Travel Journal of the Great Rivers of Europe Cruise

Day 15 and 16 VIENNA Austria to the USA
21/22 June 2005 Tuesday/Wednesday

Vienna

My mother and I were among the first group to return to the US and thus we were also the first group to assemble downstairs. In the early light, we could appreciate exactly how close we were to the airport. Literally across the street.

Katya and Nela were already downstairs in the lobby, alert but somewhat worn. Slow trickle of GCT passengers. We greet each other. Some chose to go on to the airport with Nela to stand in line and leave. Some of us chose to wait the 5 –1 0 minutes for the free breakfast before going across.

I don’t know how it is for anyone else, but the trickiest part of travel is always the hefting of bags, densely packed as they always are, from the ground to any higher surface. It’s a heaving thing. So it was wonderful to have a hotel fellow with a large cart take our baggage across the way and into the now crowded and ever-filling airport lobby.

Farewell to GCT, our fabulous fellow journey men and women. My last glance of Nela was standing guard over the pile of bags, directing traffic. Gerald was back at the hotel with the travellers who would take the extended three days in Vienna. And Katya was back in the hotel lobby keeping the flow constant between the hotel and airport. Great thanks to all three.

We were told that we should stand in the long ever-increasing line of passengers waiting for the check-in desks to open up. If you kick or drag your hand carries and your luggage, it works though 15 minutes into standing there, I suddenly had a crisis of confidence. Were we even in the correct line? Nowhere did it say UNITED AIRLINES above any of the check out counters. I wiggled back to one of a familiar GCT fellow travellers who verified that we were where we were supposed to be (thank you so much for knowing the right answer!) and they told us that one of our group had gotten all the way to the check in desk to find that their tickets were misprinted! For the next day! And the moral of that story is, ladies and gentlemen, check your airline tickets as soon as they arrive in the mail! And the corollary to that tale is that mistakes can be made at any time. Thank goodness for Nela and Katya who were more than capable of finding the solution to even that very sticky problem. I wish I knew how that all ended up.

USA at last!

The trip from Vienna to Zurich was uneventful and once again familiar GCT faces were on that flight and even the one from Zurich to Dulles. Customs was easy, and as usual, my mother’s titanium hips rang every security control point along the way. Gives me time to put on my shoes while they do the usual check on my mom.

Even hand carry bags can be quite heavy since ours have no wheels. AND the distances between gates seemed to have increased since the last time we had passed the same route. Or was that because our day had begun at 4 AM in Vienna a jillion miles earlier?

We had two more flights yet to take: Dulles to Houston and then the puddle jumper from Houston to Austin. On both those flights were our GCT colleagues from Texas. Now we were all so exhausted as to be mute, but two relatively short flights and we were home – to hot steamy Texas. Yi-pee ka-yay!

posted by Articulate Pen @ 11:52 AM