Confusing Post

Ok, I made an attempt to start a whole new blog but well, since I can barely maintain this one, it's just illogical to start another one. This blog will therefore be Danie's adventures both in the Phils and in DE with my own impressions of the first first world country I've been to.

Now, I'll delete the other one I already started and copy the 2 entries here and continue with the DE adventure narration here before I update more on Danielle.

And here's the first post from the other blog:

Literally the FIRST TIME IN GERMANY: An Overview

I have been staring at a blank screen for some 3-5 minutes reliving perhaps the sweetest 3 months in my life, so far. So why a different blog when I could just post the pictures and the whole Deutsch experience in Danielle's blog? The thing is, I would be blogging about MY impressions of Germany and not of my baby's who most probably couldn't care less as long as she is fed, carried, cleaned and loved. I wanted Karsten to help me blog about it since I obviously have a lot of catching up to do but as he so succinctly put it, "I couldn't possibly describe the fun when seeing someone pack their grocery goods at a supermarket." So now a whole new blog! ---NO LONGER APPLICABLE

So a quick recap:
Karsten invited Danie and I to spend some time in Germany and meet/get to know his side of the world. The Visa with the least fuss we could apply for was the Schengen Visa, basically a Tourist Visa allowing the owner to spend no more than 90 days in any of the 24 (?? I'm not sure of the current count but as of 2007, there were 24 of them) countries that are a part of it: Germany, Austria, Belgium, Czech Republic, Denmark, Estonia, Finland, France, Greece, Hungary, Iceland, Italy, Latvia, Lithuania, Luxembourg, Malta, the Netherlands, Norway, Poland, Portugal, Slovakia, Slovenia, Spain and Sweden have acceded to the Schengen Agreement and are thus Schengen states. Anyway, Danie being half German applied for a German Passport while I just applied for a Schengen Visa. My visa approval was dependent on Danie's Passport "approval" and since she "proved" that she is indeed that, my Visa followed suit some time early January 2008. So we left the Philippines on February 03, 2007 and came back on April 27, 2008. Waaayy to short for me, honestly.

Now on to the trip. For some reason I cannot remember why we choose Qatar Airways. Oh yes, we initially went for Emirates since price-wise and stop-over duration, it was the best option but the travel agency misspelled my name and so we were wait-listed on the Feb 03 flight and since I couldn't risk not booking a flight ahead of time I told them to look for another one for me that was in the same price neighborhood and on the same date, etc. The nearest match they gave me was Qatar Airways and I guess stupid me, I didn't ask for full details. I just gave a go-ahead and then after having booked and confirmed it, they dropped an oh-by-the-way-ma'am on me! AND TOLD ME THE STOP OVER WAS 12 HOURS IN DOHA, QATAR!!! And I no longer wanted to change anything because I already did the initial work of submitting the travel tax discount which I got all the way from Eco-village (a quite stressing place to go to if you don't have wheels, let's put it that way). And so I just thought, what the hell, bring it on. So now everything was more or less in place, I have the tickets, all I needed was to get there in one piece with a 8 month old baby, some huge luggage, the very important baby bag with the milk, water, diapers, etc., and my own bag! PIECE OF CAKE!

Let's start with the date of travel itself, February 03, 2008. I needed to take 3 flights to get Germany: CDO-Manila, Manila-Doha, Doha-Frankfurt. I booked the first flight out of CDO, 6:45 am, and, I missed my flight :-) The next one would be at 9:40 am, some P 1200 more expensive but ok, my fault anyway, I paid the excess and landed in Manila at around 11 am. So far so good, the stroller really helped since I was allowed to bring the stroller with me up to the very moment when I had to get in the plane which by then some people in charge of the luggage would get the stroller from me and store it somewhere in the plane and I could then retrieve it on the luggage area in Manila already.

In Manila, I waited for the Cebu Pacific bus that will take me to the International Airport for my 3pm flight, no rush, 3pm was still 4 hours away. So I got there in one piece, went through the motions of checking in the luggage and then looking for the gate to board my flight, all the while with a stroller and with Danie sleeping, perfect. Oh before that I got hungry so I looked for food that wasn't crazy expensive and I found a Chinese stall thingie (yes in the International Airport already, beside Duty Free) and bought the most expensive paper in my life, ok, I bought a 65 Peso siopao that tasted like paper! So on to my search for the boarding gate which I found easily enough except for the fact that the lift was broken and the gate was a floor below and I had to use the escalator which I don't know how to with a stroller. Some kind Thai Airways attendant helped me and all was good.

