Munich Airport

I arrived at Heathrow Airport around 1:30 and had a long layover for my flight to Frankfurt which departs at 6:05. Waiting seemed like forever because I didn’t sleep on the plane to London. When the plane was making it’s landing approach I got to see the River Thames and the significant buildings that are adjacent to it:
• Millenium stadium,
• Big Ben
• Norman Foster’s City Hall and the Giant Gerken
• Wimbley Stadium
• Millenium Pedestrian Bridge
The Landscape in London was extremely beautiful. Now I know why the English were all about the picturesque Landscape. But Heathrow is a Labyrinth of an airport and it didn’t help that there was construction all over the place. When I landed and deplaned I took the shuttle to the Lufthansa terminal and we were driving underneath the airport avoiding collisions with other buses and vehicles; I held on for dear life. I forgot to mention that when I got off the plane in Heathrow my body started twitching and spasming like crazy due to being in a stationary position for 8 hours. I felt like my body was doing the Puff Daddy dance during his years with Biggie. It took about a half hour for the twitching to subsided, but I thought to myself that when I was twitching I could have started swearing and people would have thought I had turrettes. And I probably could have received preferential treatment and priority boarding. It could have been the perfect crime.

So I waited at Heathrow for what seemed like an eternity and I was so brain dead I desperately wanted to take a nap but was afraid I wouldn’t wake up and would miss my flight to Frankfurt. So I waited and waited and waited finally at 5:00 the gate was posted on the tv screens, I walked quickly to the gate yet no one was there yet. I thought to myself, did I misread the gate number during my sleep deprived delirium but after five minutes of waiting suddenly a gaggle of Germans flocked towards the gate like the Salmon of Capistrano. Then I realized I was in the right place after all. So we boarded the plane rather quickly but the plane took off about 10 minutes late. While on the plane everyone was very tall and slender just like you image germans to be and I sat next to two very tall german dudes. The flight from Heathrow to Frankfurt was the only time I actually was able to fall asleep during my transatlantic journey. While I was sleeping I noticed that I was rather gassy, and I woke up suddenly because I realized I accidentally let one slip out; an SBD (Silent but deadly). But at this point I was so tired that I didn’t even care and continued to sleep.

I woke up to the thud of the tires hitting the runway in Frankfurt at 8:40pm and my plane to Munich started boarding at 8:55. I thought to myself I have 15 minutes I should be able to make it; my plane should be in the same terminal where we deplaned. But it took forever to got off the plane because the skybridge was jammed and couldn’t extend towards the plane. So 9:00 rolls around and we still haven’t gotten off. What the hell is going on I thought to myself. I started to yell and scream inside my head. It felt like that Seinfeld episode where Elaine gets trapped on the subway on her way to a birthday party and she starts screaming at everyone in her head. So finally at 9:05 we got off the plane and my flight to Munich departs at 9:25. I was like oh shit, I have to find my gate and run like the wind. I exit the sky bridge walk down three flights of stairs and exit to nothing but a bus waiting for people so it could ship us to another terminal but there was no signage as to where it would take us. I questioned whether I should get on the bus but I had no other choice so I got on, which I regretted. While I was on the bus I noticed some German business men who were on my flight mentioned something about gate A-16. I looked at my boarding pass and it said A-16, I will follow these guys and hopefully they know where to go. So the bus starts moving and we pass by signs that say gates A26-A21, then A21-17, then A16-1 but the bus didn’t stop. Then I started to get more frantic because we were going the wrong way and couldn’t do anything about it. When the bus stopped I was in terminal B nowhere near where I needed to be. Suddenly I saw a sign the said Terminal A. I followed the sign and ended up in customs and had to wait in line to get my passport stamped and all I could think of was what the cab driver in Austin told me. The custom agents in Germany can be very anal about letting people into the country. Luckily the agent noticed everyone was in a hurry to catch their connections and the line moved rather quickly. I thought I dodged a bullet by being able to get through the line quickly but then I had to go through security and take all the stuff out of my pockets and take out my cumbersome laptop which slowed me down even more. I walked through the metal detector and one of the security agents grabbed my backpack and I immediately thought that they were gonna do a special search of my bag which was the last thing I needed. But all she did was tell me that I had to take the bottle of water out my bag which I did happily. Once I grabbed my stuff I punched to gate A16 but I couldn’t run because my backpack and computer bag were weighing me down and bouncing all over the place. So I powered walked it like the Olympic power runners and I looked like a total dork but I didn’t care. While in my haste to get to the gate, I noticed a young woman that was in my same boat and we were weaving in and out of people trying to make the flight to Munich. We both came to a moving walkway and I thought if I get on it and power walk I could travel twice as fast. Wrong!!! There were lazy people just standing there and it slowed me down even more. As I approach a second moving walkway I busted a power move bypassed the moving walkway while my compatriot entered it. I punched it into sixth gear and left her in my dust. I finally got to my gate in a frantic sweat with 2 minutes to spare and was able to board with the final boarding group. So I boarded my fourth and final flight to Munich. The flight time was 35 minutes which I was glad about because by this point I was so sick of planes and airports. It was roughly 24 hours since I left Austin and only had a whopping one hour of sleep. I was cranky, sweaty, and stinky and just wanted to get to the hostel to shower and rest. But the travel gods still had one more curve ball left for me.
We land around 10:30 and was able to exit the plane rather quickly because it was half empty. I cruised through an empty but extremely nice Munich airport.



