This Day..Last Year...

Disclaimer: This is gonna be a helluva long post!!!

December 26th 2007 was a day in my life that I'll never forget. Words cannot describe what I went through on that fateful winter night.

Before questions start hovering in your minds, let me take you back to Friday the 21st December 2007. I had planned to spend my Christmas in Italy. No, I am not one of those privileged souls who spend their holidays abroad, I was in France last winter, so I thought of paying my Italian friends a visit for Christmas.

Before I bore you with my story, you will need to be familiar with the names of a few French and German Cities/Towns.

Orbey, France - Home and office in this small village

Colmar, France - Nearest town, and Railway station

Strasbourg, France - The Nearest city.

After the office hours on Friday, I went to Colmar with a colleague and spent the night at his apartment. Got up at 6 in morning to catch the first train to Strasbourg. Reached Starsbourg in about an hour, and waited for an hour for the Lufthansa Bus to Frankfurt. After a 2 hr bus ride, through thickest fog ever, and with a 10 min stop at the Franco-German border, I reached Frankfurt Airport. I was happy as I had 4 hours before my flight to Italy. But as my luck would have it nobody knew from which terminal RyanAir (the Air-Deccan of Europe) flew. As it turned out, it didnt fly from Frankfurt Main Airport at all and that it flew from an unheard-of airport called Frankfurt Hahn. To make matters worse, that friggin Hahn airport was 150 Kms from the main airport. From that point my adventure began.

I managed to find the bus to Hahn airport. Boarded it and let out a sigh of relief. I thanked god that people in Germany were conversant in english. And I thanked god for one more thing, I had a Brazilian beauty for company all this while and some more time. Beauty is an understatement, Bombshell is the right word ;).

What followed after that short-lived scare was the awesomest time of my life. Met all the people I knew in Italy at a party. Those guys had arranged a trip for me to a near-by city called Ferrara. Then I stayed with some Indian guys whom I had made friends with in my last trip and played cricket with them. Had a rocking time in all. Four days went by in a blink of an eye.

But what was to follow this was nothing short of an ordeal. From here on, me catching every flight or bus was touch and go. The flight back to Frankfurt got delayed. Reached Frankfurt friggin Hahn at 8:25 PM. Rushed out to catch an 8:30 PM bus to Frankfurt Main (this was the last bus by the way). Had to reach Frankfurt main by 10:30PM at any cost so as to avoid spending the night at the airport. To make proceedings interesting, there was a traffic jam on the freeway. The bus stood there for what seemed like an eternity. Reached Frankfurt main at 10:28 PM. I dont know how, but the driver spotted me running towards the bus and stopped it, I boarded it and dozed off.

I was to reach Starbourg at 1:00 AM. I didnt have any issues with that as I already had booked a hotel and the bus was to drop me at the doorstep of the hotel. But when I am involved, how can things go perfectly?? I reached Starsbourg at 1:00 AM, I went to the hotel reception and to my horror, the hotel was full and the receptionist didn't budge. So there I was, on a Snowy december
night, all alone on the streets of Starsbourg, no where to go. I had to find a place to spend the night as I had to catch a train to Colmar in the morning. Unlike in India, train stations in Europe dont operate at night.

I roamed and roamed on the deserted streets of Strasbourg till the wee-hours of the morning seaching for a hotel and to top it off, it was snowing cats and dogs!!! I finally found a hotel at 3:30 AM, I went to the room and crashed. Got up at 6AM took the train to Colmar, met the colleague at the station (had tied-up with him) and he took me straight to the office. So much for going to the office.

To sum up the experience, I felt like a contestant on the Amazing Race. Only difference being the winner of the Race gets a million dollars. And considering the fun I had in Italy, I already had won my prize.... :)