Snow Storms Leaves Passengers Stranded in Europe, Including Me!

Well, that was an interesting voyage. Round trip to nowhere. We left the house before daybreak and ten hours later, returned home in the dark again. We never left the airport, yet felt like we’d travelled for weeks. Since most European countries lack heavy snow removal equipment even a couple, little snowflakes creates huge havoc on the entire continent.

Lechault’s snowed in at home

First bad omen: our taxi got stuck at the stoplight at the corner of our street. While our wheels spun on a patch of ice, a Renault Scenic smashed into the back of a Volkswagen Passat at the adjacent stoplight. Fifty yards further, a Mercedes slammed into the stoplight on the overpass knocking out the traffic signals.

In bumper-to-bumper traffic, we crept toward the airport. As soon as we arrived at the check in gate, a voice announced on the public address system, “Due to inclement weather, the Geneva airport will be closed until further notice.”

Ever optimistic, KLM personnel insisted we check our bags and pass controls to wait at the gate, just in case. But as soon as the Geneva airport reopened, the Amsterdam airport closed. We counted as one after the other flights across Europe to London, Paris, Frankfurt, Stockholm, Madrid, and Moscow were cancelled on the departure board. Our flight was rescheduled for noon; fifteen minutest later the red sign popped up, “cancelled.”

Luckily, Geneva is a small airport, so I felt at home in what turned into a mini reunion of the international school. All morning, I chatted with a colleague whose flight to London was delayed. In the afternoon, I caught up with a couple of 12th grade students who were booked on that same ill-fated, KLM flight. We waited for rerouting in a line that crawled forward a foot every fifty minutes. After four hours, we finally reached the rebooking counter, and I offered hopefully. “We could fly to Chicago instead of Minneapolis.”

Fat chance flying anywhere. During the Christmas holidays, flights worldwide were over booked. Forty-five minutes later the airline agent suggested, “Sunday, we have space on a flight to Paris with a stop over in Washington, then Minneapolis.” I collapsed on the counter!

“Pleeeaaasssee, I have health problems, can you recheck for a more direct flight?”

By then, I looked like I rolled under a cement truck, so she searched the computer screen again. A half hour later, she found a Continental flight to Newark then on to Minneapolis.

Last leg, flag down a taxi and head back to our own bed. Passengers across Europe slept the night in the airports. Since snow is a natural phenomenon, the airlines aren’t responsible for providing meals or overnight accommodations. It could be worse. In light of everything else that could go wrong in life, it is ONLY a cancelled flight. And when it snows, it is best to be stranded at home.

After the taxi dropped us in front our snow covered house, I discovered students had left a bag of homemade chocolates and a bottle of wine on my doorstep. There is a God, after all.

Bonne nuit. But will I sleep? Yikes, in 48 hours, I am flying over the Atlantic again!

Flying into 2010

Flying into the next decade is for the birds.
Literally. If you are physically unable to expand your wings and catch the breeze, forget flying. Take it from me, frequent flyer extraordinaire; human air travel is perilous in the 21st century. A normal 7 to 8 hour flight to Europe (depending on tail winds) took a day.

Three factors contribute to today’s aerophobia – natural elements, terrorist threat, and airline
personnel. Summer storms and winter blizzards make flying in and out of the Midwest challenging any season. Our flight out of Minneapolis was delayed due to the late arrival of our incoming plane from Amsterdam, which was further detained due to « minor aircraft impairment » during a rough landing due to ground conditions. Over share. I would rather not be informed about structural damage. At regular intervals a stewardess announced, « KLM/Northwest/Delta Flight 258
to Amsterdam will be delayed another hour. Boarding in 20 minutes. Oops, no detained 45 more minutes. Suddenly, boarding in 5 minutes.

Passengers were stressed out before they entered the plane.

In theory, checking in on-line is more convenient, but seats on our return flight were « unattributed » because KLM partnered with Northwest, who was taken over by Delta. KLM on-line sign-in sent us to NWA on-line, who sent us back to KLM.

At the airport’s « easy self check-in, » machine, we were still unable to print a boarding pass, so we requested old-fashioned human assistance. The airline worker at the check-in desk informed us that we would each have to pay $50 for a second piece of luggage and another $50 for seat assignment. Good try! We argued. In the end she waved us on, claiming an overbooked flight so seating
could only be assigned at the gate. We joined the long line of anxious flier wannabees at the gate.

