Christmas and the start of 2011

After sharing my wonderful airport adventures I thought I should write a post to let you know the end of the story.......I did manage to fly out of France the next afternoon, wait a few hours in a Paris that was experiencing pouring rain. The flight to Munich finally left coming in only a "few hours" late around midnight. I waited patiently for my roller duffel bag to be regurgitated from the depths of the airport belly onto the luggage belt only to see it was a different colour! WHAT??? Yes, it was a 'dark' brown instead of its light latte. The whole bag was SOAKING wet. I mean SOAKING. Like the whole bag had been dropped into a swimming pool. All my Christmas presents were a mush and my clothes 2 inches up from the bottom wet. Wet wet wet.......all through. By now I really had lost my sense of humour and the woman at the counter told me to contact Air France.
Now, unless you have dealt with Air France before, you would not know that doing that would basically be a fruitless exercise. You would actually have more success picking the fleas off a wild camel. Their emails tend to get lost in cyber space and when you ring them about your problem their phones get cut off or you are advised that you rang the incorrect department only to be put on hold long enough to wash the car and cut your toe nails and finally get cut off once again. I scowled at her advice using some language unknown to man!

With renewed vigor I strutted outside to hail a taxi where a VERY friendly Turkish man drove me to my parents house using a road only used by the early settlers. I kept informing him there was a shorter route and he kept telling me he knew it. So after two days of exhilarating travel the lovely Turkish man ripped me off blind to the tune of some 40euros extra and because his meter told us the amount I paid it and got out only to find my parents sound asleep. I actually laughed at the idea of spending the night (it was now after 1am) sleeping on my soaked bag outside their front door in the snow and being found totally frozen dead the next day. I managed to squeeze my face sideways into the letterbox slot next to the door and yodel profusely until my darling Margret heard me and let me in. Ah! The utter joys of travel....

Did I mention we had a terrific Christmas in Munich with Becky and AJ who had managed to escape London as planned the day before? The 3 of us bolted the next day to purchase Christmas food, a tree and a host of decorations. Dad and Margret were happy at our enthusiasm and supported us with copious bottles of bubbly and wine. Bec and I managed to squeeze in a visit to the famous Christchild's market in Munich where it snowed making the whole experience totally magic.
We spent another day driving down to "that" most famous castle in southern Bavaria Neuschwanstein! A work of incredible architecture and utter extravagance. After that we headed to Austria for a super NYE watching and listening to the fireworks going off throughout the alps surrounding us. It IS awesome! All three of us worked like Trojans clearing our mountain road to the house with AJ valiantly steering the Toro to clear the long path for my Dad's car!


We skied for a few days after that but it just wasn't my ski year........after one fabulous afternoon of "blue sky" skiing and keeping up with them both, they led me home over "powder snow" meadows and a bit of forest thinking I would be fine as I had skied so well. Not to be! Having only ever skied groomed "runs" the powder was thick and buried my skis. On some turn I tumbled rather heavily losing EVERYTHING. I think it may have been a somersault that would have had Cirque Du Soleil offering me a job but twisting my ol' knees rendered me rather helpless for a while. I am still limping with pain going up or down stairs.........the circus job offer hasn't arrived yet.......I am waiting!

Hope everyone had a wonderful Christmas with loved ones and an even better New Year's. May 2011 bring everything and everyone you dream of.
I'm crossing my fingers! XXXX