Another airport, another flight

I've just looked at the time again - I'm in Vienna and it's 8.46am ... and I'm supposed to be in Frankfurt. My flight was at 7am and guess what - I missed it ! I guess it's my own fault really !

I was out last night seeing the Schoenbrunn Palace Orchestra (http://www.imagevienna.com/english/) playing a few pieces by Mozart and Strauss. They played a couple of numbers from Don Giovanni, the Marraige of Figaro and ofcourse, they played "An der schönen blauen Donau" (the "Beautiful Blue Danube" to us non-German speakers!). To be perfectly honest - I was a little bit disappointed. To begin with, the bloke that sold me the tickets was mistaken (or lied!) - I programme that I was shown wasn't the one that was performed (by the way, can someone please tell me how "programme" should be spelt in this context - is it "programme" or should it be "program" - what's the difference?). They was supposed to play "Eine kleine Nachtmusik" and the "cat duet" (meaow meaow !) but this wasn't to be.

Also, the Suprano wasn't all that good - not that she couldn't sing, but I wasn't too impressed by her – at least it didn’t sound like she was strangling a cat! The orchestra itself lacked a bit of spark as well - personally, I felt that they could have played with a lot more expression - Rohan Joseph DeSarem (former conductor of the SriLanka Philharmonic Orchestra) would have had a cow and would have thrown his baton at us if we played the way this orchestra did. I'm not saying that they were bad (although the Cellist did lose the plot at one point!), but the performance was lacking in fire and passion!

I digress. This doesn't tell you much more about how I've found myself at the airport. The performance finished just after 10pm. We (my mum and I) really fancied some apple strudel (she’s been wanting to have some since she got here). Unfortunately, this wasn’t to be – the restaurant at Schoenbrunn palace was closed. So on the way home, we stopped by at an Italian restaurant (which didn’t take credit cards) for some grub – which wasn’t that nice either (and I didn’t have any cash on me – neither did mum !)

It was about 1am by the dime I got to bed, and I had planned on leaving home about 5.30am to catch my flight at 7. As expected, I left home shortly after 5.30am and got to the Austrian Airlines office by about 5:50m, where I left my car and took the shuttle bus to the airport (about a 5min ride). The buss arrived about 6.10 (which is the published time) and I got to the airport about 6.15am.

Previous experience suggests that the checkin desk for European flights closes 30mins before the flight – and I had 45mins. I went over to the self checkin machine and put in my miles and more card, but it didn’t seem to like it. I tried again, but still no luck. So I asked the girl in the Austrian Airlines uniform (which apart from a light blue scarf, is red from head to toe – dress, hat, tights, socks, shoes and most likely underwear as well, but I haven’t had the pleasure of being able to prove this yet) who also tried without much luck. She suggested that I go to the desk and check in there- so off I trotted off. When I got to the front of the desk, I was informed that the flight had already closed. I looked at the time, and it wasn’t quite 30mins before the flight. When I asked her at what time checkin closed, she politely told me that it was 45mins before the flight. Thankfully, the ticket I have is a flexible one, so I went over to the ticket desk to try and get on the 7.55am flight. Unfortunately, this flight was fully booked. I tried to switch on the old Ratnayaka charm and try and get her to squeeze me on to the flight, but unfortunately, the flight really was full (the charm didn’t get me on the flight, but it did get me the phone number of a pretty 27 year old Austrian girl J)

So now, I’m sat in the lounge trying to catch up on some work and get myself ready for the work that I’ve got to do in Frankfurt. To put this all in context, my return flight to Vienna is tomorrow evening and the plan was to get two full days work in the Frankfurt office (hence the planned departure at silly o’clock in the morning). So the two full days I was hoping to have has turned out to be 1.5days. This is not necessarily a bad thing – has given me a morning without email which I can actually use to do some proper work.

5 Things I’ve learned in the last 24hours.
(a) The checkin desk for European flights closes 45mins before the flight – not 30mins.
(b) It always helps if you are nice to people, especially girls at the checkin desk – they might not be able to get you onto the flight, but it’s still good to be nice to them
(c) The acoustics at Schoenbrunn Palace are not very good and the orchestra could do with a bit more fire (perhaps some fire crackers up their backsides!)
(d) Mozard was born in 1756 and died in 1791. Johann Strauss II lived from 1825 – 1899 and was one of 5 children. He was known as the Waltz king and his father had forbidden him from becoming a musician!
(e) Missing your flight isn’t necessarily a bad thing

Ok, I’ve spent just over an hour writing this – I should now get some work done and try not to miss my flight !