I walked to baggage claim and waited, and waited, and waited….. It took a little bit of time but my bag that I checked in Austin actually made it to Munich. I was shocked because after changing planes four times I was sure my bag would get lost somewhere along the way. My bag was a 36” long x 14” diameter duffle bag and stuffed inside of it was my 40 liter backpack that I purchased specifically for this trip. My plan was to take it out if the duffle bag strap my carryon bags to it and ride the S-bahn (Surface train) into Munich because the airport is on the periphery of the city. But I didn’t follow my plan because I thought, I’m getting on the train no need to take the pack out of the duffle bag. I get on the train platform, buy my ticket and wait for the train to arrive. Finally the train comes and I get on for the 45 minute journey into Munich. The train ride was fairly relaxing but I was insistent on checking the train map on my Ipod so I knew exactly how many more stops I had left before I had to transfer to the U-Bahn (underground Train). So I started to countdown my stops, 6,5,4,3….. and three was Ostbahnhof. I was still 3 stops away from Marienplatz which is where I would transfer to get to the hostel. So we waited at Ostbahnhof longer than usual and then a german voice comes on the intercom and everyone gets up and leaves the train. It was about midnight and my only thought was that the train was shutting down for the night which it was. So I get off and just followed the crowd towards a train platform but it did not have the subway train I was looking for. I walked around for about 20 minutes to no avail. By this point I was sick of wandering around aimlessly and plus my arms were burning from carrying my duffle bag around along with my two other carryon bags. I desperately wanted to take my pack out and strap it to my back but I was paranoid about taking my nice new pack out because I thought possibly that I could get jumped for it. I took the risk and took my pack out strapped my other bags to it and instantly felt better. I could move faster and carry the weight more efficiently in order to start searching for a way towards the hostel. I started wandering around again looking for the U3 train that would take me to the hostel but was again unsuccessful. So, I paused looked around and saw a taxi sign pointing towards the surface. I said to myself SCORE!!! I found a way out of this episode of sleep deprived delirium and confusion. I got to the street level flagged down a cab, threw my stuff inside and said, “Sprechen sie english,” and the cab driver responded a little, which really meant no. So I showed him the address on my Ipod, he punched it into his GPS and we were off. Finally the last leg of my journey was almost complete. After a 15 minute cab ride he drops me off in front of the hostel. As soon as I walked into the hostel lobby Kathy and Wilson were there waiting for me and I was so excited to see some familiar faces. I ran towards them and gave them both big hugs. Finally I had arrived in Munich. Thank goodness. All in all it was a tiring and stressful trip but I’m glad I went through it. Now I’m ready for anything. Bring it on Munich!!!