25
I used to think I’d never spend a single cent in Germany on account of the Holocaust, but I’m in Dusseldorf awaiting my connecting flight back to the States and I grabbed a neck pillow for the flight and a bottle of water. I suppose that since the person running the shop was Turkish it’s not that big of a deal.
Meanwhile, I had the most miserable morning I’ve had in a long time. Since my flight was at 8:30 a.m. I decided to stay up all night. This means I was deliriously tired when I got to the airport. So when the woman at the counter informed me I was never issued a ticket because my credit card had been declined. Over the last 3 days I kept trying to use different cards, including 2 of mine and one of flawless’, only to be sent a confirmation letter and a notice a day later that the confirmation was invalid. This invalidation was frustrating because there’s no reason the cards wouldn’t work and the phone number I received to call for more information was not working number. Needless to say, I was agitated by the fact that I had no ticket. But this agitation turned into insane frustration because the woman had to call headquarters to try authorizing my purchase of a ticket with cash, which led to me standing at the counter for an hour and a half while she kept talking to somebody over the phone. Basically, this involved me sitting there like a zombie while she talked in German over the phone and every 15 minutes or so she would say “Need original ticket issue ID number.” Then she would not say anything for a few minutes, begin to type furiously on her keyboard, speak in German for another 15 minutes, and again say (more frustrated than the time before), “Need original ticket issue ID NUMBER! SCHEIZER!” or something like that. I seriously had no idea what was going on, I just got the sense that no progress was being made given that I was standing at the counter for over an hour and a half and she kept repeating that phrase over and over. Finally, by some miracle, she managed to print me my ticket, leaving me only 10 minutes to get to my gate. So much for German efficiency.
I got to skip to the front of the security line, and was informed that my gate was on the other side of the airport and that I would have to sprint to make it. So at 8:00 a.m., on no sleep and coming off of a heavy breakfast, I had to sprint through a crowded airport carrying my ridiculously heavy laptop case and my two coats I had to carry on. By the time I got to the gate, I felt like I’d done 20 lines of coke and ridden a roller-coaster. I got an hour of sleep on the flight from Copenhagen to Dusseldorf which was obviously just enough to remind my body what a complete wreck I am right now and how much I need sleep, and nowhere near enough to actually refresh me. So now I’m in my zombie state trying to stay awake for the two hours I have to wait until my flight. Traveling is such a pain in the ass, I might never leave New York again.
