When you get on a plane, you usually assume that you will eventually get off at your destination, but that’s not always the case as we found out this morning.  We got on a plane in Dusseldorf heading to Berlin on what started off as a normal flight, and turned into one of the weirdest experiences I’ve had while traveling.  Our plane took off and was in the air for about an hour.  The whole ride was smooth and uneventful, with definitely no cause for concern.  When the plane started descending, we thought it was weird that there was no announcements, but we assumed that we were approaching Berlin, because where else would we be?

We sat on the tarmac for about 15 minutes before a transfer bus came to take us to the gate.  During this time the only thing they said was “sorry for the delay, the bus is coming”.  Everything seemed normal and we still thought we were in Berlin.  When we finally got to the gate, everyone was standing around instead of heading for the exit, that’s when we realized something was not right.  The gate agent made an announcement in German which didn’t help us figure out what was going on.  After waiting patiently, we finally got to the front and this was the whole exchange with the Air Berlin representative:

Us: Where do we go to get our luggage?

Him: The Berlin airport

Us: *confused face* umm, where are we? Are we in Berlin?

Him: You’re in an airport.

The whole conversation was not helpful but it was clear that we were nowhere near Berlin.  It was only after awhile that we finally deduced that we were still in Dusseldorf.  We never found out what happened on that plane, somehow we took off and flew around in a big circle before coming right back to where we started. I’ve had countless issues when traveling, but I’ve never not known where I was before.