Blog entry 14th and 15th of November 2009
Waiting for my Vienna flight…
Heathrow, London
So many people walking by, I love watching them. I’m just sitting here in the middle of Terminal 3 at Heathrow, waiting for my flight to Vienna to start boarding. I left Belfast this morning, along with my mother, and after some delay we were on the way to London. She’s going back home to Oslo, and I’m going on a little Austria tour. Coming home Friday. Heavy weather on Heathrow today, that’s what causing all the delays. I was supposed to be in Vienna by now, wandering around one of my favourite cities in the world! But, it seems Mr. Weather wanted it differently… I will arrive in Vienna around 23:00, and who knows when I will sleep safely in my bed at the hotel. Hopefully not too late!
Today has been quite eventful. I woke up early, and walked over to the Ulster Hall to get room were I could practise a bit before our flight. Suddenly it turns out not a single room in the building is available, and I have to go back to the hotel. Luckily a meeting room in the basement is free, and I start playing loud on my trumpet straight away (without disturbing any of the other guests, yaee!). Then, in the middle of a Clarke exercise (trumpet players will know what I mean…) the fire alarm goes of! Everyone out in the cold weather. False alarm. Back inside. Then it goes of again. People come down to my room; I don’t have to go out. It stops. It goes of again. It stops. It goes of again. Then it stops. A bit disturbing for my practising… Then this nice man, who obviously is some kind of a technician or something, knock on my door and look at the air-condition in the meeting room I’m practising in. And believe it or not, he accuses me of setting of the fire alarm! (the room was absolutely freezing when I got there, and I turned up the heating…) I was of course shocked and told him I was so very sorry, and he was very nice saying it was not a problem at all, I just had to turn of the heating from now on. I told him I would. 2 minutes later some other guys joins this nice, friendly man, they tell me it is absolutely impossible that this is my fault. They look at my trumpets with admiration and we all part as good friends (I hope…).
My mother and I had the nicest taxi driver. I couldn’t quite understand all he was saying, but he had a very good sense of humour (the Northern-Ireland dialect is some times not too easy to understand…).
Heathrow is a very large airport! Huge, and so many people. In the lounge though, it was still and I tried to do some e-mailing, but I just wasn’t in the mood. I almost forgot my cell phone in the lounge! I panicked when I couldn’t find it, but luckily they had it at the front desk.
Vienna, Hotel Ananas (yeah, that is the name of the hotel… Ananas is pineapple in Norwegian)
So, even more action! My luggage never arrived. That’s right, my big, gold, heavy suitcase with all my stuff just didn’t arrive. So what do I do? It was way past 23:00, and after a terribly long day of travelling (it seems so much longer when you arrive at your destination so much later than you had planned), I was so not in the mood for this. I talked to the nice lady at the Austrian desk and explained the situation; I really need this suitcase before the concert the night after. All my clothes are there, my straight mute (I need it for the Shostakovich), my mobile charger (I usually always have this in my handbag, but of course not today..), my everything… Hopefully my luggage will arrive tomorrow with the first flight from London to Vienna! Fingers crossed!
The day after, early in the morning.
So, I slept a little bit. Woke up, and now I have just been on the phone with another nice lady at the Austrian lost baggage service. Not good news though, they have not received any messages about my luggage. So basically no one knows were it is! She is trying her best now to contact both London and Belfast, but maybe it has been sent on the wrong flight, and then who knows were it might be?!? I really hate this…. Well, there is really nothing I can do. It is Sunday, so all the shops are closed… Just my luck.
I have to eat some breakfast now, and then the rehearsal begins at 10. Hopefully the lady from Austrian will soon call me back with some good news!
I will let you know what happens… From now on I will always have an extra toothbrush (I did get one from Austrian, but it was not so good…) and some extra make up with me in my hand luggage. Always.
Tine ;-(
