Longest day ever.
I just looked at the clock on my computer – 13:25. Ok so on the east coast anyway. Here it’s 7:25 pm and I’ve been straight traveling for 24 hours now, after arriving at Reagan yesterday at 1 pm. Shoot me now. I’m so overwhelmed, but trying my best to think on my feet. Judging by the fact that I’ve only just figured out what I’m doing, 7 hours after I landed, I’m probably not doing a very good job. I tried, though!
Once I finally made it out of the vortex that is Fiumicino Aeroporto I was sucked into the Roma Termini trap. I looked up trains, had a good idea of what I wanted to do, and finally heard from my boss in New York. She said the Italian resident director would call me in 15 mins. Perfect! In the meantime I got some pizza and went to an internet café to look at hostels, just in case. After my internet time was up I realized an hour had past and I hadn’t heard from either my NY contact or my Italian one. I called the Italian number – non funzionava. So I called the NY office again; she said she had spoken to him and would email him again to call me. Just when I was about to give up on his call, he called me and said that I could come to Florence and stay there. Success! So I’m on the next (way too expensive, yet very fast) train to Florence (through some beautiful Italian country side), then one bus, a short walk, and I’m crashing into bed. If I manage to wake up tomorrow morning maybe I can buy a different shirt or something, because even looking in the clothing stores in the train station only added to my current state of craziness.
After I bought my ticket I had about 30 minutes to wander the station (because I hadn’t done enough of that?) and went into a mini-supermarket to get some water. I forgot how much I love foreign supermarkets! And all the good food there is here in Italy. I seriously haven’t even registered that I’m in another country, even though I’m speaking Italian to everyone; I’m just too tired to care. I do notice some of the more annoying differences, though. PDA to the extreme, creepy stares and the lingering smell of smoke everywhere. Oh Italia, sono arrivata.
Sunday, July 25, 2010
and it continues..
Soo I was wrong when I thought the plane ride was the worst part of this journey. Try getting off, waiting for your bag for almost an hour only to find it didn’t come on the plane. I am so pissed at that Delta agent in DC who condescendingly called me “honey” like he was some sort of airline god who could figure it all out for me. I knew it was risky about the bag and he shot down all my concerns.. but guess what, no bag! So I wait in line with Alitalia who tell me that it is on the next Delta flight. When is that, I ask. They don’t know, I have to ask Delta. Next counter. “Alitalia said my bag is on the next flight and that maybe I can wait here for it.” Someone takes me back to a room, “is this your bag?” “Nope.” “Then it isn’t here and there are no more flights today so it is not coming today”. Back to Alitalia to file a claim. They give me the actual Delta flight number so that I can get specific whereabouts of my bag, but of course I need to take that number to Delta to figure it all out. They say that flight arrives tomorrow morning, so I ask if that means that it will be delivered in Florence by the afternoon? “I don’t know!” she says. “We get the bag and give it to Alitalia and they take it to Florence for you, that is up to them. You need to ask them.” Well I’m done with the counter hopping here at baggage services and finally hours later leave the baggage claim area. Now it’s to find internet so I can access my email to get ASA’s phone number. First internet kiosk takes my money, but surprise, surprise does not work. So I try to call and get the number and end up with a general number, which is closed when I call, even though it is past 8 am at this point on the east coast. So I try to find another internet kiosk to look up hostels and a more specific phone number. This one luckily works much better, but the graphic heavy hostelworld website does not load well and I spend most of the time/money waiting. Still no solution. I did however get a number and called the NY office, but the HR director was not available. I leave a message, trying to relay the urgency of the situation since I’m pretty much just sitting in limbo in the Fiumicino airport. 30 minutes later, no call, and I’ve wandered over to look at train tickets. The only ones listed are super expensive express trains and I know the system well enough to know that I could take regionals if I just knew the route. But then comes the question as to weather I should get on the train or not, still waiting for that call. Should I stay in Rome, go to Florence, or go back to my original plan? I decide against the original plan because it adds way too much travel time and I feel I can’t be social with my couchsurfer since I’m just so exhausted. I just want to crawl into a dark and quiet closet, that preferably has wifi, so I can plan the next leg of this trip so it doesn’t turn out like this one.
After more waiting and random calls to people in the US without getting anything accomplished, I decide its time to get out of this airport at all costs, so to Rome it is, either as a stop over or for the night. So now to find the cheapest way, since I don’t have the regional schedule in front of me and I’m not about to pay 14 euro for the stupid not-so-express express train (it is hardly any faster). I remember seeing something about a bus so I try to find that, only to get asked 59385 times if I need a taxi and then for some bus driver to tell me its 35 euro for the bus but that he can give me a discount to 25 if I want. Yeah right, I told him the train costs a lot less than that, but he counters, saying it takes longer. Whatever, I finally leave and find a tourist desk, ask what is the cheapest way to Rome, and get a 8 euro bus ticket for a bus leaving immediately. See, I knew it was possible! The only downside to that transaction was when I tried to pay with a 20 and she got all pissy asking me if I had spicci. Are you kidding me!? I just went to the ATM and this is what it gave me, and 12 euro isn’t even that much change. So you’re going to take my money!
