Going There #7: Angels

I dedicate this post to my writer friend Elizabeth King. I was telling her about the many times I’ve been rescued by people on my trips just when I needed them most. I call them my angels. She told me about a time she and her husband were traveling and found themselves in a terrible predicament. A man offered to help, and after he resolved everything Elizabeth happened to see the man’s name. His name was Angelo.

~ ~ ~

So, after my wonderful stay in Rosscarbery at Catherine and Finbarr’s B&B, my next stop on this trip was Salzburg. Pictures of the hotel there looked amazing and I was looking forward to that.

It’s a renovated seminary turned into a guest house. The Gästehaus im Priesterseminar. When I saw a picture on a booking site I knew I wanted to stay there. The domes aren’t on the guest house itself, I learned, but on the connected Holy Trinity Church. And while Salzburg itself doesn’t figure in my stories it was close to the more remote Hallstatt, which does.

Salzburg was a long road from Rosscarbery. Bus or train to Dublin, which could take all day. Flight from Dublin to Salzburg the next day with a brief layover in Frankfurt. My concerns about that short layover niggled at me after seeing the confusing monstrosity of the Frankfurt airport on the original flight from home. I flew Lufthansa, a German airline, and their hub was Frankfurt. I likened the place to nightmares where I walk and walk, upstairs, downstairs, around and around, and never find the place I’m looking for.

Even the road to Dublin looked long. I had a return bus ticket as far as Cork, but there I would have to transfer. Catherine recommended a particular bus from Cork. It was faster than others and would let me off on one of those quays in Dublin where I would know exactly where I was and could walk to my hotel up familiar O’Connell Street. However, this bus line didn’t go into the Cork bus station, leaving instead from a simple bus stop across the river. Another of those streetside stops for long-haul buses. She did her best to give me directions, with a map. I hoped I could find it.

After hugs and warm good-byes I was on my way, looking back from the bus to the lovely lagoon of Rosscarbery, a place of so many memories.

On the way to Cork the bus had several stops. At Bandon a lot of people got on, and a nice-looking woman sat by me. We struck up a conversation. Where are you headed? How are you getting there? That kind of thing. I did express a little concern about the change in Cork. By the time we reached Cork we had covered many subjects, a most enjoyable visit. So when the bus pulled into the station she told me she would show me the way to my next bus stop. Much relieved, I went down to drag my bag out of the luggage bay underneath the bus. I thought she would point me in the right direction.

No. She introduced me to her husband, Dermot, who had taken a seat farther back, and her husband’s brother, John, the brother’s wife, Mary, and told me her own name, Catherine. Another Catherine! They were the O’Donovans and they were headed my way. They didn’t just show me. They escorted me.

They whisked me right through that bus station, out across the street shown below, across the bridge over the River Lee just beyond that street, down the angled lane on the far side that Catherine tried to tell me about, and right to the bus stop I was looking for, chatting and laughing with me all the way.

View toward the River Lee from Cork bus station (2018 photo)

We were exchanging names and contact information when the bus pulled up. Angels. All four O’Donovans. Angels to help me. Just when I needed them.

~ ~ ~

For the next day, second leg of the long road to Salzburg, I had paid extra for a seat near the front on the flight from Dublin to Frankfurt on account of that short layover. My hopes for an early landing didn’t happen, and when the plane did land they drove and drove until I thought we must be circling the entire massive airport. I checked the time when the plane pulled to a stop on the tarmac (not at a gate, but I remembered a bus had picked passengers up on my previous landing there). I had ten minutes until my next plane started boarding. I wasn’t feeling easy.

We waited and waited for the airplane doors to open. Someone announced that they were waiting for somebody to bring the stairs so we could deplane. Then they announced that a stairs had been brought to the rear door so they would start letting people out the back. So much for my seat close to the front. By the time the front door opened it was still quicker for me to go that way. But by then my next flight was boarding. As I left the plane I mentioned that to one of the friendly flight attendants. He smiled. “You’ll make it.” I clung to those words.

When I entered the terminal I came to a crowd of travelers (probably all those people who deplaned from the rear) wending their way through zigzag lines toward Passport Control stations, the lines barely moving. I knew what the expression “her heart sank” means. Worries flooded my mind. Reception at my Salzburg guest house would close at 4 pm. If I didn’t make this flight I would be late and I’d have go through some rigamarole to get my key. Well, I could figure that out. But what if I couldn’t get another flight that day? I would miss my reservation altogether. And I had reserved another room in Hallstatt for the next night and I already had so little time there. I might not get there at all and that was my whole reason for going to Austria.

In my rising despair I exclaimed, “My plane is boarding now!”

Someone heard me and echoed my words. “Her plane is boarding now!” The person made way for me. And the echo continued up the line. “Her plane is boarding now!” And they moved aside, one after the other, each encouraging the next person to make way. “Her plane is boarding now!” And the way opened all through that zigzag line. In moments I had reached the head of the line to the Passport Control stations, and the people ushered me forward. “There’s an open one.”

I went to that station and held out my passport, telling the official, “My plane is boarding now.” But the official in the station shook her head, her voice stern. “I am in control here.” She pointed to someone near me and said to me. “That person is ahead of you. You will wait.” I stepped back, stunned.

But the people were not having it. “Here,” they said. “This one’s open.” They ushered me to a different station and the official there hastily did what she had to do and let me through.

Still, I had so little time before my boarding gate would close. I located the departures board to make sure of my gate and, finding it listed, rushed ahead. Despite my early impressions of this airport I found the usual signage. Like every airport, once you know your gate you just follow the letters to the concourse and then the numbers. I was headed for gate 69. I think it was Z69. I don’t remember now. I didn’t take time to check my phone but about the time I got to the 50s I saw a big clock. I had 5 minutes before my gate closed. The 50s seemed to take forever. When I finally saw my gate 69 it was a long way down the concourse and another clock showed I now had 2 minutes. I wondered if it was even possible to go that far in 2 minutes. I don’t know if I made it in time or if they saw this frantic-looking woman rushing toward them and waited, but they did let me through.

If all those wonderful people hadn’t helped me through Passport Control I would never have made it onto that plane. Angels, yes! So many angels.

I reached my guest house in the seminary in plenty of time and they welcomed me in, one leading me first through the beautiful cloister courtyard.

That night as I lay in my narrow bed in my lovely pristine room, I heaved a sigh. “A whole host of angels came to help me this time.” And sudden tears rose.

NEXT: Hallstatt of the Celts