Hey all... wow, what a s*** of a day I've had! But what's travelling without some serious f*** ups. Today I learnt a couple of really important lessons:

1. Mum's are always right. Even if it's not YOUR Mum, she's probably still right.

2. Everything happens for a reason.

3. Always read your flight ticket. Then, read it again. Once you've done that, read it ONE MORE TIME. Then, proceed to get your airport and departure time tattooed onto your hand.

So for anyone who doesn't watch my every move on Facebook, and in case you haven't already guessed, I went to the wrong airport for my flight to Budapest today. THE WRONG AIRPORT! How you ask? Well, from where I live I generally have 3 options of where I can fly from; Luxembourg, Frankfurt Main or Frankfurt Hahn. And, you guessed it, I confused Luxembourg with Frankfurt Main. Easy enough mistake to make. No, but seriously. I was 110% sure I was flying from Frankfurt Main, I didn't even think to double check. Not even when my host Mum said to me yesterday "Oh, I thought you were flying from Frankfurt Hahn?" I was there with plenty of spare time like the good little passenger I am. I arrived at 11:20 for a 13:50 flight, here's what happened next...

I made my way to my favourite cafe at Frankfurt Main, and it's my favourite because they give you free Wi-Fi when you buy something. I forgot to mention how incredibly excited I was to go to Budapest! I was to be staying at a party hostel, who organises a Ruins Bar pub crawl on Fridays and tickets for the Magic Baths party every Saturday. Anyway, I'm telling you this because I bought a cookie from the cafe. That's what I do when I'm excited; some people go to the correct airport for their flight when they're excited, but me? I buy myself cookies. So I got my cookie, sat down and logged onto my free wi-fi and started Facebooking/Snapchatting away. Then I looked at the time and it was 12:30; Yay! Only an hour and 20 minutes til my flight, I can go check in now. Better double check my departure time. Oh and also the airport, wouldn't it be funny if I was at the wrong one LOL. What's that you say ticket? I'm supposed to be at HAHN!?

I've never run so fast with an 8 kilo backpack and a stuffed Kookaburra. I bolted out to the taxi rank and asked, huffing and puffing, how much it would cost me to go to Frankfurt Hahn.
"180-190 euros."
"And how long will it take?"
"About an hour and 10 minutes"

Ah s***, well there goes that idea. I ran inside to one of the last minute ticket desks, feeling like someone who was chasing after the love of their lives and trying to stop them leaving the country (if only). I thought I was in with a good chance to get a cheap ticket, and not for the first time that day I thought wrong. I nearly died when she said it would be 490 euros! She might as well have offered me a ticket back to Australia, first class, for that price. She tweaked with it a bit and said the cheapest would be 370 euros, and that would involve a stopover in Warsaw. Devastated, I went back to the cafe and rang my darling older sister.

"I'm....at....the...wrong....air-air-airport!!!" I wailed into the phone.

"Okay, what are your options?"

"I...have...to...p-p-pay...490 Euros to go from this o-o-ne!"

And this is the part where I'm reminded of how lucky I am to have such amazing sisters.

"Okay, I know this is hard right now, but first of all CALM DOWN. Second of all, 490 euros is A LOT of money. Close enough to $1000. Is it really worth it? Just think, when you sell your car, and we don't know that you will; that's $1000 straight away gone just to repay a weekend trip. I know you are disappointed and you really wanted to go, but it's happened for a reason. I'm almost certain this is a sign that it's not your weekend for Budapest; there will be others. This could be the first of a string of things going wrong."

Of course I agreed with her, 490 euros is a stupidly large amount of money and I just had to hear it from someone else that I needed to let this particular trip slide. That was only a snippet of our conversation, then she said a bunch of other nice things about how proud she is of me (she really did, ask her!) and reminded me that I'm still in Europe and a lot worse things could have happened. Oh and that I would NEVER make this mistake again, nor would anybody else who heard my story (you can all thank me later).

After that Facetime call I felt a lot better and even had a little laugh at myself; it could only happen to me, right?! I explored a couple of other options; what if I went to Barcelona for the weekend to visit some friends I made back in Ireland? How about going to Hamburg instead? But in the end none of these options worked out and I dragged my exhausted, stupid, illiterate ass home.

And on the way home, I made a friend on the train! Making friends on German trains is unheard of, nobody talks to each other! Actually the other day, a drunk man went to sit down in the seat next to me and fell on top of me instead. But that friendship didn't work out :(
It all started when I asked him what the time was (actually, I already knew and in any case I had my iPod to tell me; but I was SO BORED and it was a good ice breaker.) It was great to meet you Andy, thanks for keeping me company and I hope we can hang out together again!!

So now I'm back in Germany, and for those of you STILL wondering how I possibly got my airport wrong, my host Dad Frank told me that it happens all the time. Not sure if he was just saying it to make me feel better, but for my own peace of mind I'm going to believe him. So, back to those three important lessons.

Yes, Mum's are always right, no doubt about it!

Everything DOES happen for a reason; does anybody remember my Paris debacle? Actually, there was a few of them. See 'Paris' blog for further information. Anyway, remember how I had to pay 130 euros for First Class, because there were no regular tickets left? Well, it happened for a reason! And the reason was... actually, I STILL don't know what that reason was. Up yours, Deutschebahn! BUT if I didn't miss my flight to Budapest, I would never have met my new friend Andy, and he's a cool guy.

Last but not least, I learnt to ALWAYS double check every part of your ticket. And please if you're reading this, learn my lesson as well. Don't let my mistakes be in vain!

I'm back home now, in case you were wondering. OH, and I know what the person who coined the phrase 'FML' was doing at the time. They were waiting at the wrong damn airport.

Adios!