Second blog; First Overseas Business Trip
I have blogged about this trip before. If you want to go back and get more of this story check out the archives.
I was in this line and it wasn’t moving and my flight was to leave in 10 minutes. I budge to the front of the line with many very bad looks sent my way. The counter lady said get back in the line the flight to Frankfurt is delayed three hours.
I retreated to my old place and found out that the rest were also waiting for this plane. The lined finally started to move and we were on the plane in a little over two hours. The schedule to make connections in Frankfurt was still possible. We started to taxi away from the terminal. Well back them there was no cells phones and we sat on the approach for over an hour now my flight probable would be missed.
The attendant told me that when we were at cruising altitude she would try to help me. This was new world for me, my first overseas trip; many passengers were upset about the delays making the situation tense.
We made arrangements to be put up in a hotel paid by the airline. The rest of the flight would be figured out by the time we arrive was the plan. When we started to descend I was told that there were no flights to Tunis for a week. I was also told they could not do anything more for me but pay for the hotel. I was told to come back to the airport tomorrow AM and talk to the ticket agent.
I did sleep but not very well. The building owner in Tunis was scheduled to meet me this AM and I was still in Frankfurt. The hotel allowed me to send telegrams to my company in Luverne, MN and to the building owner in Tunis. I wasn’t told that these messages would not be delivered for 24 hours. I made arrangements to go to Paris to get a flight to Tunis. When arriving in Paris I found out that the airport I was landing at wasn’t the airport I was leaving from. I didn’t speak any German in Frankfurt and I was not able to speak French in Paris either. I did get from one airport to another and they held the plane for me so now I was feeling things were back on track.
I arrived at Tunis and headed down the ramp wide eyed and hoping nothing else was going to go wrong. Well things got real interesting very fast as I entered the airport. Two policemen escorted me to a holding area right away. I was put into a room and one of the policemen stayed with me. My bags were brought in and opened in front of me and everything was laid out on the table and then I was padded down by another officer.
I didn’t speak Arabic so I was at a loss as to what situation I was in. They indicated I needed to put things back in my suitcase. When I finished they escorted me out of the airport and one policeman stayed very close. Nobody approached me as I walked back and forth in front of the airport for over two hours. I finally showed an address to a cab driver and paid him some money and we started driving. Well I finally made enough commotion so he stopped and I got out as he didn’t seem able to find the address. A policeman stopped within minutes of me getting out of the taxi. I was either very lucky or I was being followed. I gave the policeman the same address and he took me to a hotel on the Mediterranean and we went in and he showed the address to the clerk and she was the daughter of the person I was to see and they had me staying at this very hotel. The family came to see me and it was figured out that they had walked the airport the day before for two – three hours looking for me. The telegram showed up two days later telling of my flight problems.
This is the second blog of First Serious Overseas Business Trip with more to follow of this interesting trip. My next blog will be about the work I had to do. The fourth blog of this story will be about the living experience I had in the desert heat on the Mediterranean.
Written by Conrad Larson for www.loveforbookwriting.com and www.myovercoat.com My tweeter name is Boomertweet
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