Camping in the Snow

Author's Note:  This story is based on a combination of real events and a roll of the 'story cubes'. The truth is in there but some aspects might just be fictional.

I’d been in the queue for the best part of 3 hours and I had finally reached the front; not being seen to yet  but I would be next.

As soon as they had announced we wouldn’t take off until 7pm from Zagreb, I knew I would be spending the night in Munich. My connecting flight to Prague was due to leave at 7.30 and there was no way I could make it. My only hope was that the Prague flight would be delayed too but I didn’t hold out much hope. I was resigned to the fact that I’d be wearing the same clothes for two days. I just hoped that the airline would find me a nice comfortable hotel and a place on a flight the next day.

The lady in front of me was having a panic attack, calling the cabin staff over every few minutes to ask if they could make sure she got on a flight to London. The cabin staff were patient and kind but were completely unable to help. I couldn’t work out if the woman was genuinely mentally disturbed or just hamming it up in the hope she’d get special treatment, whatever it was, there was nothing anyone could do.

When we landed in Munich it was pretty obvious why the airport had been shut. The whole place was covered in a deep layer of snow eerily lit by the orange streetlights. Snowploughs and gritters plied their trade but the blizzard was still raging - making it seem unlikely that the walking panic attack in front of me would ever get on her flight to London.

I switched on my mobile long before it was ‘safe’ to do so. A message was waiting; the flight to Prague had taken off only ten minutes before we had landed. Sod’s law, how many hours have I been delayed over the last year? 

Panic attack woman was out of her seat before the plane had stopped. I’m not sure what good this did her. She was standing by the door for 5 minutes before it opened and then was first on the bus to the terminal; the bus that didn’t leave until the last person got off the plane both times the extra wait did nothing for her blood pressure. By contrast I was fairly relaxed now… flight already gone, nothing I could do. I meandered through the airport looking for the service counter. I found it and found the queue. For some reason the size of the queue surprised me. I‘d been expecting to just waltz up to the counter and get everything sorted. But the airport had been shut for 2 hours so the line snaked its way through the airport for about 300 metres. I joined the back of it and started the long, long wait. We moved like a tortoise on a go-slow; after an hour I had maybe made 50 metres, still 250 or so to go.

I was finally called forward. I think it is always nice to try to put yourself in the shoes of other people in situations like this. I might have been tired with achy feet but the poor girl who was now helping me had had the same conversation with about 100 people before me. The last thing she needed was a contrary Welshman.

‘How’s your day been?’ I asked with a smile as I approached the counter. She smiled wearily back at me.

‘We can put you on a flight tomorrow morning at 8am’ she said.

‘Any chance of business class?’

‘No!’ she said with a smile,

‘And tonight, what happens now.’ I asked.

‘Well, you are one of the cheeky ones, so tonight you sleep in a tent.’ she smiled again and I smiled back, thinking anyone who says Germans don’t have a sense of humour is lying.

I left the desk clutching my new boarding card, a taxi pass and a hotel voucher. It was nearly midnight and finally I was getting somewhere.

The taxi ride was scary; the snow was deep but the driver drove like it was a fine summer’s day. Luckily it wasn’t long before we pulled into the Bumble Bee Lodge.

The place didn’t look like a hotel - surely the taxi driver had made a mistake.  The reception was a low-slung building about the size of a public loo.

‘Yes welcome’ said the receptionist. ‘Let me show you to your accommodation.’ We walked down a long path into a wooded area. The path had been carefully clearly of snow not long before. In front of me out of the darkness was a white blob.

‘Your yurt sir.’ he said.

‘My what now?’

‘Yurt sir, a Mongolian tent.’

The woman at the airport had not been joking, I really was sleeping in a tent.

I must admit for the first time in the day I was a little pissed off. I’d survived the delays, the missed connections, the queues but a bloody tent? In the snow? Were they taking the piss? I was ready to call a taxi and get him to take me to a proper hotel, put it all on my credit card and sort it out later. But then the receptionist opened the door for me and let me in. My mood changed immediately. It was incredible. It might have looked like a wigwam from the outside, but inside it was like a 4 star hotel. A small stove in the middle of the room had a roaring fire going and a kettle coming to the boil. The bed was huge and there was even a shower!

‘I hope you’ll be comfortable sir.’ said the man with a little bow as he retreated back up the path.

‘I’m sure I will,’ I said with a smile, ‘and I’ll have a great story to tell.’ I said to myself. ‘Who else can say they’ve been camping in the snow?’