Trippin

So Danny and I made it!

It only took about 26 hours, (When it was supposed to be a 17 hour trip with layovers.) but we got to Paderborn, Germany safely. We left Portland, Oregon on March 26th at 6:30 a.m. PST and we flew to Chicago. It was a really short flight as we slept the entire way. The plan was to Fly from Portland to Chicago, Chicago to Toronto, Toronto to Vienna, then Vienna to Dusseldorf where we would drive about 174 kilometers (110 miles) to our new home in Paderborn.
Well, as crazy of an itinerary as this may sound, that would have been really nice! Instead, upon arrival in Chicago, we were told to switch gates to a different plane. (We were supposed to stay on the same plane from Portland all the way to Toronto) Having about an hour, Danny and I quickly got off and looked at the outgoing flights and gates. United Flight 132 to Toronto reads "CANCELLED." What the hell? They tricked us! We quickly walked through the Chicago Airport to United Customer Service, and for everyone that have never been to O'Hare Airport, it is a big city all in its own. This Airport is one of the worlds largest as it has hundreds of flights coming and going daily, so the walk from the gate to customer service was about a mile.
We waited in line at customer service for about 45 minutes and then the real fun begins. Everyone is trying to get to Toronto!!! Apparently, United Airlines was giving a lot of people the run-around, including us. After about an hour and a half of trying to find the right solution to get us to Dusseldorf on time, the United customer service representative, Carlos, said he got us on a Canadian Airlines flight to Toronto where we could catch our connecting flight to Vienna. He said we did not need to check in at the gate and handed us our boarding passes. Danny and I quickly made our way another mile away in the airport and got to our gate. "Ahhh, we are good, we will make our connecting flight to Vienna," we said. Once it was time to board the plane we got in line and walked to the gate. The gate agent took our paper ticket that Carlos had "issued" and said....... "Um, these are stand bye tickets, go get in the gate line with the rest of the stand bye passengers."......... WHAT!!!!
At this point we were pretty pissed. I was on the phone with my mom who happens to be a travel agent, and she was also pretty pissed about everything. We went to the ticket counter at the gate, realized there were 20 others in line for an oversold flight, and headed back to speak to Carlos at the the United ticket counter which was another mile away!....Again!
Upon our arrival at the customer service and another 45 minute wait in line, we got a chance to give Carlos (who was a really cool guy by the way) a little jarring! He laughed a little, but since we were with another agent at the counter this time he tried to help as much as he could.
At this point we could not get to Toronto, Vienna, or Dusseldorf on the original itinerary. We had to start from scratch. The biggest problem was that United Airlines could not get Austrian Airlines to release our funds so we could get another flight. This took about 80 phone calls, three and a half hours, and splitting Danny and I up for a flight to London at 6pm from Chicago, then a 5 hour layover in London before our flight to Germany.
I left Chicago about an hour before Danny and when I got to the United gate counter I was making sure I had a seat! Things got interesting once again when the gate agent at the counter tried to tell me that I was on standbye and was probably not going to get on the flight. "You are getting me on this flight!" I told him. After hovering over the agent and making him feel a little uneasy, and not letting him push me around, he handed me a boarding seat with an actual seat! FINALLY!
The flight to London was long. No entertainment because the media system was down, and the pilot even told us that he almost cancelled the flight because none of the screens were working. Since when did a flight get cancelled because the entertainment system was down? At that point I didn't care, I tried to get my mind off of how tired I was and I tried to think about baseball and the experience that was ahead of me. I ate some good old fashioned airline food, had a beer, and tried to sleep....... Which I did not get! I guess I could not sleep because I could only think about being away from home, my family, girlfriend, and friends for the next six months because I am chasing a dream which arrived late. In a way, I feel I am four years late to the prom....... but I still got asked!

The Sunrise was beautiful over the Atlantic! I watched the horizon change with beautiful colors for about 30 minutes and was amazed!

When I got to London, I called Erin, Mom and Dad, and felt miserably tired. One more flight to go! Danny found me in the terminal and we tried to talk about our trip and what we were looking forward to, but I was out of it! I could not wait to get some sleep, and about an hour before our flight, I literally could not function. Danny helped me a lot, and thanks to him, we made it to our flight safe and sound.
We arrived in Dusseldorf at 3pm in the afternoon which was 6pm PST, and our bags were there waiting for us. WHAT A RELIEF! That could have turned out really bad with all the changes we went through. Good for United! We got through customs very easily and caught a ride with a friend of our coach. The best part of our trip was the car ride on the Autobon. We cruised an easy 120mph all the way home and we were getting passed on the left by BMW's, Mercede's, and Audi's. Pretty amazing!

So, after about 26 hours and not much sleep we arrived at our new home in Paderborn. We have three German roomies, two of which we will play with, and each of us has our own room. Pretty nice setup as well!





Can't wait to play!