Hello...ehm Goodbye again - back to Tenerife

The night was short and after only 4,5 hours the alarm set for 6:30 started to ring. I felt like I hadn’t slept at all, and furthermore, I didn’t want to leave. But I didn’t have a choice, there was a flight at 11:30 waiting for me and when I looked out of the window I could see under the light of the lantern that it was still snowing outside. I got up and went to the kitchen, where Dad’s girlfriend was already preparing a small breakfast. My Dad was still sleeping, but his better half was already on the way to the bedroom to kick him out of bed and bring him into the shower. Sometimes it was very funny to see the two of them together – I always wished that I might find someone for a relationship like that in the future, too. But most of all, I was incredibly happy that my Dad had found somebody who takes care of him, who loves him, who makes him happy. He is one of the most important people in my life and sometimes I am just so afraid to lose him to early that I want to spend every minute with him. But that’s not possible, of course, even less when I am abroad.

So back to topic – everyone got ready quickly, I finished packing my suitcase and assured that I hadn’t forgotten anything, and we had a fast breakfast. Then we went outside to the car and had to free it from all the snow before we could put my things into it and start our way to Munich Airport. Usually, it was a way of about 1,5 hours, but with all the unexpected snow the last evening and during the night, we couldn’t know if there would be accidents or if we had to drive slowly because some streets weren’t cleaned yet. So we started at 7:15 and had more than two hours to get to the airport on time. In the beginning everything went great, we would have arrived much too early if it had continued like that. But about 45 minutes before Freising, the village where the airport is situated, suddenly there was a lot of traffic. The LED screens didn’t show anything about an accident, and in the radio they didn’t mention anything neither, so we didn’t know why everyone was driving with about 40 km/h. But then we saw it – there were three snowploughs driving at the highway, one in each line. And, of course, they were going quite slowly and you could not overtake them because they were blocking the whole street. So we had to drive behind them with 40 km/h and hope that they might leave the highway soon. But they didn’t. I don’t know if they were blind, mean or they didn’t care, but we were driving behind them at least 30 minutes. And there wasn’t even a lot of snow in fact, it had stopped to snow hours ago and it wasn’t that cold that everything would have stayed directly at the street or would be frozen. No, it was just a bit of snow. At this moment I was quite happy that we had decided to start our way earlier than planned the day before, because if we wouldn’t have done that I would have passed the whole time in the car stressed and afraid to miss the plane. Not that it would be a very very large catastrophe to miss that flight (not as big as it would have been to miss the flight from Tenerife to Germany) but I had to work the next day and I didn’t want to pay a fortune for another flight. Furthermore, flights between Munich and Tenerife South weren’t each day or several times a day, usually there were flights two or three times a week. So it was better to reach the airport on time and save a lot of money and stress.

Finally, the snowploughs left the highway and the traffic problem was solved. The rest of the way happened without any problems and so we arrived at the airport in Munich 2,5 hours before my flight. I was happy that we arrived in time, but I was even more sad because now it was the moment to say goodbye to my Dad and his girlfriend, and also to my short but incredible break in Germany. Even if some people might not understand how I can prefer cold and snowy Germany instead of Tenerife with beach, sun and 25 degrees – I can. It might sound like paradise when it’s always warm etc., but the most important thing in life are the people. With the right people I would love Tenerife more than anything else, I already saw that when my boyfriend came to visit me – I loved everything about that island as long as he was there. But right when he left and I felt alone again, there wasn’t anything (or hardly anything) left from the beauty I had seen the week before. Most of the people pass their holidays at places like that, and that’s what it’s supposed to be, because you spend your holidays with the people you love. That’s what makes it beautiful, not obligatorily the beach or the sun, even if that helps. But I would go back to that island, knowing that there is nobody waiting in my apartment for me, and that my friends, my family and my boyfriend are far away. That’s why it was so hard for me to say goodbye, because I knew that the last six week would pass by slowly. But I had to try to enjoy it – later on I was sure that I might wish to sit there at the beach and listen to the waves. So I had to do that as long as it was still possible.

