Kids’ Doc in Jos

Barb and I headed home over the weekend, she from Oxford and I from Wisconsin. We were to meet back at the airport in Frankfurt and fly from there to Abuja. I made the overnight flight from Chicago all right, but her flight from London was at least an hour late. She still might have made it to the Abuja gate, but being Frankfurt, she had to deplane on the tarmac, wait for other passengers to board the shuttle bus, take the bus to the terminal, and then start trying to find the connecting flight in the Frankfurt maze.

I decided to wait for Barb, as we hadn’t discussed this contingency, so we were both stuck. Lufthansa, reasonably enough, was willing to pay for Barb’s hotel and a new flight the next day on KLM, but wouldn’t pay for me and wouldn’t let me transfer my ticket to KLM. They also charged me $200 to rebook my flight. So, instead of leaving the next morning, we had to stay 2 nights in Frankfurt since Lufthansa doesn’t make the trip on Monday.

It was an expensive hassle, but once we got over the price shock we actually had a restful time. We stayed the first night in the hotel where Lufthansa puts up their passengers, and enjoyed really great dinner and breakfast buffets. The second night, with dinner since there was nowhere else around to eat, would have cost us $260 (!) so I found a much cheaper hotel on Priceline and booked there.

That one, the Albatros Airport Hotel, was delightful with more of a family atmosphere. I’d recommend it for anyone needing overnight accommodation near the airport, when your airline isn’t making the arrangements and footing the bill. It’s clean and friendly, located in a quiet, mixed residential/commercial area, and you can easily walk to grocery stores, bakeries or a couple of eateries. The breakfast buffet was quite nice, if not as spectacular as that in the more expensive hotel.

We spent Tuesday afternoon wandering around the shopping areas, having a snack, and buying our supper: wonderful, dark German bread, Camembert cheese, fruit yogurt, apples, and sparkling water. We had a fun and satisfying meal for under $10 for the two of us.

Having caught up on sleep and overcome the main part of jet lag, we arrived in Abuja last night and in Jos this morning. Luke was so excited to see us, he couldn’t stop talking. Tonight we unpacked our luggage … maybe I’ll touch on that in my next post.