– 2nd of january, wednesday –
What a disastrous day. It was the day where I was flying back to Austria after having spent the holidays in the Netherlands with my family and friends. (A flight that previously had been cancelled and that I had to re-book once already, but that’s a whole other story.) So I’m in the airplane, surprised it even flew at all, considering most flights to Innsbruck had been cancelled for that day. The pilot announces landing, but somehow we don’t seem to land. Instead we go back up and fly for quite a while. Then the pilot makes another announcement: we’re landing in Munich. Wait, Munich?! Because of the snow he says. Then we sit in the airplane for a while, nothing is being said. We might try to fly back later, maybe not. After two hours, Ryan Air is incredibly kind to us: they offer us free water, you know, for waiting two hours. The ridiculousness of this made me laugh. After two hours of waiting we fly back to Innsbruck and guess what? Again we cannot land because of the snow and again we fly back to Munich. Checking my phone, I realise that the last train from Munich to Dornbirn departs exactly when we land. My only other option is to take the bus to Innsbruck that Ryan Air offers, already knowing I’ll be stuck for the night in the airport. Apparently the airport of Innsbruck closes in the night and there’s no way I can stay there until the morning, so all I can do is take a taxi to the centre. I take the taxi together with a stranger, around my age, and the taxi driver feels very sorry for me after hearing the story, so he basically forces the guy to host me for the night. I go with him to his apartment, where it’s freezing cold and he offers me to stay in his kitchen, on a shitty camping chair, until the first train in the morning leaves. I sit there for hours, watching a film on my phone while he is snoring in his huge bed (I would’ve fitted in there!). I leave in the middle of the night, taking the train at four something. With my luck, the train is completely packed and I have to stand for two hours. And I can tell you, after still not having slept and being exhausted, that’s not what I wanted at all. In the end I arrive home at 7:30 in the morning, exactly twelve hours later than planned, and I crash in bed. Great start of the year. Read more »