After finally receiving our boarding passes, the hostess requested volunteers to take later flights because of lack of available space. Two hours later, she announced, « I have just been
informed the plane is bigger than we anticipated, so I invite everyone without seating to report to our desk immediately. » How can a flight attendant mistake a plane’s seating capacity? Between security procedure updates, airline buy outs and cost cut backs, changes are implemented so rapidly that no one knows what is going on, least of all airline personnel.

As airlines struggle to survive by making major cutbacks, long gone are above-the-clouds open bars. Cocktails now cost $7. Snacks another $3. Thank you very much. Services are replaced by machines. With on-line bookings, travel agents are a thing of the past. I miss them, the only earthlings that could decipher the airline jargon. No one understands the lingo- deplane, offload luggage, transit station-all ploys to keep passengers updated without revealing any information
because no one knows what is going on.

But as the Christmas Day bomber reminded everyone, the biggest worry is air security.
Terrorist threats abound. With pace makers, belt buckles and body part replacements setting off alarms, everyone is jumpy. I look forward to the new full body x-ray machines, so we wont have to strip down at every security checkpoint. While we waited at our boarding gate, CNN flashed Breaking News about Obama’s new Homeland Security measures, while an entire regiment of TSA workers patrolled like in a police state. In air, I added to the excitement by reporting a suspect, a green hooded, fidgety young man who remained in the toilet for over 15 minutes!

Alas, 22 hours after leaving Minneapolis in a blizzard and missing our connection in Amsterdam, we landed in the snow at Geneva where, miraculously, our baggage arrived in one piece in spite of the
baggage-handlers’ strike at the airport.

Murphy’s law best describes air travel in the 21st century: what can go wrong will go wrong. My advice: Take knock out drops before boarding. Squeeze into spouse’s carry-on luggage. Wake up only after arrival at the final destination. Enjoy!

Walk away worries !

When I was growing up, I abhorred walking. Walking was too slow, too boring, for old people. I would bike, run, skate, even parade around the block on stilts to reach my destination. After a car accident ended my athletic career, I aged overnight. Forced to give up the pavement pounding I once loved, I concentrated on being able to put one foot in front of another and walk again.

In the beginning, I still hated walking, too slow, too boring, for old people. But now that I am old people, I have learned to appreciate it. Europeans helped me acquire a taste for walking. My German friends insisted on “spazieren gehen” through the woods surrounding Marburg. In Paris, like the French, I escaped my tiny apartment by heading outdoors, rain or shine, to a “promenade” in the park. In Switzerland, walking is as natural as breathing, especially in this nation of hikers, where every mile is beautiful.

In our techno, fast-paced, modern world, walking has become a lost art. Yet walking, which combines fitness, relaxation and meditation, is the safest sport. It costs nothing, wastes no energy, burns calories, builds muscle, fights fatigue. When I feel anxious, angry or depressed, I walk until worries slide off my shoulders.

I step outside my door into orchards and vineyards on the fertile slopes above Lake Geneva. While the sun slinks behind the Jura Mountains over my right shoulder, light shimmers around the white-peaked Mt Blanc to my left. The fields flame in amber, gold, rust of autumn marking the harvest in earth’s last hurrah before lying fallow for winter.

Walking forces us to slow down long enough from our hectic lives to appreciate the beauty of the moment, to take stock and count our blessings. Even though I live thousands miles from loved ones, I picture them walking in their daily lives. My sister paces around Yorkville’s newest subdivision at dawn, my daughter strides the halls of Minneapolis hospitals during morning rounds, my parents meander around Northland Hills mid day, my son dashes through Macalester quad to ball practice early afternoon, my niece marches in the band across Shaker Heights football field after school, my sister and brother-in-law stroll oak-lined streets of Golden Valley hand in hand at dusk.

Somehow when I walk, I am closer to family, matching each footfall step by step round the clock. Every hour of the day someone I love, somewhere, is walking to work, school, or practice.

I once dreamed of running marathons and skiing mountains, alas injury and illness prevented those goals. Though each year it is harder to roll out of bed, instead of lamenting what I can’t do, I focus on what I can do – walk. No matter how badly the rest of the day has gone, I am filled with wonder and wellbeing. Suddenly all is right with world.