20 Years: First Flight

It is 20 years since my first, solo plane trip. I was a teenager and flew from Europe to North America and had a lot of issues and problems along the way:  I  had worked Summer Hire at the Post Office on base  I used that money and bought a plane ticket to visit a friend I had known back in New York – after my mom spoke to my friend’s mom on the phone. They lived in Plattsburgh, NY (right on the Canadian border) and so I flew from Frankfurt to Montreal. My friend’s family was then supposed to pick me up at the Montreal Airport.  The flight over to Montreal was fine. I went through Canadian Immigration (I wasn’t a Canadian citizen back then) and waited for my friend and her family. A few hours later I used a pay phone  - most people didn’t have a cell phone back then – and my friend answered. She put her mom on the phone and her mom thought it was a joke – even though all the plans had been discussed between her and my mom. She reluctantly agreed to drive to the airport to get me. Needless, to say I was not very welcomed at their house. My friend refused to talk to me  - because she got in trouble from her parents since I was there  - and so her younger brother hung out with me as did the pig they allowed to run through their house. After a day I decided I’d had enough and called my Great-Aunt who lived several hours away. I decided to take the bus there and spend the rest of my trip with people who weren’t ignoring me. I told my friend and her family my plans and they didn’t even offer to drive me to the bus stop so I took a taxi. The rest of my trip was fine  - until I had to go home. Since I was scheduled to fly out of Montreal and not Albany I had to buy a ticket from Albany to JFK and then to Montreal. I had a 10 hour layover in Montreal before my direct flight to Frankfurt. There were some mechanical problems with the Air France plane I was supposed to take and so I was bumped off that flight and put on one to Amsterdam – and was given no food or hotel vouchers since I was “only a minor” - - of course now I know my rights. The flight to Amsterdam was fine and I made it onto my connecting flight to Frankfurt.  The plane took off and a few minutes later we made an emergency landing because one of the engines caught fire. We had to evacuate the plane by jumping on those door-ladder chutes. Back in the terminal I was rebooked on a later flight. Since I was a minor the KLM crew decided I should stay in the children’s waiting room where I watched “Aladdin.” I asked them to let Frankfurt Airport know about me and to make an announcement to my parents – who were already at the airport waiting for the first flight.  Hours later (well a day later with the first plane trouble back in Montreal) I arrived in Frankfurt. My parents hadn’t been told anything and had waited there the whole time. As you would expect my bags were lost (probably in Montreal or maybe from the emergency in Amsterdam.) Two days later my bags arrived. I had just enough time to wash everything and repack it for our Emergency Leave military flight back to New York – because the Red Cross said my Grandfather was dying. We flew on a large military cargo plane with no movies and that was very cold and noisy. After a week my Grandfather was still holding on and school had just started back in Germany so my mother stayed in the States while we took another military cargo plane back to Germany where I started 9th grade in Wiesbaden a few weeks late.  As you can see, it was a very interesting trip (or trips.)