I didn't possibly think we were lucky enough but I entertained the thought and excitedly turned to Bri.
"What if we do?! It would be my second chance and we could do a tour of the city, see the canals, go to a smoke shop..." I drifted off in my fantasy of what it would be like to return to a city I didn't really let myself explore the first time.
Bri wasn't on the make-believe train and didn't want to jinx anything. I was doing enough for the both of us. We chattered on about our time at Oktoberfest with one of the other girls in our tour group while Ingo chatted with our driver.
We pulled up to the airport, grabbed our bags and went on our way to pick up our tickets. There was no mention of a delay or problems with out flight and my excitement faded into sadness. Our trip was really over.
The security line was a breeze and we passed through without incident. They didn't even check our passports, which I found a little odd.
Two hours left to go. Bri grabbed a last German meal of fastfood schnitzel and potato wedges and I played on my phone near the weird hallway terminal. Some time passed by and we decided to walk down the hallway.
16:40. I did a double take at the monitor. I don't speak nor read German, but I was pretty sure the alternate time was our new flight time. We were due to leave Munich at 14:00. I approached the flight attendant and asked her if our Atlanta flight was still due to leave on time. It was. Clearly, we were not making our flight to Atlanta.
The hours ticked by and the thought of us actually getting stuck in Amsterdam hit me. What were we going to do? How would we book a flight home? Where would we stay? How would we get there? What do we tell work? They're going to kill us. In all of my years of flying and traveling, I have never missed a travel connection, and this trip, it happened twice.
Finally, it was time to board the flight. It's a short and painless flight and once we land, the attendants direct us to go to T6 in the connections hall for flight rebookings. We made the several mile hike, it seemed, across the airport.
The music you hear in horror movies began playing in my head as we approached a seemingly endless line of disgruntled people. We groaned and reluctantly began trudging our way towards the end of the makeshift line of luggage carts and caution tape.
Once we got the the end, it didn't take long for an attendant to come up to us with an offering of water.
"There are no more flights to the US today and this line closes at 11. You should go to the arrivals hall, get a hotel voucher, get some rest and call the customer service line in the morning to rebook your flight."
The couple in front of us advised against it, as the line was just as bad. But Bri and I shared a look, thanked the couple and moved on to find the line.
"Oh my god, Bri, IT'S HAPPENING!!"
The couple was right and the line was atrocious. Ingo had told us earlier to contact EF with any issues and Bri took control and called them as soon as we got in line. Everything seemed to be going right for us. Since Bri had got the travel insurance with the tour company, it would cover us booking a hotel. After 45 minutes of calls and waiting in the several hour hotel voucher line, we booked our hotel, and cautiously stepped out of our place in line, hoping we didn't just make a mistake.
As we waited for our hotel van to pick us up, Bri gave the customer service line a call to see if we could go ahead and settle up our flights. By the time we made it to the hotel, the representative finally had options for us.
"So, a night here in Amsterdam, a night in Paris and home on Wednesday? That won't work."
That did not seem appealing. My emotions were going through a whirlwind of emotions and then suddenly, everything stopped.
"Two nights in Amsterdam and fly directly into Myrtle Beach? We want that one!"
