Moonlight Boarding

I arrived in Germany Friday, February 22, in the afternoon after one of the craziest things happened. On my way to check-in for my flight, I realized I left my passport at home. Awesome! So I first checked with one of the agents before attempting to haul ass home to get it. Being on the arrival level, there aren’t many taxis to choose from as most take off as soon as they drop off. I found a guy, quickly explained my emergency situation, and he said he would help. Nice! It turns out, the guy never went over the speed limit, had to stop to get some gas on the way to my house, and generally stayed in the middle of three lanes where there’s the most traffic. As my heart nearly beat out of my chest the entire time, I somehow managed to make my flight AND my luggage arrived on time.

So the first and last evenings were spent in Munich, though completely uneventful as I was tired both of those nights. The rest of the trip was spent in St Anton am Arlberg, Austria. The highlight of the trip was the moonlight skiing I did with a few mates. We left our flat about 11pm Sunday night, took a taxi to St Christoph (the next village over and part of the St Anton ski area), hiked an hour and a half up the mountain (about 500 vertical meters), hung out on top for about 45 minutes playing on and around the ski lift, then went down, all with only moonlight lighting the way. We got home around 2am, and it was well worth. Definitely one of the coolest things I’ve done in my life.

The rest of the week saw warmer and warmer weather, making for less than ideal conditions. There were many avalanches (mostly on the sides where no one goes) with one very close to where we were. I arrived at the scene just after it happened and a helicopter was just dropping off poles and dogs so that the ski patrol could start looking for people. We didn’t hear anything about anyone getting caught under the snow, but it was still close and very real. The rest of the week was spent boarding as much as the weather permitted, two trips to the sauna, and many trips to Platzl, our watering hole of choice in St Anton.

My trip home can only be described as hellish. I left to catch the train to the airport at about 6:30am. I caught my train and arrived at the airport about 7:30am, only to find out my flight to Amsterdam was canceled. They had already re-routed my by the time I got to the front of the line, Munich to Paris, Paris to New York, New York to Los Angeles. Just about the most undesirable itinerary possible, plus I was switched from Northwest to Air France/Delta (first indicator my bag would be delayed). I waited around in the Munich airport for an hour or so as my new flight was a little later. I was struggling with not passing out since I hadn’t had good sleep the previous two nights. When I arrived in Paris, I found out that my next flight was already boarded and they were just waiting for the few of us on the first flight to haul ass so the flight could leave. That was the second indicator my bag would be delayed. Luckily the Air France flight to New York came with personal TVs, unlike most US carriers. This only slightly eased the trouble that the day was turning out to be. After arriving in New York, I only wished the day was over because I was completely exhausted and had 0 desire to be on a plane. When I finally arrived in LA, my bag was of course nowhere to be found. Better yet, it wasn’t even in the system, so they had no idea where it was. After waiting a day, they still had no idea where it was. Finally they found it and it was delivered to me Tuesday morning, thankfully. My suitcase was badly damaged this journey, so I’ve already filled out all the paperwork for them to see if they will repair it (pretty much impossible, but I know they have to tell me that). Looking forward to getting a new bag of “comparable value”. We’ll see what the new bag I get is actually like as they don’t offer the same brand.