It’s inevitable that at some point in our travels that we will loose our luggage, but had we thought about the way in which we were flying we probably could have saved ourselves the grief .
Here’s how the bag went to Azerbaijan and we went to Siberia.
Having spent a fantastic time with our Couch Surfing friends in Germany it was time to leave Berlin and head to Mother Russia and spend time with Elena’s family in the town of Chelyabinsk (now famous for the recent meteor incident).
Leaving Lauchhammer in the morning we had a whole day in Berlin before taking a red eye flight to Moscow (another long wait….) before flying onto Chelyabinsk and arriving in the evening.
In Berlin we secured our trusty blue bag that we bought specially for this trip into one of the many security lockers at the train station and proceeded to take a city tour to take in all the sights that I wanted to see including the Berlin Wall Memorial. We had a fantastic day and really fell in love with Germany. The day ended too quick and downing the last German Stein and Knackwurst Sausage (I love these!) we collected our bag and wandered to the now over-crowded check-in area.
Now…. Pay attention because this is where is all goes haywire (see if you can spot the problem before reading to the bottom of the page).
Flying with “One World“, an alliance of airlines that work together to create easier transfers and connecting flights we approached the Air Berlin counter. The noise in the hall was deafening as there were so many people busting about. As we would be transferring to Siberian Air in Moscow (another “One World” carrier) the ground crew checked our bags through to our final destination to make it easier going through Moscow.
As we arrived into Moscow at 2am we really couldn’t do much until the first train to the city started at 6am so sleeping next to a local “Bag Lady” at the airport I grabbed some sleep. The day in Red Square was awesome, it had been several years since being here and the feeling of overwhelming historical events just flooded my mind. So much of Russia’s political history has played out on these cobblestones – just a quick history fact that Red Square didn’t get it’s name from the Soviet Era, it got it’s name from the medieval times when public executions were performed ( when the be-headings made the Square run red with blood).
Early in the afternoon we took the hour long train ride back to Domodedovo, Moscow’s International Airport and boarded our S7 Siberian Air Flight to Chelyabinsk. We were tired but excited to be going home to family and as this was my first trip to Russia in a number of years I was looking forward to Mum’s Russian cooking again.
Arriving into the tiny airport Elena was busy hugging all the family as I passed by the glass doors and made my way to the baggage area and waited….. and waited…. and waited until everyone had left except us and another couple …… No Bag!
For the next 10 days the bag was missing. Our concern was that once located we would be traveling on to China, Singapore and then back to Australia – At what point would we catch up with our bag?
Finally we get good news (as Elena called the airport officials numerous times) telling us that they have located the bag in Azerbaijan and we would receive it the following day by coming to the airport to collect it.
I asked why? Just put it in a taxi and send it to the house. No, not in Russia..
Now, were you paying attention? ….. We crossed an international border in MOSCOW! so that’s where we needed to collect our bag and check it in on a domestic flight. The idiot at Air Berlin counter made a monumental stuff up that cost us money buying new clothes and that’s not the end of the story….. Because there is no way of proving that this bag was not over our maximum weight allowance (as everything else was back at Elena’s parents house) we would have to pay (in cash) $150.00AUD to get the bag released to us. With a lot of yelling and verbal abuse on my part I finally was reunited with my bag.
Ahh Russia, if it ever ran smooth here it wouldn’t be Russia.