Besides this annoying, yet expected, transaction I’ve gotten a lot of stares and need to remember not to make eye contact. This isn’t America after all and I can’t have anyone following me home tonight. Oh yeah I also forgot the disappointing state of public restrooms here.. Needless to say it has not been the most pleasant morning. I just want to go to bed.
After more waiting and random calls to people in the US without getting anything accomplished, I decide its time to get out of this airport at all costs, so to Rome it is, either as a stop over or for the night. So now to find the cheapest way, since I don’t have the regional schedule in front of me and I’m not about to pay 14 euro for the stupid not-so-express express train (it is hardly any faster). I remember seeing something about a bus so I try to find that, only to get asked 59385 times if I need a taxi and then for some bus driver to tell me its 35 euro for the bus but that he can give me a discount to 25 if I want. Yeah right, I told him the train costs a lot less than that, but he counters, saying it takes longer. Whatever, I finally leave and find a tourist desk, ask what is the cheapest way to Rome, and get a 8 euro bus ticket for a bus leaving immediately. See, I knew it was possible! The only downside to that transaction was when I tried to pay with a 20 and she got all pissy asking me if I had spicci. Are you kidding me!? I just went to the ATM and this is what it gave me, and 12 euro isn’t even that much change. So you’re going to take my money!
Besides this annoying, yet expected, transaction I’ve gotten a lot of stares and need to remember not to make eye contact. This isn’t America after all and I can’t have anyone following me home tonight. Oh yeah I also forgot the disappointing state of public restrooms here.. Needless to say it has not been the most pleasant morning. I just want to go to bed.
the longest trip ever!
The past couple of days feel like they have been one big, long, bad day. I think I stayed up until midnight or 1 to try to pack after I got back from BWI, but ended up falling asleep. Luckily I did set my alarm for 5 this time... but when I woke up at 5, my suitcase was still completely empty. So then I spent the morning figuring out what to take, which worked out surprisingly well; my weight came in at 45 lbs. I can’t think of the last time I was under the weight restriction. But I was rushing to the airport because my mom thought I should be there super early when I just ended up sitting there for 2 hours until my flight took off.
Finally on the flight we pull out of the gate, are on the runway and.. we stop. We’re grounded due to severe thunderstorms in the Detroit area. They say we have to wait 40 mins for an update. 40 mins comes and goes, and maybe after an hour they finally tell us they still haven’t received any information. So we sit and wait, the air conditioning only barely working since the engines are no longer on. Finally the captain makes the executive decision after nearly 2 hours to go back to the gate because the heat on the plane is unbearable, even though he loses his place in the take off line in doing so. Back in the airport, no one can even say when or if this plane will take off, and at this point there is no way I will make my connection, which I previously had 3 hours to make. So I run to some service desk with phones and sit on the reservations line forever, on hold and then talking to at least 3 different people who did not help me. One suggests getting rerouted through New York as the only way to get to Rome tonight, but mentions that the flight leaves in 10 mins and must be booked by the airport ground staff.
So I run to a service desk at a gate that is not for my flight because the line is short and because there wasn’t anyone at my gate. I pretty much beg a customer service rep to help me given the time crunch and the fact that I need to be in Italy ASAP. He spends the next 45 or so minutes trying to get me rebooked onto the flight through JFK that, while I was standing there, was delayed as well. Even with this delay I should still be able to make the connection in New York, he says, as long as I run.
After a lot of tries it turns out he can’t check me in for the second leg (NY-Rome) flight and he says I’ll have to do it when I arrive. “So I have to now run through JFK AND check in?” I ask. He says, “Oh well you don’t really have to run, just if you want to be safe.” He thinks the gates might be close by despite the fact that JFK is a huge airport so that it won’t be a problem.
I’m concerned about my bag. As he is rebooking me, the Detroit flight, which finally got slated for a 6:30 departure, continued to sit on the ground at least until 7. He says not a problem, the gates are right nearby and someone will take the bag off the Detroit flight right away and put it on the New York one. And he assures me that an hour connection is enough time in New York to transfer that bag as well, even though I know from working at Air France that that is the minimum time that we advice for connections and sometimes the bags do not make it.
But I’m on this flight. So I walk around the airport for a little. Stand around the gate and get on a minuscule airplane for a 40 min flight to New York. Once we arrive I bolt out of the airplane; I’ve got about 50 minutes to figure all this out, and it turns out to be not so easy.
