oven to cook as Matt walked in the door on his lunch break. He usually goes to the gym to work out but because his hand was so badly burnt he decided to skip his weight lifting session and come home to eat and take a nap. While he was sleeping I called the Ramstein Inn one last time to see they had a room. I was worried that the 0840 flight wouldn’t have a seat available and I didn’t want to miss out on the earlier flight if I could help it. I was a little shocked, and very glad to hear that they had an available room this time, and I quickly booked it. When Matt woke up from his nap, I told him the new plan. We would leave for Ramstein when he got home from work, spend some time together, have dinner, get to bed at a descent hour, and I would try to get on the 0545 flight.

Of course nothing was going according to plan for me these past couple of days so why should this new plan work out, right? After I went to the gym, tanned, and took a shower, I picked up Matt from work. It was 1630 which means rush hour had began; we drove straight over to his broke down car so he could fill it up with coolant to drive it home. He didn’t want to leave it where it was parked any longer and he needed to work on it this weekend so we were hoping it would make it back to our house. I think it could have made it if it weren’t for the 8 kilometer stau (traffic jam) on Frog Road where his car decided to overheat again. We both pulled over onto the grass and waited for his car to cool off and the traffic to die down. Two hours later we were back on the road and his car was finally at home.

I wasn’t mad at Matt, maybe a little pissed at his POS car, but I just kept my cool and we got out of the house as fast as we could. It was 1930 when we left and our plan was to make it to Ramstein by 2130 to eat dinner before going to bed. Well, that plan wasn’t going to work either. We hit more traffic on the way there and instead of two hours, it took us three hours and 15 minutes to get to our hotel. Matt checked us in and we drove over to Burger King to grab dinner. I couldn’t believe it was the only take out/drive-thru dining facility on base open at this time on a Friday night. It was midnight before I was finally able to get to sleep.

Expect an early death - it will keep you busier.  ~Martin H. Fischer