Sunday, January 8, 2012

Back to it

I have been a major slacker in last few days. I did bike workout on Wednesday then travelled on Th and Fr.

Want to hear my "no fee for a bike or second baggage" story? Ok, so I flew with Air Canada, apparently the first flight was operated by United and then AC and the last one Lufthansa.
I had a regular suitcase and then a case with bike. I have Aerus case, people say that sometimes you can "cheat" the check in person that you are not carrying a bike because the case does not look like bike case. I do not think that it is true, it totally looks like a bike case and check-in person in both Detroit and Frankfurt knew immediatelly that it is bike.

So check-in lady in Detroit told me that I have to pay extra fee for bike but then she checked me in and never asked for my credit card or send me anywhere to pay for it. Of course I have not said anything. Somehow she was not able to check me and my baggage in all the way to Hungary, she checked me in only to Germany and then I had to re-check myself again there.
I went to check in in Germany and my fears came true. I was told that I had to pay Lyfthansa bike fee, which although it was not 250 as it is for trans-Atlantic flights, but only 70Euros for inter-European flights.
And this is where you have to be smart and pay your cards right!
I asked her how it works, why would someone have to pay twice when booking was for all flights together (I did not tell her that I already paid I only asked in very confusing tricky way). She said that it is Detroit check-in fault and she gave me a bill for a bike fee. She said that I should go to AirCanada people and ask for a receipt that I have already paid one bike fee and then go to Lufthansa and show them the receipt. If I do not get the receipt then I should pay the fee. However, she checked my baggage in and I had a bordning pass from check-in kiosk. So no way I was going to pay the fee, I am not stupid.
I have decided to see how it goes and pray that my luggage shows up in Hungary with me. And it did!

Then me and my dad put the bike together on Sat but I could not do anything because I needed something to put underneath the bike/trainer because my parents have wooded floors so I could not put it there just like that. I did not go swimming neither:( Slacker indeed:)

But I bought 2 door mats today so I was able to bike today. But my parents live in an apartment building and their neighbors below are little crazy so I was not sure whether they will stop by our appartment very soon to yell at me. But they were either not home or my trainer is not too loud because they have not showed up:)
It was also funny because at first my mom came in to take a picture of me (you wonder why I am not too keen on living here?:)), then my dad checking on whether I am not destrying the floors, then my mom again for something else, then my dad. Grrr, oh well.

I did 1 hour: 30min easy, 3x (2min 180-190W, 6min 200-210, 2min 220+). However, my set-up is not great yet and my front wheel kept falling off the pile of books I was using and I had to get down and "repair" it and it was annoying. Then I fell again 10sec into the last 2min 220+ so I called it quits.

I need to set it all up much better. Tomorrow. I will go check out the pool tomorrow as well.

2 comments:

  1. Welcome back! It's great to read your news and to hear that you are back at it again. I just want to say be good to yourself and patient with yourself during this time. I know you are very experienced in crossing the ocean but change is hard... it can take awhile to adjust. Try to stick to your routines as much as possible (sounds like you are making good progress in that). Welcome home! I hope you get the news you are waiting for re: work soon!

    ReplyDelete
  2. Thanks for the advice. I think that you are right, it is important to find a routine. It might take a couple days though.

    ReplyDelete