Getting to the Wedding ....

She was really going to do it - my friend Thush was getting married on Thursday last week and who am I to turn down an invitation to a good party, even if the party was out in Holland (or was in Belgium - I'm not sure which !)

The flight out to Amsterdam was not straightforward. I arrived at the airport in Vienna with what I believed was just a bit of hand luggage. I was informed by the pretty, young check in assistant that my bag was too heavy for hand luggage and that I would have to check it in. Having decided that I didn't really want to argue with this girl, I proceeded to rummage though my small bag trying to quickly think of what I wanted to take with me on the aeroplane and what I wanted to leave in my bag. In my wisdom, I decided that the following were useful items to keep with me
(a) Passport
(b) Flight Schedule (I was flying to Amsterdam via Zurich, so it made sense to have some written information about the details of my flights.
(c ) My laptop computer (There was no way I was going to let my laptop get checked in, primarily because I’ve seen how baggage handlers throw bags around and I didn’t want my laptop broken – it’s been less than two weeks since I broke the last one !)
(d) By Sudoku book (yes, I admit it – I’m an addict !)
(e) A pen (so that I could pass the time on the plane doing sudoku).


Having taken these items out of my luggage, checked in, and gleefully accepted my boarding pass from the pretty checkin girl, I slowly made my way to the depatures lounge, carefully balancing the items listed above. I decided to buy something typically “Austrian” for my friends I was to meet in Holland, and the one thing that sprang to mind was “Mozart Balls” (for those of you that don’t know what these are, I suggest you look it up http://www.allesoverballen.com/engels/MOZART.html

So now, with even more things to balance, I proceeded to board the aeroplane. It did occur to me that I could have purchased a small back pack to carry all these items with me, but I wasn’t going to part with anything more than 25 euros for a bag – and the cheapest one I could find (which I wouldn’t have minded being seen with) was well over 70 euros !

The flight arrived in Zurich about 10 mins late, which wasn’t really a problem as I had approx 40 mins before my connecting flight. Little did I realise that I needed to be at the gate 25mins before the flight which gave me approx 15min to go the transfers counter, pick up my boarding card and find my way to the gate. I got to the transfers desk and the pretty lady there (who wasn’t as pretty or as young as the previous check-in person, but still quite pleasant) looked at my passport and gave me my boarding card. Armed with my boarding card, I continued to walk towards the gate, when I decided that it might be wise to answer the call of nature. Having completed this now trivial task, which I’ve been trained to do all my life, I continued on my journey towards the gate.

Do you know that feeling you get when you know you’ve forgotten something or that something is missing but are not sure what that something is? Well, I started to get that feeling. I stopped to make sure I had everything I was supposed tohave: passport –check; flight schedule-check; laptop-check; sudoku book and pen-check; MozartBalls-check; newly collected boarding card – SHIT – where’s my boarding card ? I doublechecked, triple checked, quadruple checked, but I couldn’t find my boarding card. The last I remembered having it was when the pretty lady at the transfers desk gave it to me. Was I sure she gave it to me? Perhaps she didn’t. Could I have dropped it some where? Where have I been since the transfer desk? SHIT, how long do I have before my flight?

Figuring out that the best course of action not to retrace my steps but to go back to the transfers desk and throw myself at the mercy of the pretty lady there, I hot-footed it back there, making sure that I didn’t lose anything else on the way. The pretty lady asked me to check once more to make sure I didn’t have it on me. I assured her that I have already checked a number of times, but I checked again anyway (I seem to remember that one of Murphy’s Laws stated something like “ that “When a broken appliance is demonstrated for the repairman, it will work perfectly” – it kinda made sense, and I was hoping that this principle might apply here). But alas, no boarding card. The pretty lady at the checking smiled at me, pushed a few buttons on her keyboard and out popped another boarding card with my name on it. She handed it over to me with the words “You’re lucky that this is an e-ticket - this would have cost you a lot of money if it wasn’t”. Armed with my new boarding card, I dashed through the security points, dodged as many fellow travellers as I could and ran to my gate, still being very careful not to drop anything, especially my boarding card. I made it to the gate about 15mins before the flight was due to depart, where there was a farily orderly queue of about 10people waiting to board the flight. I composed my self, stood in the back of the line and when I got to the front of the queue, handed my newly acquired boarding card to the girl at the gate. It’s true, I hadn’t been in possession of this card for more than 3 or 4 minutes, but in the moment just before I felt a slight sense of sorrow and a lager sense of relief. The rest of the joruney to Amserdam and the onward train journey to Eindhoven was uneventful, but I had had enough excitement for the day. The taxi ride from Eindhoven to Villa Christina (where I was staying) was a bit worrying as the taxi driver didn’t seem to know where he was going, but I am thankful that he got me to my destination in one piece – BRING ON THE WEDDING !!!!