But first, I had to say goodbye. I hugged my Dad, and then his girlfriend, thanked them for everything and they wished me all the best for the last six weeks on the island. We hurried up a bit, because the parking right next to the Terminal is very expensive and you have about 15 minutes for free. So they hugged me again and went back to the car. And there I was, alone again. I had problems to find the Check-In counter because nowhere on the monitors was written down Condor and on my ticket there was nothing as well, so I tried to find it myself for about 20 minutes before I finally decided to ask the Lady at the information. She told me that I was completely wrong here and showed me on a plan where I had to go. I went there, drank my water, and went directly to the security check – I had already checked in via Internet, and I needed a coffee, so I wanted to pass before, in order to relax the rest of the remaining 1,5 hours before my flight. As always with that much hand luggage it was stressful to pass the security check, because I had to unpack half of my things and pack them again. Furthermore, I had to hurry up because stressed people in front of me and behind me were looking at me as if they had just detected cocaine in my suitcase. Finally, I had passed the security check and as there was no real nice café in the gate area, I decided to drop the second breakfast and have a Bavarian lunch as last food in Germany. I ate some sausages with pretzel and bought some chocolate in a kiosk as dessert. It was not the best food I had ever had, but it was okay. The rest of the time I read my book and waited for the boarding gate to be displayed on the monitors, which should happen about 30 minutes before boarding. It was displayed on time (well, what can I say, we are in Germany), so I took all my things and sat down in front of the boarding exit. It was number two, so I had to walk through half of the airport before, because the security check is at about 30. When I got there it was full of people, but it was another flight. Furthermore I thought that it would be a large plane because we would fly to Gran Canaria first and then to Tenerife. So there were people to both destinations in that plane. After half an hour it was full in front of the exit, and a member of the staff was already there, but they didn’t open. Some of the older persons (there were almost only old people) started to get stressed because Germans (especially older ones) hate delays. Some went to the lady sitting at the counter and asked what was happening, but she just told them that there was a small delay.

In the end, the delay was about one hour because they had to free the airplane from ice and snow. I didn’t really understand why one could not look outside, see that there was snow, and start that process a bit earlier to avoid delays. But obviously the logistics at an airport were something very complicated and I didn’t understand that. The delay was divided into two phases – the first one, when we had to wait 30 minutes more for boarding, and the second one, when we were already in the plane, but had to wait because the plane was still freed from ice. But finally we started and we had a very nice pilot who explained every single thing to us. I relaxed and was very tired, so the first part of the flight I slept almost all the time. The other part I watched the board movie they played – something strange about a young guy who had some psychological problems and fell in love with a girl etc. When we landed in Gran Canaria, half of the guests left the plane and the pilot told us to stay in there – it would only be about 20 minutes, until the other guests who would fly back to Germany would have come to the plane and we had refilled the fuel. When they told us to remain seated and don’t move, it took much too long until finally the last person in the plane had understood that not moving was really not moving and especially not going to the toilet. I was just annoyed – I wanted to get home, go to my bed and sleep. In the end it took us about an hour because the Spanish weren’t able to bring some kind of papers on time, but finally we took off again. I became a bit stressed at this time, because it was Sunday and I didn’t know how the buses would go, and I didn’t want to miss the one I had chosen via Internet. The way from the Southern airport to Puerto de la Cruz in the north was already long enough and I was so incredibly tired.

After 25 more minutes in the air we landed in Tenerife – before we had an incredible view from the air at the island and I took some nice pictures. I was happy that I didn’t have any luggage to wait for, and left the plane and the airport quickly. I still had 25 minutes until the next bus would come, so I sat down in the sun and relaxed. I was hungry and thirsty, but before all, I was so tired. After a while the bus arrived and the people started to fight for a seat. Most of them were Germans, and there were many people, but anyway, I couldn’t understand such a behaviour. I stood in the queue – I wouldn’t put my suitcase in the storage of the bus because I would never ever find it again next to all those large bags and luggage. In the end (there were already many people in the bus) I got one of the last seats in there and had to take one for my luggage. When another man was in the bus the driver closed the doors (the others outside were shocked and quite upset) and we started our trip around half of the island. As that one man had to sit at exactly the place where I usually would have put my luggage I didn’t have a lot of space and it was very uncomfortable. But at least I was in the bus and would be at home soon. After a while I found out that the man next to me was German, too, because he just started to talk to me without any reason and he seemed to assume that I was German, too. But that was nothing new to me, in Puerto de la Cruz it was kind of normal that everyone talked German to me, even if they didn’t know where I came from. So we talked a bit about general things – what I was doing on the island, that he was from Stuttgart, but working in Gran Canaria and that his family went back to Germany after a while. He didn’t stop talking, asked about my studies etc. In the beginning it was nice because the bus drive is about 2 hours and I was happy to have some distraction, but after a while it became annoying and fortunately he started to talk to the British guy on his right side. His English wasn’t the best, but I tried to ignore that and looked out of the window. At the airport in the North of the island he finally left the bus and I only had about 30 minutes left until Puerto de la Cruz. I was already dreaming of my bed and something to eat when we finally arrived at my bus stop. Now I only had to walk down all the stairs and hat almost arrived. But before, I passed by McDonalds which was just one street away from my apartment because I was hungry and I didn’t want to cook anything this evening. In my apartment I just threw all my things into the corner, went to my bed, had my unhealthy fast food meal and watched some TV before I was too tired and fell asleep – with my clothes!

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