I flew all the way to Germany to buy a book

I wish this was as cool as it sounds, like some Miranda Priestly-like crusade, trying to get the newest Harry Potter book before it has even been released. But unfortunately it is something entirely the opposite. I was more like Tom Hanks in The Terminal. Stuck. In a slow lounge. In Frankfurt.

You see, the initial idea was that I would have a connecting flight to Stockholm from Frankfurt. I would board at 6:40 AM, I would land at 9:00 AM and I would have the City of Stockholm to myself for a day. I planned on seeing Gamla Stan - the 13th Century birthplace of Stockholm; I planned on having a fikka; I planned on visiting the Vasa museum; taking a boat tour of the city; and finally, going on the business trip I was intended on going for - to the far north of Sweden.

And then - my passport went missing. Stolen I believe.

The best way to describe my next two hours following this discovery would be these three words:

Hysterical Ugly Crying.

Can you blame me? With an imagination like mine, thinking I'm going to get fired, I'm going to have to repay my business class airplane tickets (!), I will be stuck in this terminal forever, I'm in so much trouble.

And then I tried phoning Flip, and the company that invited me, to tell them what happened. I inserted my credit card into the telephone, and dialed the wrong number. Then the credit card stopped working, I couldn't phone or withdraw money.
More Hysterical Ugly Crying.

But at least there is still some good in the world;  a few traveling Germans saw my antics and offered me their last loose change to make a call. And then I remembered that I have a laptop and that airports always have wifi, but it was only valid for half an hour. Thank goodness for Facebook chat. It calmed me down for about ten minutes.

After receiving tickets for my return flight to South Africa, I remembered that business class flyers have access to a slow lounge. Oh, it was a mini-paradise for someone to be stuck in for 14 hours. I showered, had breakfast, had coffee - and then logged on to the internet to sort everything out. 

Slow lounges have free wifi for days!

This meant that I could chat with everyone and let them know my situation, send out emails to everyone that needed to be informed and, well, just generally surf the net. Eventually, I also started to wander about the airport and bought myself a book, called Me Before You.
I found it terribly boring, but I will finish it.

Even in my bad luck there was some good luck.
But I think it is safe to say that I still hate flying. I always will.

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*Photo via We Heart It
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