I would love to say that we slept like the dead and that we awoke refreshed an ready to take on the world but I would be lying. We awoke when the combination of church bell chimes and seagull screeches were too much for us. For me that came about 6:11 am; for Frank, about 45 minutes later.
We trolled the website and called British Airways not long after they opened at about 7:30 where they gave Frank the good news: WE FOUND YOUR LUGGAGE (angels singing in the background). The cases apparently hadn’t left Newark when we did but were on route at the moment. Sighs of relief followed as we were astounded that the cases weren’t lost forever. We headed to breakfast and tried that we didn’t smell any worse than others in the room with us. About 10:30 Frank got the call that the cases were on route and would be with us in about 2 hours. Oh the joy! I had already figured out how to make my trousers act like they couldn’t stand by themselves and we agreed not to discuss Frank’s underwear situation.
Determined to behave as if we were enjoying ourselves, we wandered through the town and stopped by St. Nicholas’s church. Originally dating back to the 13th century, it had been almost completely destroyed by WWII. The rebuilt church is a fabulous mix of ancient artifacts and 20th century stained glass. I would post photos of that but for some reason pictures from Frank’s camera won’t upload but those from my iPhone will. Go figure.
Not truly believing that we would have our belongings soon, we did some shopping in town. Because I believe that every woman on holiday needs red German skinny jeans, I indulged so as to spare my fellow humans the pain of dealing with me in the same clothing that I already spent 29 hours in. Frank even decided that some new boxers were in order. We wandered through the town which we suddenly noticed was covered in rainbows. Apparently, we had wandered into the Kiel version of Pride. There was a large gathering in one of the squares so we settled in with a latte to watch the entertainment.
And then the skies opened up. It had been partly cloudy all morning but a menacing layer of clouds had moved in an just before noon, they let loose their contents. It was quite entertaining to watch so many people scramble for cover as we sipped our delicious coffee drinks under an umbrella. The downpour lasted for about 20 minutes then the sun peeked out again and we decided, like a dozen others, that the 3 euro umbrella at the local cheap crap store was a good investment.
We headed back to the hotel at 12:30 because it was two hours after we had gotten the phone call saying that the luggage would be delivered in 2 hours. And an hour later, we finally called the delivery company who insisted the cases were on their way but traffic was bad. WTF? We gave them permission to leave the cases at the hotel without us and headed back to the local brew pub for some lunch. I had the bratwurst and Frank had something like fish and chips. After which we headed back to the hotel to find: OUR LUGGAGE! Screw you United who told us that the luggage would go with us. It turned out that our luggage had sat in Newark and when the British Airways desk in Hamburg put a trace on it, the cases miraculously found themselves on a flight to Hamburg. Grrr.
Not to be bitter, we grabbed the cases and headed to the warf where 10 minutes later we had to hand our cases over to the cruise personnel. But I just got that back! Nevertheless, we needed to get checked in and up to our cabin.
And so we were officially on holiday! The bags arrived, the drinks were procured, the safety drill (in 5 languages) endured and then dinner and an early bed.
Hopefully, we’ll have a good 8 hours of sleep and then adventures in Copenhagen. Stay tuned!
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