The Flight Saga
Prague Blog - post two
October 13, 2023
Everyone has travel horror stories and when I moved abroad for the first time, my trip was no different. As mentioned in post one, I was late to my first flight, but there’s much more to the story. When my family, friends, and I arrived at the airport, I wanted to check-in my two suitcases before the pictures and goodbyes began. Surprise, surprise: the bags were extremely overweight. Apparently, moving your entire life abroad requires a lot of things. So, in the middle of my tiny local airport, I unpacked my bags. The attendant working the counter complimented my detailed packing, while my dad puzzled over the two big bottles of Aveeno lotion I was bringing. The process resulted in my inability to discard many of my items, so we bit an expensive bullet, and the overweight bags were thrown into the plane’s undercarriage. Long story short, I was late for my one-hour flight to LAX, a ridiculous way to start the 19+ hour journey to my new home in Prague.
Upon arriving at LAX I found the nearest attendant to show me the proper direction for my next flight, hoping I wouldn’t get lost in the big city airport. As I’d feared, I got lost…very lost. I took a shuttle with my two giant suitcases, one hiking bag that I brought as a carry-on, and another tiny bag that acted as my personal bag from one terminal to the next. I expected to be heading in the right direction; of course, I was not. Somehow I ended up on a bus that took me outside (!!!) airport grounds. I had to wait 30 minutes for the next bus to pick me up again and trying to hold my suitcases together on the ride back was truly treacherous. I can just imagine what I must’ve looked like: picture a kindergartener walking to school with a backpack four sizes too big dragging behind them…tragic. As I tried to focus on getting to my gate in the four-hour window I had between flights, I sat on the bus staring in a daze. It was my first time moving from home, my first time flying across the ocean by myself, and my first time managing that many bags! It was a lot. After hours of walking, wandering aimlessly for miles, I finally found my gate…right where I’d originally started my journey (classic). I checked my bags in, again paid a fee because once wasn’t enough, and got to my gate just in time for boarding. And this is where the story really goes awry…I had no concept for how it could have gotten worse, but it both could and definitely did.
Making it on board the plane with my suitcases safely checked-in was a victory. I settled into my seat, threw on my headphones, and prepared myself for the gymnastics my stomach was about to go through. After four hours of sitting on the tarmac getting ready to leave, the plane moved back into the terminal with no sign of takeoff. The entire plane flying from LAX to Chicago sighed, knowing they weren’t going to make their precious connecting flights. We sat there collectively aggravated for hours, every minute draining more life from each of us, but once the flight finally took off it was smooth. Upon landing in Chicago though, the hellscape that greeted us was terrifying. When we landed at 12 a.m. the airport wasn’t deserted like I’d expected. Apparently, three other flights had been canceled, so 100’s of people were forced to stand in line for hours where one desk holding two attendants slowly rescheduled each of our individual flights. It was painful to say the least. By three a.m., the day of flying, stress, and minimal sleep hit me like a truck, making the line incredibly arduous to get through. There were no hotels left, but the attendant and I found camaraderie in the ridiculousness of the reality we were in, making the whole experience a little easier to digest. He rescheduled my flight, now headed to Frankfurt instead of Munich, and told me to re-check-in my bags in the morning. That night with hunger pangs wrecking my sleep-deprived body I curled up on an empty chair, wrapped my arms around my bags to ensure their whereabouts for the approaching morning, and slept for two hours preparing for day two of my trip to begin. Although it had been a mess of a night, I was hopeful, trusting that everything would get better once I entered European airspace.
The morning came quickly with a 5 a.m. wake-up. I immediately walked below the airport to retrieve my bags from baggage claim and brought them to the front of the airport to re-check them in as the attendant the prior night instructed me to do. Yet again, I had to pay the overweight fees and eventually go through security. The woman at the front desk, nice as she was, told me I didn’t have to take my bags out at all, that what I’d just done was useless and problematic, and apologized for her overtired colleague from the night before who definitely got an earful from his mistake. I made it through customs, got an expensive airport breakfast, and waited for my flight to board. During this overnight portion of my trip, from Chicago to Frankfurt, I slept any chance I could, waking only if uncomfortable or jostled, which was the majority of the flight. Thankfully, the spaciousness of the plane, flight attendants, food, and entertainment were great, giving me hope that my predictions of positive European air were correct. I landed in Frankfurt, waited a couple of hours for my next flight, and took my final one-hour flight to Prague, my new home.
The nice thing about slip-ups and mistakes occurring when moving abroad is they distract you from the truly insane decision you made to move abroad. Prague was not a place I’d been to before, I didn’t know the language they spoke, the food of the area, the culture, or anyone in the city…I was quite literally flying blind. All of the feelings I’d been distracted from were rushed into my reality when I landed at Prague airport and the officials and even policemen didn’t speak English. Growing up in the United States many people, including myself, learn only English, the language that applies to everyday life, so showing up to my new “home” with no prior knowledge of the area and realizing I couldn’t communicate with most people was a harsh, but necessary wake-up call, and highlighted my glaring naivety. The cherry on top came when a text enlightened me to the reality that my checked bags, which contained the vital contents of my life, were still in Chicago and would be arriving in three days. After grieving the reality of not knowing if I’d ever see my things again, I took an Uber to Prague 7, where my student housing accommodations resided in a more residential area of Prague as seen in the photos below. The constant filth of the student housing building, the separation from Prague’s center, and the following school semester were the most challenging, ego-destroying, and redefining moments of my life, but that’s a story for another time.
This entire experience was extremely important for my growth. Even in the middle of the Chicago airport nightmare, I felt this truth. I called my dad during that crazy night and told him how much hope and trust I had. I knew it was all important and necessary. Looking back, I needed to go through all of it to learn my way through traveling, to grow as an adult, and to learn how far positivity, trust, and hope will get you. When I made it to my student housing with no friends, knowledge of the area, or way of getting around, I felt so proud and excited to explore. I had made it safely, I worked the problems, and I knew from then on that I could travel anywhere. The whole world was officially open to me and I trusted myself more than ever before.
