The evening of our farewell party, the shores of Lake Constance were warm and breezy, then potentially stormy, but eventually stunningly beautiful and clear. Even our hosts remarked how rare it was to see so far into Switzerland. Such was the setting at the rowing club grounds, compliments of a current club member and a former youth exchange participant from Friedrichshafen. As we enjoyed yet another delicious barbeque, we shared experiences, lamented how quickly the exchange had passed, and made plans for next year in Peoria. If the looks on everyone´s faces told the story, this exchange was another success. The only concern involved the weeklong strike by Lufthansa technicians, which had only just begun to affect long distance flights. But what could we do tonight? Only enjoy our remaining hours together and wish each other a fond farewell!
During our last days in Germany, the media told of a strike by Lufthansa technicians, but the strike was only affecting domestic flights. We regularly checked the status of our flight from Friedrichshafen to Frankfurt, and it always showed as on schedule. But the strike escalated, and the day prior to our departure, transatlantic flights began to be affected. At our farwell party, many joked about scheduling a second farewell party. Little did we know that this would come true! After the farewell party, the chapeones checked the Internet to learn that our return flight had been cancelled. Several hours of calls to Lufthansa in Germany, as well as to our travel agency in the US, began 24 hours of scrambling phone calls, emails and conversations. At the airport, hours before the students and host families arrived, the chaperones met with Lufthansa agents to try to fix the problem. The result offered was to return home 10 days later! Some students cheered, some cried. The c hapero nes just sighed deeply! But by the end of that evening, return flights only four days later had been found by our US travel agency! So those who welcomed an extended stay and those who wanted to go home could all be somewhat satisfied.
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