We were supposed to be in kiev for 3 weeks but ended up leaving 3 days early. All because of a little ash from a little volcano from a tiny little country way the hell up north.
After the eruption earlier in the week we kept an eye on it on the news. I remembered the nightmare last year when the same thing happened. It paralyzed air travel for wks. All I could think about was my flight home the coming sunday and did not want to get stuck in europe! After 8 wks away I was SO ready to be home! Marietta was keeping an even closer eye on it. She was tracking the cloud movement on the website. By tuesday the cloud was approaching the northern coast of germany. Already our group was thinking of options. Rent a car and drive back (nope that would take 2+ days), take a train (maybe, it's a 12 hour ride). All day we were trying to get approval from dudo to come back early and have our final meeting via phone conference. It's not the ideal way to do it but we did NOT want to be stuck in kiev if they start closing german airports. By Tuesday night 2 of the airport in northern germany was shut down. On the ride back to our hotel around 8pm we got approval to leave so none bothered to go up to the room. we were in the lobby checking possible flights. I was working separately with the north america travel agency and was actually trying to leave from kiev to phx. I wanted to skip western europe altogether! The change in ticket would have costed 3-4 thousands more so scratch that idea.
It tooks hours to figure things out and finally booked a 6:30am flight the next morning. I have to use the travel agency from the US so I orignally booked a 3:40pm direct flight to dudo. When the rest of the team booked the earlier flight with connection I was worried about getting stuck. They did not want to wait that long in the day in case the ash cloud keeps moving south and shut down more airports in germany. Luckily I was able to change my flights again to match the group. We had dinner in the hotel restaurant while we worked out the flight situation. I also had to book a hotel once in dudo. With the short notice all the usual hotels were booked so M found a nice hotel for me right in old town, sweet!
By the time we settled our hotel bill & went up to pack, I had less than 2 hours of sleep before getting up to catch the 4am taxi ride to the airport! It was a madhouse at the airport and we snuck into the business class line even though our ticket was economy. I have elite gold membership but didn't have my card. With my milage I can now go not just into the business lounge but also the first class lounge!
While traveling around ukraine I noticed that they have a counter where people can have their suitcase wrapped in plastic. Picture siran wrap. I thought they do this to protect the luggage. Marietta told me at the airport we should also do this because it discourages people from stealing things out of your suitcase while in transit. You can't even trust the people that work at the airport, crazy!
We connected in munich with no problems. BY that time they had closed down the airport in berlin. I was so happy when our plane started to take off from munich. At least I will be in dudo and closer to home! Wouldn't you know it It turns out that the situation got better so hopefully no other problems this sunday.
Our final meeting was a tough one for various reasons. I guess if it always goes smoothly I would not learn as much. It felt strange because we all left so suddenly and didn't have to chance to give proper goodbyes to our colleagues. It was a nice team and a unique experience. Eastern europe is like another world. I had planned to do souvenier shopping on the saturday before I leave kiev but with our sudden departure there was no chance. Gary will not get a ukrainian traditional shirt this time!
2 weeks rest at home with hubby and side visit to cali for family. My nieces and I will attempt to cook turkish food for our family gettogether, let's see! Then it's off to france.......
No comments:
Post a Comment