We picked Stuttgart Airport for our return journey because it’s closer to Pforzheim than Frankfurt and because flights back to Dublin leave earlier. Today we got a lift by car to Stuttgart. Smooth journey and we arrived there 3 hours early.
10 minutes later check-in opened and we were told that the flight was cancelled. They didn’t know why. They offered a hotel, dinner and breakfast. But we needed to get home.
Ryanair later in the evening but quite expensive. Or rebooking with Aer Lingus and flying back from Frankfurt.
So. S-Bahn from the airport to the Hauptbahnhof. If you have ever been in Stuttgart Hauptbahnhof then you know what expected us. If you don’t know the station: it’s a bit like the new airport in Berlin, only that it is open.
Onto a train to Frankfurt Airport. A bus to terminal 2 where checkin opened as we arrived.
Terrible discussions about getting the seats we had booked previously in row 1. We wanted them because there’s more room for 6’7″ Pádraig . The man at the checkin didn’t want to give it to us for reasons I don’t understand. Eventually, he allowed Pádraig to sit by himself in a window seat in row one, kept the middle seat free, and put us in the two aisle seats of row one. Mmhhh…
And then: an hour and a half delay.
We’re sitting in a mobility lounge. And wait.
We left Pforzheim at around noon and at the moment it looks as if we might get back to Dublin just before midnight.
What a journey….
Padraig and Reinhard
By now you must be home. The photos make your journey so real for someone over here in Dublin Ireland who can scarcely make her way out of a paper bag. It was location in place and time that I lost so I can easily work around my pre-accident City of Dublin but thereafter is chaos so hence no holidays for years now just that same routine day in day our using the Twitter to upload memory content.
I admire you Reinhard because you are breaking boundaries and creating the opportunities needed for Padraig. KT did this for me. Lots of books to read, writing, twittering, walks, coffees, chats with people which I found very difficult but if KT is with me I can just listen and bit by bit I gained confidence to engage in conversation, and also friends got to know me too.
Padraig lovely to see you smile.
You will be able to write your own blog soon and Ireland will benefit from your experience of neuro-rehab in Germany. Shared experiences are very important – it is like that capillary action you learn about when you first start biology, science.
Hope the weather keeps fine.
Michelle Kevin and Freddie