Flying home for Christmas

The next day it was finally the 25th of December! As it was a national holiday buses were driving like on Sundays - something quite annoying, because the only bus that wasn't going that day was the one I would have liked to take. So I had to go 2 hours earlier and couldn't miss that bus because the other one, 4 hours later, would be much too late. But as I am quite German I had planned everything more than it would have been required, so everything should be allright.

As my bus would be at 12pm, I could stay in bed for breakfast and relax a bit. I had packed everything, cleaned almost everything and there was nothing more to do before I would leave the house. I would have preferred to have my flight in the morning or around noon, because I was so excited to go home that time was passing by so slowly, as always. But as there was something interesting in TV, I managed to wait until 11am. Then, I just had to take all my things and leave the appartment. It was incredibly warm outside and everything was closed, even the shops that were opened every sunday - I wouldn't have imagined that the 25th of December would be such an important day in Tenerife, the kids don't even receive their presents that day, they have to wait until the 6th of January. But fortunately, I didn't need anything because I had bought everything the day before. So I went to the bus station - 20 minutes away from my house, I was sweating so much because of the temperature and all the luggage I had to carry. When I arrived the bus station was incredibly empty, but I imagined that nobody wanted to travel on christmas, so I just waited at the platform where my bus would arrive. And I waited. And waited. At 12:05 there was still no bus, and usually they were quite on time. So I went to the information counter (which was opened fortunately) and asked about the bus. The woman explained to me that there was no bus at 12pm, it had been there at 11:30pm. I was shocked - I had read the plan in a wrong way! I was a bit desperate, because I couldn't wait for the next bus, it would be in 4 hours... so she told me that I could take a bus to Santa Cruz, change it, and take another bus there to the airport. As I didn't have a choice, I waited 15 more minutes for the next bus to Santa Cruz and was so angry about myself. I had never missed a bus and that one had been really important! I just hoped that I wouldn't miss my flight - I didn't even want to imagine what I would do if I couldn't get to Germany for Christmas. My energy reserves were empty and I had to recover a bit with my family and friends.

So I was afraid to arrive too late the whole two bus drives - as it was a national holiday and there were not too many buses, there were a lot of people waiting at almost every bus station on our way. I was quite annoyed by that because it took a lot of time to stop, let people enter and pay their tickets, and get back to the highway again. But the bus driver had told me that we would arrive on time because there wasn't so much traffic on the road, so I tried to relax a bit. Finally, I could already see the airport and started to cool down a bit. I still had about 2 hours - even enough time to have something to eat at Burger King. So I left the bus with all my luggage, entered the airport and went directly to the fast food restaurant - I needed some sugar to fully relax and gain some more strength. Now, I knew that there was nothing that could go wrong about my flight - at least nothing that I could change. So I had my food, left Burger King and went to the Check-in counter. I was a bit afraid that they would control the weight of my suitcase (which was much too heavy) and make me pay money. But everything was allright, I had my seat and could continue to the security check. That was another problem - with laptop, liquids, eBook and a lot of other stuff it was quite complicated and annoying because it took a lot of time to unpack everything and to pack it again afterwards. But everything went good here as well, and so I had one hour left to get something to drink again and wait for boarding.

I got a bottle of water out of a machine and bought a magazine in a small shop. Then, I sat down and waited half an hour until they would reveal the Boarding Gate and I knew where to go. When I finally stood there with all my luggage, a man came to me and asked me to fill in a survey about my stay in Tenerife. The questions were all focused on holidays, so I couldn't really answer them honestly after 5 months there. When he came back he had a short look and was surprised by my answer that I had stayed there for 102 nights. I explained it to him in Spanish and he laughed, and told me to "correct" it a bit, because he was looking for tourists. He was fascinated about my Spanish skills, so we talked a bit about my job in Tenerife and other Canary Islands. When he had to leave, he gave me a "Canaryislands" pen as present because I had been such a sympatic person - finally something positive about that day! 10 minutes later it was already time for boarding and because I didn't sit, I was one of the first ones to enter the plane. I was so excited about coming home that I couldn't even sleep during the flight. Everything I did was thinking about the 10 days in Germany, what I would do, who I would meet etc.

After 4, 5 hours we finally arrived at German ground. I was sitting quite in front of the airplane, so I could get out of it early. Another positive aspect about that flight was that I didn't have any luggage to attend, I just had my cabin luggage, so I could go directly to the exit. I saw my Mum and fell into her arms - usually I'm not that emotional about goodbyes and hellos, but after that horrible month I was so incredibly happy to see her and to be in Germany for some days. It was already 10:30pm, so we went to the car and returned to her appartment, which took us about 1, 5 hours. At home, she had something to eat for me - one of my favorite dishes, and after a quick shower I went to bed - I was so tired, but also happy to finally be at home. Even if I wasn't living with my mum for about 4 years, in this moment it was home for me.

Photo gallery