Jen and Rebecca Take an Unexpected Detour to Germany

Unsurprisingly, there are no direct flights from the US to Ljubljana, Slovenia. But our flight plan was solid. There should have been plenty of time to change planes at Charles de Gaulle in Paris to get our third and final flight to Ljubljana. Until the flight gods spit on us and for some reason cancelled Rebecca’s Paris to Ljubljana flight leg at some point between checking her bag all the way through to Ljubljana at her flight origination in Minneapolis to the time she landed in Paris. Jen (and new-for-this-trip buddy Anna) were kind enough to wait with her at the Air France counter while they took 45 MINUTES to sort it out and get her a seat on the plane, Air France’s only flight that day to Ljubljana, it turns out. The nice Air France person encouraged us to run to our gate. Turns out there is a highly disorganized bussing system at Charles de Gaulle. Running wouldn’t have helped when there was a lot of pushing and shoving to get on a bus that would only drive us so fast. We just missed the flight.

In Detroit, excited for another European vacation!

So we hung out in the Parisian airport for several hours, though there weren’t any kitschy sleep shorts with the Eiffel Tower on them for us to buy as souvenirs. Our stopover in Frankfurt allowed Rebecca to have a schnitzel and potato salad dinner and for both Rebecca and Jen to have their first trip beers. And we had two flights for napping purposes instead of one. The drawback is that we didn’t arrive in Slovenia until 9:45pm instead of the planned 2:30. It was a fun drive in the dark and the rain in our rental Mercedes to get us to our lodging at a farm in the countryside around Bled. We may have accidentally driven at least a mile on a walking path until we figured out it wasn’t really a road. Hopefully the hedgerows didn’t permanently scratch the car as the rental people seemed pretty serious about their scratches. Finally in bed at midnight! So tired. Thanks farm owner who stayed up to let us in! Many fewer thanks to the Air France-Adria Air combo that managed to lose the luggage for all three of us. And only Jen was smart enough to pack an extra pair of undies in her carry-on…

Travel-weary, but we made it! Plus we got matching white sleep t-shirts from Adria Airlines since they lost our luggage.  Thanks?