Now on the gate itself, I presented my boarding pass and the lady told me that I could only take the stroller as far as that point since they would have to wheel it away and store it somewhere else, I asked if I could use it till the very last minute before boarding since I really didn't want to carry Danie and the baby bag and my bag for some 30 minutes if I can avoid it. She agreed. I also explained to her the fact that I had a 12 hour stop over in Doha and asked where in Doha will I be able to get the stroller. And her reply nearly made me faint,

Filipina Qatar Airways employee: You can't use the stroller in Doha ma'am.
ME: WHAT?!?! WHAT DO YOU MEAN?!?!?!
Filipina Qatar Airways employee: We don't do short-tagging na kasi ma'am eh.
ME: WHAT?!?! WHAT DO YOU MEAN?!?!?!
Filipina Qatar Airways employee: We no longer take the luggage off the plane for the customers who have a connecting flight, we load them in automatically for the next flight.
ME: WHAT?!?! WHAT DO YOU MEAN?!?!?!
(a few minutes of silence)
ME: WHAT ARE MY OPTIONS?! I COULD NOT POSSIBLY CARRY THIS BABY WITH ME FOR 12 HOURS! (but now after all that I've been through, I can actually say that, yes, I CAN CARRY THE BABY FOR 12 HOURS, PIECE OF CAKE!)
Filipina Qatar Airways employee: There are strollers naman in Doha Airport ma'am, you can just borrow them for free.
ME: (A little relieved) Ok, that is good to know but miss can you please try to put a note in there, if it is possible in anyway at all to use my own stroller? I was assured that I can use it on the stop over...?
Filipina Qatar Airways employee: Ok ma'am, I'll put a note in here...

And well, a bit optimistic, I went on to wait until I was told to board first since I had a baby with me. The flight to Doha was uneventful except for her crying for 2 straight hours in the middle of the almost 9 hour flight. Nothing I couldn't handle.

In Doha, after 3 different and all incorrect counters pointed to me by perhaps clueless airport personnel, I finally found the office that was more or less in charge of "airport wheels": from wheelchairs to strollers. Yes, I was able to confirm to my utter dismay, that I couldn't get Danie's stroller and I had to make use with what the airport had, which was NOTHING! There was no stroller available so I carried Danie with me for 3 more hours till some one returned a stroller only to find out that it was a stroller for toddlers that can only allow a kid to sit down but what can I do, I had been carrying her for almost 15 hours now (almost the entire time from Manila to Doha since she didn't like the baby bassinet and some 2 hours in Doha airport and then the 3 hours waiting in that office for "airport wheels"). I braved it, I borrowed the stroller and had her sit down (she was sleeping while sitting down I felt so sorry for her and this was a time when she still couldn't sit on her own), until thank God, there was some other guy who returned a stroller that can be unfolded into a bed-like thing making the baby lie down. That I used until 7am the next day (we arrived in Doha around 7:30pm). So for the entire 12 hours there, Danie slept a lot but her waking hours were filled with her screaming because she had some trouble defecating. All wasn't bad in Doha. Let me tell you about the very nice Filipino employees in the airport, they really help you I am so proud to say. One guy who worked in that strollers office was so nice to me and gave me a voucher for free dinner in the airport food court. He also helped me with all my bags while I was waiting for an available stroller. He accompanied me to the Quiet Room and waited with me until a space freed up for me to use but after a mere 15 min in the room, Danie cried again, thus waking up tired travelers also waiting for a connecting flight. So I went back to the strollers room until I availed of the suitable enough stroller. With it, I took the sleeping Danie to the food court and used the voucher the Filipino gave me. There were also a lot of Filipino employees in the food court and they were very nice as well, making me choose more than 1 viand (1 is only allowed for the voucher) and even telling me to just have it refilled should I want more. And I was really touched, char. But seriously, it's this amazing ability of Filipinos to show they care that really makes me view indifferent Germans with scorn but on to that later. So this is already a very long paragraph.

On to a new paragraph, hehe, let's talk about the weather. No, not of Germany, I expected it to be cold. The weather in Qatar when we landed: IT WAS COLD!!! After going down some 12 steps of stairs off the plane into a waiting bus some 3 steps away from the bottom stair, I WAS FREEZING! I didn't bring anything warm with me since Karsten told me that he'd the one to bring me a jacket in Frankfurt and I certainly didn't expect Qatar to be cold! Qatar = desert! Ok, so I knew about extremes in the desert but still, it's different when the cold hits you in the face. Good thing I had some coats for Danie.

Now on to the last leg of the trip before we'd arrive in Germany. The connecting flight would take 7 hours only and since Danie did not have a good sleep while in Doha Airport, she slept for 4 straight hours in the plane so I was able to out her in the baby bassinet and slept also for some 3 hours. She was in a good mood when she woke up, and the rest of the flight was uneventful. That is until I had to pee and so I called a stewardess to please look after Danie who was in the bassinet enjoying some toy. Since I had a baby with me, I was assigned to a nice seating area with a roomy leg room for the baby bassinet, the toilet however in this plane was situated at the very back of the plane, some 30 or maybe more rows away. So my peeing was uneventful. I went back to a smiling Danie who made motions of wanting to be carried. I thanked the stewardess and carried Danie. This was 30 minutes left in the flight, 30 minutes before landing. In less than 2 minutes after taking her off the bassinet, Danie puked all over me. ALL OVER ME. From the neck of the turtleneck I wore to the knee portion of my jeans, I was covered in puke. Now we have already established before hand that I didn't bring any extra clothes for me so there I was, after 8 hellish months of not seeing the love of my life, I would finally hug him and kiss him just like I've always daydreamed I would MINUS THE VOMIT I WAS SPLATTERED WITH. Sigh.

So yeah, we got the Frankfurt Airport, I found my luggage after twice asking some stranger to lift bags that weren't mine, hehe. I found the stroller too. I found Karsten. Yes the kiss was mind blowing. Danie was cranky. It felt nice to fall into his arms... too bad for him, I stank.