Lost Baggage and Stress

"I'm just happy everything has went so smoothly so far."  I said this in my last post, and I'm sad to say that everything has NOT gone smoothly.  Unfortunately, our flight from Atlanta to Paris was was late getting in, and its departure was delayed for about an hour.  This gave us 30 minutes to navigate the massive Charles de Gaulle airport in Paris, and our terminal was on the opposite side of the airport.  Once we arrived at Charles de Gaulle we had to get through security an additional two times, where they gave me a complete pat down, and then we had to get our passports stamped and then proceed to the shuttle to take us to our terminal.  Needless to say we missed our flight to Prague.  We then had to talk with an airport assistance lady and she booked us our flight to Prague free of charge since it was Delta's fault for us missing our flight. We also got to sit together which was a lot better than being scattered throughout the plane.  She also gave us free meal vouchers for up to 8 euros, which would only buy us a weird sandwich on an incredibly hard baguette.  Finally we boarded the plane for Prague.  Once we arrived we went to go get our luggage, and as we suspected it wasn't there.  We figured that it would have been on the normal flight so we went to the baggage help desk to see if we could pick it up there.  Unfortunately, for some reason our bags weren't on the earlier flight and we were told that they should be coming on a later flight and would be delivered to our hostel.  Sometime during the middle of the night they brought Tess and Emily's bag to our room.  Notice I said Tess and Emily's bags, mine was NOT delivered and still has NOT been delivered.  I had to call Delta/Air France this morning to try and figure out where my bag is, but I was told they actually have no idea where its at.  I was instructed to fill out another form so that I could be allowed a $50 allotment per day for expenses incurred from not having my bag.  So after I got off the phone I got online to fill out the form, and the claim number they gave me wouldn't work!  I'm now getting ready to go to the phone and sort this out... wish me luck!  At this point I'm just really hoping that I can get my stuff back.

Also, on a more exciting note, last night was our first night in Europe!  Although we definitely had a pretty terrible Friday the 13th, we decided that we would make the best of our situation and still try and have a good night.  We ate a delicious European burger at the restaurant /nightclub in our hostel and we also ordered our first drinks, jägerbombs!  The night was a lot of fun and we met a lot of really cool people from all around Europe, but I decided it was time for bed around midnight since I was exhausted from traveling for 24 hours and dealing with the luggage situation.  I woke up this morning around 9 to try and get my baggage situation figured out, and that's pretty much all I've gotten accomplished today.  Lets hope that I get my bag before we leave for Olomouc tomorrow afternoon.  

Travel Plan

On Thursday at this time I will be beginning the experience of a lifetime in Prague in the Czech Republic.  I am so freakin' excited!  I can't even begin to explain how ready I am.  I'm definitely going to be missing my parents, girlfriend, and friends, and its really going to take some time getting used to not being able to see anyone from back home.  Nonetheless, I am still super eager to get started with this awesome chapter of my life that's about to begin.  I'll be traveling with twenty-three other students from Nebraska, with two of them being some of my best friends from Kearney.  I still have a few things that I need to get done before I leave, but for the most part all of the preparation is done already.  I'm so ready to be done with getting everything ready! Some parts of the trip are going to be planned once we get over there, like our spring break and weekend trips.  We do have some of the trips planned out already though, and the places we are going for sure include:

          -Prague, Dresden, and Bohemia in the Czech Republic
          -London, England
          -Budapest, Hungary
          -Venice, Italy
          -Vienna, Austria
          -Auschwitz, Germany
          -Krakow, Poland

Some other trips that we don't have planned out yet but are hoping to be going on include:

          -Dublin, Ireland
          -Amsterdam, Netherlands
          -Berlin, Germany
          -Paris, France
          -Croatia

Hopefully everything will go smoothly and according to plan! 

Three more weeks!

In exactly 23 days and 13 hours my flight leaves for Europe!  I am flying from Omaha's Eppley Airfield and flying to Vaclav Havel Airport in Prague, in the Czech Republic.  I'm getting so excited to go, but in these last three weeks here in the United States I'm realizing just how much I still have to do and its REALLY starting to concern me!  I guess its crunch time and I really need to get to work!  In reality, I think I might just be freaking myself out with what I still need to get done, but nonetheless I'm really starting to stress out!  Lets hope that everything goes smoothly and as stress-free as possible!