I know, I know, I have many more adventures to write up, but I'm starting with this one, as I think it will be more interesting to most of those for whom I write.
The first adventure of the adventure occurred the day before I left. I suppose I should have discoverd the problem earlier, but I didn't.
Because I was bringing quantities of food, books, and educational materials with me, and knew I would be pushing the weight/size limit on my luggage allowance, I did my packing early. That was good. That was smart.
That wasn't enough.
Even though I knew my flight was on Lufthansa, I had carefully followed the baggage rules of USAirways, as my reservations were through them. And anyway, aren't the rules all pretty much the same?
No.
The day before my flight, I dutifully typed the flight number into the USAirways Flight Status box, and was momentarily encouraged. The from Charlotte, North Carolina to San Francisco, California was expected to be on time, which would have been good news had I not been expecting to fly from Orlando, Florida to Basel, Switzerland. A bit disconcerted, I called USAirways and was informed that they had nothing to do with the flight except for making the reservations, and I'd have to talk with Lufthansa about flight status.
Uh oh. Being the obsessive-compulsive person I am, I decided I'd better check Lufthansa's luggage rules, just to be sure. Everyone said I'd be fine.
Everyone but Lufthansa, that is.
The USAirways weight limit for the carry-on bag is 40 pounds, or 18 kilograms. I was feeling good about my packing, which at 38 pounds gave me a little leeway. But the Lufthansa website said their limit was 8 kg. Hoping that was a misprint that left off the ten's digit, I called—and they confirmed the lower number. :(
My plans for the final day had not included repacking. And re-repacking. And re-re-re-packing. But I did it! The weight allowance for the checked bag was 23kg, and at the airport the next day it weighed in at 22.8! Both my carry-on and my personal item were slightly over 8kg; I had a Plan B if that had been a problem, but it wasn't. True, I didn't bring all that I wanted to with me, but I brought all that was most important, and I have to admit that it was nicer to carry 8kg than 18 on the long hike through the Frankfort airport.
The Day came. Let me say this at the outset: Weight restrictions aside, flying to Basel with only one change is a lot nicer than having two. What's more, leaving at 8pm sure beats leaving in the morning. It was great to have most of the day for last-minute chores, and in theory leaving at that hour would make it easy to sleep on the plane. But I'm getting ahead of myself.
Porter was able to take me to the airport, which was a real blessing. All went smoothly with checking baggage and going through security. Our plane was a little late taking off, but we more than made up the time in flight. I had an aisle seat, which normally would have been fantastic. Not that it was bad, but if I'd known how things were going to go, I'd have asked the girl next to me if she wanted to change places.
She was a lovely child, perhaps 10 years old: friendly, talkative, polite, and interesting. But she was up and out of her seat a lot—I had told her not to worry about waking me up if she had to use the bathroom—which meant I was up and down as well, and I don't think she slept all night. Consequently, my own total was less than three hours, probably more like two due to the interruptions. Still, overall there was little to complain about, and nine hours in the plane sure beats the 14 of my last flight.
The plane landed in the wing of the airport from which my next flight was scheduled to depart, so getting from one to the other ought to have been easy. But Frankfort is a big airport, and despite the apparent closeness, the two gates were a very long walk and a security checkpoint apart. The latter caused an unexpected delay as well, as both I and my luggage were searched. They didn't find anything because there was nothing to find; I have no idea what caused their suspicions. (Later I learned that my checked luggage had been examined by the TSA, so I guess it was old-lady-with-more-books-than-clothes profiling day.)
Despite that, I made it to the Basel flight in plenty of time. By now, the EuroAirport is looking quite familiar, so I grabbed my luggage, exchanged Swiss German greetings with the customs agent as I breezed by, and walked out the door to three generations of waiting relatives, one very pregnant. :)
Jet lag turned out to be no problem at all. The bigger adjustment was to a 10 p.m. sunset, hence a totally discombobulated sense of time. But it's great for long evening walks.
Lesson one learned from my first solo transatlantic flight: If I speak English, I can get along just fine. If I try to speak German, I provoke a stream of German in response, of which I understand not one word, and my own brain, struggling with German, forgets to be competent in English. Note to self: leave playing with other languages to non-critical situations.
