The Learning
Almost a fortnight ago, in the midst
of the media frenzy that accompanied a blog written about me, I heard from my
sister that she was about to travel to the United States. I congratulated her
as she admonished me for allowing the public spectacle that followed my story.
In very stark terms, I made it clear
that the decision was mine to make and the consequences, whatever they might
be, were challenges to be faced as they came, all considerations taken on
board.
The exchange was a bit terse but
friendly, and I basically kept a low profile after that. On the Saturday
following, we were in a bit of a quandary; travel agents in Nigeria were
angling for their commissions at the expense of getting an affordable flight
ticket. As the hours went by, the prices of the tickets were rising such that
they were becoming unaffordable.
Airport choices
Meanwhile, a useful app that could
provide an insider's view of flight scheduling and pricing, OnTheFly,
was not available in Nigeria. I did consider transferring my frequent flyer
miles to her, but there were limitations to the number of miles I could give
away, and there were other restrictions on buying tickets on behalf of others
outside Europe.
Her first choice would have involved a
26-hour stopover in Doha; the question then arose about what to do with a long layover
at the airport if you did not have a visa to exit the terminal. The Doha
Hamad International Airport has quiet rooms for a
limited time at a cost. All looked tentative.
There were options for a stopover in
Istanbul via Turkish Airlines, and were it not for the strictures of time,
flying out of Cotonou, Benin or Lomé, Togo would have shaved almost a third off
the cost of the ticket.
Trigger response
Apart from a contribution, all I could
do was hope and wait for the best. As dusk approached, I received news that a
flight had been booked on her behalf from the US and there was a 10-hour
stopover in Frankfurt; she was flying with Lufthansa.
I didn't give it any thought when I
learnt of this development, but once I told her, it dawned on me: if she were
coming through Europe, I would see her. Europe is my backyard, so to speak, and
so I got into planning my trip.
I requested her full itinerary, from
which I could determine what terminal she would be flying into and whether she
implicitly had a transit visa to stop over in Frankfurt, considering she did
not have a Schengen visa
(SchengenVisaInfo.com). [A lowly company apparatchik sent me an email 8
years after writing this blog to update the text reference from Schengen Visa
to what it is now. Most such requests I usually ignore.]
Then I had to determine if I could
traverse terminals in the airport without having to go through immigration.
Having a US visa implicitly gave her transit rights through Frankfurt Airport.
Terminal woes
On my side, I normally use SkyTeam flights, but that
would have landed me in the Schengen immigration control area, leaving
Manchester with stopovers in either Amsterdam or Paris. The only way I could
avoid this was to fly directly from a non-Schengen Area UK to Frankfurt; it
meant changing airline alliances to fly Lufthansa.
Other domestic issues required me to
return on the same day rather than extend my stay through the weekend as I
might have done in other circumstances.
Fortuitously, I asked for the day off,
booked my ticket to arrive in Frankfurt at 9:15 AM and depart at 9:45 PM, which
meant I could print out both boarding passes double-sided for my outward and
return journeys.
My sister would have arrived in
Frankfurt at the same terminal just under 3 hours before I did. When I arrived
in Frankfurt, I was told to go to the Z gates, having arrived at the B gates of
Terminal 1. I boarded the SkyTrain that linked the gates and found myself at a
security checkpoint.
Sheer luck
On tendering my boarding pass, after
some hesitation, the teller noted that my departure would be from a Z gate. I
didn't even know that, not to mention my being 12 hours early for my departure.
I was let through.
I made it to the Z gates and
determined my sister would leave from gate Z15. I had not seen her Facebook
message, and posted an announcement to have her meet me at gate Z15. I did a
quick scout around the gate without seeing her, and as the announcement went
out on the tannoy, I waited at the gate whilst scanning my Facebook messages.
The reunion
'I am waiting in front of gate Z15,
where are you?' I wrote. I stood looking around like a meerkat sentry. She
appeared from the thick of the crowd: my sister, whom I last saw almost 27
years before. All the while, I had been unsure of how emotional I would be;
there were no tears, just lots of hugging, and I was very happy.
There would have been much to catch up
on, but we decided to cherish the moment instead. My other sister responded
negatively from Nigeria on Facebook that she was not the one who was supposed
to be meeting. Yes, we have pranksters a-plenty in the family.
We called home, had a meal, took some
pictures, found a place to recline and catch a nap, and spent almost 8 hours
together before I watched her board her plane and depart for the United States.
By the time that was done, I checked to confirm my boarding gate; it had been
changed to the B gates. What luck.
Traipsing through another security
check, a couple of hours in the lounge, I was back home just before 11:00 PM.
It was such an emotionally charged day that I took Friday off. Mission
accomplished by the accident of fortune and the blessing of opportunity and
means.
I've wanted to write this blog for
days.