The passengers onboard were surprisely calm, and some even clapped. I had the last meal on board, and the plane landed in Frankfurt. Upon landing, priority was given to the first class, business class and those seated from row 32 to row 43 in the Economy class. I used to choose the first cabin of the economy class when i fly, because I wanted to be the first few to get out of the plane. However, after a few incidents of non stop crying babies, I decided to move to the middle cabin. I was banging my head when those in the first cabin of the Economy class were been checked into Le Meridien Frankfurt. Our hotel was not that bad, but it was near the airport, and it was 30 minutes from the city center, while Le Meridien was right smacked in the city center. In addition to that, we had to wait for about 4 hours in the plane to wait for the hotel to prepare the room. SIA ground crew has adviced that it was better for us to wait in the plane then to wait in Frankfurt airport, as it was chaotic there. The air stewardess were trying to make our wait in the plane more comfortable by giving out snacks and drinks, and they also allowed the passengers to go into the Business Class cabins. I was too lazy to move, and I just sat to watch my movie.
Hours later, we finally disembarked the plane and boarded the bus to get to our hotel. Upon arrival at the hotel, it was another round of waiting, this time waiting to check into the hotel. I finally checked slightly before noon, and officially started the waiting game.
There was a counter assigned to the ground crew of SIA in Germany. We saw a lady and a gentleman at the counter. At the side of it, there was a flip chart, with a big SIA written on it, underlined.
On the chart was "Lunch at Universal" 12-2pm
Next update: 7pm
Many people were asking the crew when we could fly, which the crew had no idea. The gentleman was the nicer one among the two, he was friendly, and though many people kept bugging him, he maintained a nice smile on his face.
I joined the people to ask question, though my question was quite lame. I wanted to know how to get to the city centre, and to my delight, the lady told me that many people asked the same thing, so they were arranging transport for us!! Wow!
After my lunch, I saw new things on the chart "Bus to Xmas Far in City - Pick up 230pm; Return 530pm. That's what I called service. Well done, Singapore Airlines.
The snow got into my mouth, and it was like ice!
Lesson 2: Hood did not help when it was snowing heavily. You need an umbrella.
Struggling to take the photo with umbrella, gloves and snow!
After wandering around the market, I finally found an ATM. I withdrew 50 EURO, and happily went back to look for a place for my German snacks. I bought a sausage, and went to a stall that was selling mull wine. I was told by a nice couple that when I returned my mug, I would get 2 EURO back. By the way, all the signs at the stalls were in German.
The mull wine was hot! The first sip almost burnt my tongue. The second & third sips tasted awfully too. However, miracously after the 3rd sip, it tasted good. I could feel the warmth travelling down from my throat to my stomach, and whole body. I was not cold anymore. Ah, so this was the secret of the Germans!
I continued my Christmas market tour after the snack, though not long after, I had to make another coffee stop as it was getting wet and cold, and dark. The sky darkened at 430pm!!
The flipchart now said "Next update: Tomorrow 7am" Breakfast at Universal"
Okay, no point worrying, hit the sack and see what tomorrow will bring. Maybe all the snow in Heatrow has melted when I woke up.
I had a good rest, and woke up around 0730Hr the next day. I got changed and went down to the lobby, in anticipation of good news. I was greeted with "Next update: 1pm" So i had no choice but to have my breakfast and decided to go to town to walk around. I bought an all day pass for 5.15EUR and took the shuttle to the airport, followed by the train. I managed to find my favourite brand G star, and i made my way back to the hotel for the 1300Hr update.
The station manager told us that we had a choice. We could either take the land transport, which was the 13 hours bus ride to London, or we could wait for the airport to reopen. After some thoughts and discussion with a few Singaporeans, I have decided to take the bus. At least I could be certain that I could reach London. Once decided, I felt like a burden was off, and i asked Robin, a Hong Konger and Joel, a Malaysian studying in London if they wanted to go the town with me.
We took the same route to the town, and walked around the market. The weather was better today. The snow had stopped, and because it was a Monday, it was not as crowded. We had our sausages and mull wine, so that we could skip the dinner in the hotel, which would pretty much looked like lunch.
Snow in the market was gone! In a day!
Nutella crepe! Yummy
After dinner and freshing up, I boarded the bus at 2030Hr. SIA has also prepared some snacks and water for us. There were a total of 5 buses, and we departed together as a convoy for safety. In 2 days, I went through 4 countries - Frankfurt, Belgium, France and London! I finally reached Heatrow at 1000Hr the next day. Heathrow was indeed chaotic. There were long queue and tents set up outside T3, and people were queueing to get into the terminal, amidst the bitterly cold weather. I prayed that the airport would open soon, which it finally did on 26 Dec 2010.
