ایک تھکا دینے والا سفر جاری ہے۔

So, finally I have the opportunity to write again. Especially to write what itches in my fingers.

Departure from Frankfurt was not a problem. Everything went perfectly!! Security was a matter of seconds, the delay was not significant, and the flight went by in no time. :D (I only recognized this pun when reading it for the second time, hahaha!)

But then came the landing in Rome... So don't worry, we didn't have any turbulence or other difficulties of that kind. It was more about the Italian mentality in connection with our next airline: Saudia.

Honestly, I wouldn't recommend this airline to anyone.

It started shortly after the booking months ago.

So, in order...

Since our departure was today - Christmas Eve - we tried to get a late flight. We found the Saudia flight from Frankfurt via Jeddah to Colombo. Departure around 4/5 pm. Perfect. My whole family agreed to celebrate a "Holy Morning" instead of Christmas Eve. No Christmas feast, but a delicious breakfast (breakfast is the best meal of the day anyway). But then everything changed. Saudia canceled this flight from FRA to JED and threw in another flight in between. So it went to Rome at 11:45 a.m. and from there to Jeddah. And since nobody naturally wants to have breakfast at 4 a.m., unfortunately, it didn't happen.

But a big thank you to my family for celebrating the 23rd in such a way that it felt like Christmas to me!!! We had raclette and an early gift exchange with great presents.

So far so good.

At the FRA airport, the man at check-in already told us that we would have to get a new boarding pass printed in Rome, as we flew from FRA to Rome with Alitalia and they couldn't generate passes to Colombo.

After landing in Italy, we nervously searched for our next departure gate and then wandered around for what felt like half an hour. An eeeeeewig long way to the gate.

And then we didn't have any tickets yet. We then went through passport control without any major problems (we did it ourselves with modern techniques, but stupid me didn't take off my hat).

At the right gate, we finally found the Saudia counter and that's when the chaos started. The Italians apparently have a new computer system and they didn't know how to handle it yet. We stood there for at least 20-30 minutes waiting. And we weren't the only ones. The Italian woman made facial expressions and gestures that scared me. She crossed her arms, desperately held her hands to her face, and I thought we wouldn't get away from here. There were only 5 minutes left until boarding. Eventually, it finally worked out (I was hoping that as compensation, I would finally be able to fly business class, but no - unfortunately not).

When we held the tickets in our hands, we noticed that one boarding pass was missing and the seats were not as indicated anymore. No window seat for me :( And then there were also problems with our luggage. I really thought it wouldn't work!

But at some point, we were on the plane and I must say, the crew made up for almost everything with their service! For example, there was still a sleeping mask, a toothbrush with toothpaste, earplugs...). Unfortunately, we didn't have any entertainment at all. 4 hours are of course very long. And we were/are very tired.

The takeoff was very funny. It didn't start until there was an announcement. Okay, announcement is wrong. They prayed. A voice came and with Arabic text + English subtitles. "Allah is the greatest" etc. Different countries, different customs. And before you misunderstand me: I respect all people and their beliefs. It's just a bit strange for me. I'm not used to it. It reminded me a bit of the creed on the flight. We ask that Allah safely brings us to our destination...

And then I had an Italian sitting next to me who didn't speak English at all. He couldn't even order an orange juice :D And I could help out with my broken Spanish. He couldn't do anything with "Fish