Amaru missing a Sweden World Cup game?

Well, let me tell you the full story….

Since we once again had to be at the airport for a 9am flight, our day started early (why, why did we book all these early flights). Luckily we were kindly dropped off that morning at the airport in Arlanda (Stockholm) by tio Clifton. We were to catch a plane to Washington DC and change planes in Copenhagen. We discovered on arrival at Arlanda airport that the plane from Copenhagen was almost full, and that we were not seated next to each other. The lady at the counter told us to enquire about getting this rectified once we were in Copenhagen. So, with nothing else to do at that moment, we passed security, found our gate and had time to read through some of the magazines at the news stand.

While we were reading, a broadcast about the flight to Copenhagen was being read out. It turns out that the flight was full and they were asking if anyone would be interested in flying at a later time, of course with some compensation. We hurried over to stand in line – we couldn’t miss this flight, we had a connecting one waiting for us in Copenhagen. We don’t know for sure if anyone grabbed the offer – probably, since we managed to take off.

At around 11am we arrived in Copenhagen, and promptly found the service counter to arrange for different seating (the flight was almost 9 hours long – so we didn’t feel like sitting next to strangers for that long!). The man at the service counter said there would be no problems in getting this sorted out, but whilst we waited there patiently, he told us that the flight we were on was actually overbooked – then he made the following offer to us…

If we were to come off that flight, and go on the same one the following day, the airline (Scandinavian Airlines) would pay for a nights accommodation in Copenhagen, transfers to and from the hotel, dinner, breakfast, 600 Euros each (in travel credit – or 300 Euros each if taking cash). It sounded good, but we both thought about it, realised if we took them up on the offer, we would not see Washington DC (or Amaru’s friend Vanessa, whom we’d made arrangements to stay with)…. Not to mention missing out on seeing Sweden play Germany in the round 16 clash!!! Decisions, Decisions!!!

We said no to the offer, and then walked away with our new boarding passes… or so we thought! He’d accidently given us the wrong seats so he caught up with us and took the passes away telling us that he would give us other seats. Now we were starting to worry a bit about the seating arrangements….it didn’t help when we saw that the plane was full of Americans….BIG Americans. Getting a seat next to one of them would be REALLY REALLY uncomfortable!

So, at this time we pondered more about the offer….. and Amaru asked again in great detail what it involved. I think the clincher was the opportunity to perhaps be upgraded the next day to Business Class – because Amaru agreed to it right away after learning that – even though this would mean he’d miss out on seeing Sweden play!!!

So, we collected all the vouchers necessary for our stay in Copenhagen, picked up our luggage which had been pulled off the plane and started heading for a taxi. The voucher for the Cash offer could have been given to us there as Danish currency, but we were assured that it could be cashed into American Dollars once we reached Washington, so we decided after much deliberation to leave it until the USA….. more on that later….

We caught a taxi, handed over our voucher, and headed into the city to the 4 star hotel that had been booked for us. The taxi driver was quite chatty, he even took the time to show us where our hotel was located on the tourist map we had (the fact that he did that while driving was a bit nerve wrecking, but nice all the same). Later on during the ride when he found out we were from Australia he started talking lots and lots about Prince Frederik and Mary, meeting in Australia during the Olympics etc. He was also discussing last nights Australian – Croatia World Cup game with Amaru and they both agreed that Australia should have had at least 2 more penalties.

Eventually we reached our hotel, it was quite lovely to say the least… when else would be able to afford such luxury??? We dropped off our bags in the room, then headed out for our unexpected day of sightseeing in Copenhagen. We’d both been here before – but not for many years, so it was great being able to explore it again. We wandered down the main shopping mall, around the palaces and wonderful old buildings that the city has to offer. We reached Nyhavn (which is our favorite part of the city) and started thinking about having lunch. After wandering up and checking out the menus of the restaurant we decided to eat elsewhere, the prices were a little too touristic for our taste!

We decided to make it over to see the Little Mermaid statue, as Amaru hadn’t seen it before. I did tell him it wasn’t anything “Big” or terribly exciting, but we went anyway…. And that’s all we have to say about that!

