how to fly to cape town

thank god i'm not superstitious! (otherwise i might take this as a bad omen for the following trip - or maybe not...?)

family farewell committee escorted me to berlin tegel on a sunny day. check-in went briliiant - they promised me a window seat and aire sitting next to me from munich onwards. the beepy thingy at the check-in didn't beep and the customs guy was making nice jokes about the kilos of chocolate i've been taking with me.
i sitting merrily at the gate (and, at the back of my head wondering why there wasn't any plane next to our gate) when they announced that the machine to munich would have a 90 minutes delay...! 2 hours stopover? that might be possible. i went to the counter and got promised everything would stay smooth - 5 minutes later it was announced that it wouldn't. what started then was the most beautiful picture of confusion amongst cape town travellers: what's happening when, where and why (announcements in german only made one elderly woman who only spoke english and afrikaans experience a mental breakdown and subsequent wheel-chair transport) and a lovely amount of rumors: next stop frankfurt, south african will bring us to cape town from there, maybe lufthansa via jo'burg, we'll all get upgraded into business class and so on. in between our names where called to make us go to some others counters for some other information - and within all the hassle a little 'reisegruppe' was created: we met a lovely elderly couple from cape town, who know the tea cooperative i'll be working at, and two fellow travellers who didn't go with the holiday purpose: christian and sarah. christian unfortunately is now known as herr hase, as the announcement voice had slight difficulties with pronouncing his name.
and together off we went to frankfurt, being promised a lufthansa flight to cape town via jo'burg. right now we are sitting here at the terminal, waiting for football to start and EVERYBODY of our little group waiting for their place on board - i'm the only one who received a secure placement, and i am NOT happy about it: those on the waiting list are more likely to end up in business class, and if not, they'll get a hotel voucher for the sheraton and a refund of 700 euro.

ok. right now we don't know who will fly how and if at all - air berlin was shifting all responsibility over to lufthansa, of course without informing us of the fact that the machine to cape town is booked full and we'll end up on the waiting list. however we couldn't care less: when the announcement about the delay in berlin came, some guy was smashing his newspaper to the ground and cursing everything he possibly could curse. well, if you have appointments and business this certainly sucks (but would you fly air berlin then?)
we, on the other hand, are very happy and relaxed. annegret and hans dieter, the elderly couple, already invited us for braai in cape town. we are currently exchanging addresses and having big laughs about the situation. mobiles, money, cigarettes and food are being shared and we've got prime seats in front of the screen where we expect the match to be shown. and in the end, i'm certain, they'll all end up in the business class, toasting to each other with free champagne and maybe strolling down the aisle sometime to let me have a sip too...this will be LEGENDARY!!!!!

note: we all were crammed into economy class. no champagne (but a ride on one of these aiport electric carts) and no space to stretch plus a presumably drunk pilot (that was a happily bouncing boeing). at least i got vegan breakfast because the person originally booked on my flight must've been a vegan. and - apart from those several inconveniences, it was a very happy funny trip. i'll try and get a refund from air berlin now: another rumor that spread amongst us passengers - refund and compensation of up to 450 euro. let's go!