To paraphrase Bob Dylan! We’re headed to a rather remote part of Germany to begin the first hike of our trip. We caught a flight to Munich out of Florence on Lufthansa. Got to Munich, and waited at the luggage carousel. And waited. And waited. The high tech screen kept saying our flight’s luggage was in process. Then it said the luggage was arriving. Only one or two bags would come out at a time. Finally, after an hour and a quarter, the high tech display said our luggage had all been delivered. WRONG!
At this point, we split up (not something we ever do!). Leslie Ruth knows at least five times as much German as Karl (that would be about 25 words to Karl’s 5; of course one of the words they both know is Leslie Ruth’s name), so she went off in search of the lost luggage office.
Twenty minutes later she returned and reported that our packs had not left Florence! We went to the lost baggage office to make a claim.
It was like deja vu all over again. We expected a Germanic, highly organized, high tech operation. What we got made us think we were back in Italy at the Post Office. There were three Clerks, none of whom seemed to make any progress; the line did not move.
Actually, there was a little movement and we finally got to talk to the Lufthansa lady. She made us fill out a form of some length, took down more information, and entered it into her high tech computer. She then found that the computer had crashed. She went to another terminal, entered the data, and returned with a form that described our bags incorrectly. We got that straightened out and she said she would try to get our bags delivered to our hotel.
At the hotel, we explained the problem to the front desk, explaining that Lufthansa should be delivering some bags. We asked them to be sure they went to our room, and not Edward’s (who was en route from California, arriving at about midnight, and knew nothing about any of this).They entered this into their high tech computer and we went out and studied German wines at a local wine bar.
Back at the hotel, no bags, so we went to sleep.
This morning, Edward reported that he had had a weird call from Lufthansa saying his bags would be delivered. He thanked them but explained he hadn’t flown Lufthansa, and he had all his bags.
We called Lufthansa and asked why they had not called our European phone number, which we had provided, or at least asked if they were talking to one of us. They said the hotel had put them through to Edward.
They assured us that the bags would be delivered tomorrow. At this point, Leslie Ruth became, shall we say, rather firm. When the dust settled, Lufthansa said they would call Air Dolomiti and discuss sending the bags on a taxi.
They called back to report the bags would be taxi’d to us. Before we could finish celebrating, they called again to ask if we were missing both bags!
We said yes. They seemed to have Leslie Ruth’s bag but not Karl’s. They had a wrong description for Karl’s bag, which we straightened out. They said they would go “downstairs”, look for it, and call back.
As we write this, forty minutes later, we are still waiting for a call. Our train leaves in about two and a half hours. Our stereotype of Germans as highly efficient, high tech, people has been shattered! We long to be dealing with the Italian postal system where we at least understand the language!
Oh! Mama! Can this really be the end?
To be stuck in Munich with the Memphis blues again.
ITALY, GERMANY, AND MORE! 