We stopped along the way to get some traditional Danish hotdogs (pølse), and later on some beer, followed by ice cream. Hey, we just considered it as being courtesy of Scandinavian Airlines, so it was all OK!

We thought about going in to Tivoli (the huge amusement park in the centre of Copenhagen), but neither of us could probably stomach the rides considering what we’d just previously consumed (and the fact that we had to pay just to enter the park, then pay extra for the rides kept us away).

Instead, we walked and walked the city and eventually made it back to our hotel room to get ready for our free dinner. Lovely Italian restaurant was on offer that night…. and the food and wine didn’t disappoint us either. After dinner, another stroll through the town, where we happened to stumble across the only museum open at that time of night…

The next morning after a hearty buffet breakfast, we checked out of the hotel and caught our courtesy taxi back to the airport. We couldn’t believe the lines already there for check in – and we were there a good 3 hours beforehand!!! We quickly discovered that the biggest line wasn’t for our flight, still, they were long enough. After a long wait, we finally made it to the check in desk, where we explained our situation from the previous day and asked for the chance of an upgrade to Business Class. We were told that this could only be done from the service desk at the gates (where we spent our time the previous morning). No worries, we thought. And walked in that direction. On looking at our tickets as we made our way through security – could you believe that they had once again sat us in separate locations on the plane??? Aaaghhh.

I was first in line at the service counter, and explained the whole thing (again) and asked for the possibility for an upgrade on the flight…. only to be asked again if we wanted to stay yet another night in Copenhagen for the same deal…. (we did almost think about trying to do this for an entire week – to accumulate all the money we’ve spent in the last several weeks). A firm “No thank you” and we were asked to sit by the waiting area and she’d see what could be done – but the flight was also full and there was no guarantee.

So, there was nothing else we could do at this time so we sat down to wait until they called us – Amaru passed the time by reading his book. While we were waiting patiently, the flight at the gate next to us was about to to finish boarding (Newark bound) when a man rushed to the gate and started yelling at them….. “I’ve been seating in your bar for two hours now and you haven’t called me, I almost missed my flight. This is how you make your money, forcing people to miss their flights and purchase new tickets” ?!?! …. American, of course!! We sat and silently giggled in disbelief.

About 10 mins before the plane was due to leave, we were finally handed our boarding passes, which the lady told me were very good seats!!!

We boarded the plane to discover that we were in Business Class (seated in a small section only serving 12 of us!!!) Woo Hoo – we’d hit the jackpot! No sooner had we’d sat down in our plush wide seats, we were handed a glass of French Champagne… in fact we never had to ask for a single thing the entire flight, because it was there in front of you before you even needed it! We never want to fly economy again!!!! Although realistically, we know we have to… but it’s a nice thought. The food was never ending, the toilets were lovely (even had a window to enjoy the view) and the seats were just so damn comfortable. Can you tell we’ve never flown Business Class before???

During the flight the passenger sitting next to Amaru was using his Laptop to try to connect to the Internet to watch the World Cup game between Sweden and Germany and of course this caught Amaru’s attention and he quickly got to work trying to see if they could find the game. After a few tries they found out that the connection wasn’t fast enough to provide Live Coverage so they switched to a Swedish WebRadio channel transmitting the game live. They had now managed to switch on the game and one of the chefs on the plane (also Swedish) was asking how to tune it in on his Laptop (he was in the kitchen listening to it as well). As you know, the Germans scored 2 goals in the first 12 minutes or so and after the Swedish player got a red card Amaru lost interest and watched a movie instead.

I asked Amaru if he was alright, not too sad over the result….to which he replied: “I’m sitting in Business Class, how can I be sad…”

Anyway, the plane trip flew by, and before we knew it, we’d landed in Washington DC (Dulles airport). As we had stayed a night in Copenhagen it meant that we only had one afternoon in Washington DC before we had to catch the flight to Boston the next morning. So, we chose to stay at a nearby airport hotel and skip going into the city as we didn’t have enough time.

So all in all…..We missed out on Washington DC this time, Sweden lost their World Cup game… but it was all worth it in the end!!