So here it finally is - the first part of our story of our trip back from Berlin to Oakville. A trip that should have taken a total of about 11 hours and turned into a trip of over 20 hours, wife, 10 month old son and myself included.

It all started out quite normal - we made our way to the Tegel airport in Berlin, got in line at the KLM counter. After standing in the long line for a while someone working there noticed that we were traveling with an infant, so she helped us getting served earlier. We said our good-byes to my parents and went through the security checkpoint, took the bus to the plane and got onto the plane.

The only small incident here on the way down the stairs is a airport security employee who rudely rushes us to make room for him on the stairs, only to go up the stairs again a minute later, since he forgot his coffee upstairs.

At the scheduled take-off time there was an announcement that we were still waiting for 10 passengers who apparently should be at the plane within ten minutes. Another ten minutes passed and we were told that we were still waiting for those passengers. About one hour after the scheduled departure time, we were still waiting. So we were getting nervous about catching our connecting flight in Amsterdam and asked the flight attendants to find out what was going on. After 1 1/2 hours the missing ten passengers boarded the flight - and took their sweet time getting seated.

Now we found out that there was one passenger too many on board  and it took another half hour for the crew to find out that the ground crew had forgotten to check in one child in a family of six.

So two hours after the scheduled departure time, we finally took off and arrived in Amsterdam just at the time our plane to Toronto was supposed to take off. At the end of the flight, they announced all the connecting flights that passengers would make, unfortunately ours was not one of them. So we were asked to go to a specific transfer desk once we arrived in the terminal building.

So because a pilot decided to wait 2 hours for 10 people about 40-50 other people missed their connecting flights. I do realize that probably the ground crew had to told the pilot it would only be "10 minutes", but after a while it might have made more sense to actually unload the luggage of those 10 passengers and just take off without them - after all there is a flight between Berlin and Amsterdam every couple of hours.

So we arrive to a long lineup at the transfer desk (they had not been able to provide us with one of those little carts to transport us, since at Amsterdam airport this service is reserved for disabled and elderly people, people traveling with infants do not quality). Again we ask someone if they could serve us quicker because we are traveling with an infant, again the request gets granted.

We find out that they had already booked us on a flight via Boston leaving in 30 minutes (which we would have never made, had we properly waited in line and even without that it was close, considering the size of this airport). I told them I would prefer not to travel via the US (due to the additional passport controls) and suggested re booking us for the KLM flight for the next day and putting us up in a hotel for the night (my wife was overtired since she had just gotten over a nasty stomach flu and had not slept very well), since I figured a restful night would be best for all of us. Well, it turns out that the flight for the next days were booked solid, apparently in all classes. So they said they could put us on standby on a flight via Montreal for the next day, and we would be rather likely to get onto that flight.

Well when they handed us our new tickets after a total of about 40 minutes they told us to better get moving, as they had booked us on standby for a flight to Montreal leaving in 30 minutes. The gate agents had been told to expect us.

So we arrive at the gate, pass the initial passport check and then stand in front of the check-in agents (a man and a woman) who don't even acknowledge us. After a while the woman explain to us, that they are getting our seats ready on the plane, since those seats are apparently not normally deemed fit enough to seat passengers, since they are "dirty" and they were placing blankets over them. I said "You must be kidding me?" and my wife burst into tears, since she was completely burned out after our run to the gate and this was just too much for her.

So the gate agent says to her co-worker in Dutch "They are getting those seats on this plane, and they are not even grateful that we are letting them get on this flight". So when my wife (who knows Dutch) calls them out on what they just said, the male check-in agent starts saying that my wife does not know Dutch at all and that's not what his colleague said and really, we should be rushing to the plane, otherwise they would take off without us. There is no explanation or excuse for such a rude behaviour - even if you consider that the check-in agents might not have know it was KLM's fault that we did not make it onto our original flight.

Anyways, we move on to security, where my wife mentions the rude check in agents. One of the ladies at the security checkpoint says to her: "You know m'am, it's 50/50. If you are rude to us, we can be rude to you". While we were upset, we were at no point rude to anyone.

So we get to the door of the plane and the purser tries to locate our seats for us (no seats were marked on the boarding passes). In the meantime, the "friendly" male check-in gets to the door of the plane and says that they are not going to be able to seat us together, which prompted my wife to tears again, since she was panicking that we would not be able to jointly take care of our infant son. The purser asked us to wait for a second and after a couple of minutes they had freed two connecting seats in the middle aisle for us. Still no bassinet for the little one, but at least we were seated together.

The flight was pretty much un-eventful and we arrived in Montreal without a problem. Once we got off of the plane, we were asked to take a seat on one of the little carts and they drove us (and another woman who was traveling with an infant) to the immigration area, wonder why they would not do this in Amsterdam. We cleared immigration quickly and went on to wait for our luggage. Well, we already figured that the luggage might not have made it there, but the wait gave us a little well needed break.

So when all the luggage (but ours) had come out, we went to the KLM counter, where we were told that our luggage was scheduled to be sent on the direct flight from Amsterdam to Toronto the following day. So upon our arrival in Toronto, we should be contacting the Air Canada luggage service desk (since our last flight from Montreal to Toronto was on Air Canada), and leave our address with them so they could deliver our luggage the day it arrived.

Next we cleared customs (which was easy, after all our luggage was not with us), and went to the Air Canada counter. It was just after 6pm at this time, and the KLM staff in Amsterdam had booked us on a 9pm flight. So in order to get us home as quickly as possible, the gate agent check it to a 7pm flight, so off through the security check and to the gate we went. Once on the plane, I got two cups of water from the flight attendants as we were completely dehydrated by this time. On this flight also our little guy started showing signs of being overtired, as he had only slept about two hours on the trip so far - so he was getting cranky.

In Toronto we found out that we could file our luggage claims over the phone (as there was a long line-up at that baggage service desk), so we went to the taxi stand as quickly as possible, as we wanted to get home.

(to be continued in part 2)