There must have been bad weather all over the place because the airport was packed. I find the departure screen and beside all the flights there are simple numerical gate numbers, except for mine, which says TM1. What does TM1 mean? I try to ask an airport employee standing next to me and she says she doesn’t know. So I run around the whole building eventually interrupting some very busy Delta service rep who tells me it means Terminal 1, another building. Now I’m used to be in big airports and in general can navigate stuff like this, but why is JFK making it so difficult without a map to be found and random acronyms that are never explained?!
So I run out the doors towards ground transportation as the rep had advised me, despite not seeing any Terminal 1 signs. I’m in the parking lot at this point and finally spot a 1 in the distance. Is this really the easiest way to reach this terminal?! I run into the terminal up a bunch of stairs and see a closed Alitalia desk in front of me with one employee cleaning up. He looks at me (probably crazed/out of breath from running) and asks me if I am on this flight to Rome. I say yes and they check me in and tell me to go to the gate. So I have to go again through security and then run though Terminal 1 to my already boarding flight.
And here I am. Somehow on this flight to Rome from New York, instead of Detroit, on Alitalia instead of Delta. I’ve heard many an Alitalia horror story, but it has proven to be OK thus far. Maybe minus the fact that I got stuck with a middle seat wedged between a bickering Greek couple. Couldn’t they have just sat together? Besides that, the plane is full of (presumably) crazy Italians.
There were probably at least 40 movies on my little personal TV and I hadn’t even cracked my book/magazines yet, assuming that Washington would be my short layover and Detroit my long one, but I promptly fell asleep and even ended up missing the take off, my favorite part. I only figure this out when I wake up and can’t believe that we are still taxiing, and look up at the map to see that we are over the Atlantic. So I ended up dozing off or resting for most of the flight until now, 1 hour until my arrival in Rome. My eyes and throat hurt (my contacts are dry), and I have serious doubts about the whereabouts of my bag, as well as not know what to do at all once I arrive to Rome. If the bag isn’t here I think I would prefer to stay in Rome until it does arrive.. and with my delayed arrival and only 1 train an hour to Viterbo, my simplistic relaxing little trip to one of my favorite Italian spots has proven only to make my trip even more complicated. So I’m landing with no place to go and nothing to do, I guess I will figure it all out then. Maybe I’ll just head to Florence and find somewhere to stay there.
Finally on the flight we pull out of the gate, are on the runway and.. we stop. We’re grounded due to severe thunderstorms in the Detroit area. They say we have to wait 40 mins for an update. 40 mins comes and goes, and maybe after an hour they finally tell us they still haven’t received any information. So we sit and wait, the air conditioning only barely working since the engines are no longer on. Finally the captain makes the executive decision after nearly 2 hours to go back to the gate because the heat on the plane is unbearable, even though he loses his place in the take off line in doing so. Back in the airport, no one can even say when or if this plane will take off, and at this point there is no way I will make my connection, which I previously had 3 hours to make. So I run to some service desk with phones and sit on the reservations line forever, on hold and then talking to at least 3 different people who did not help me. One suggests getting rerouted through New York as the only way to get to Rome tonight, but mentions that the flight leaves in 10 mins and must be booked by the airport ground staff.
So I run to a service desk at a gate that is not for my flight because the line is short and because there wasn’t anyone at my gate. I pretty much beg a customer service rep to help me given the time crunch and the fact that I need to be in Italy ASAP. He spends the next 45 or so minutes trying to get me rebooked onto the flight through JFK that, while I was standing there, was delayed as well. Even with this delay I should still be able to make the connection in New York, he says, as long as I run.
After a lot of tries it turns out he can’t check me in for the second leg (NY-Rome) flight and he says I’ll have to do it when I arrive. “So I have to now run through JFK AND check in?” I ask. He says, “Oh well you don’t really have to run, just if you want to be safe.” He thinks the gates might be close by despite the fact that JFK is a huge airport so that it won’t be a problem.
I’m concerned about my bag. As he is rebooking me, the Detroit flight, which finally got slated for a 6:30 departure, continued to sit on the ground at least until 7. He says not a problem, the gates are right nearby and someone will take the bag off the Detroit flight right away and put it on the New York one. And he assures me that an hour connection is enough time in New York to transfer that bag as well, even though I know from working at Air France that that is the minimum time that we advice for connections and sometimes the bags do not make it.
But I’m on this flight. So I walk around the airport for a little. Stand around the gate and get on a minuscule airplane for a 40 min flight to New York. Once we arrive I bolt out of the airplane; I’ve got about 50 minutes to figure all this out, and it turns out to be not so easy.
There must have been bad weather all over the place because the airport was packed. I find the departure screen and beside all the flights there are simple numerical gate numbers, except for mine, which says TM1. What does TM1 mean? I try to ask an airport employee standing next to me and she says she doesn’t know. So I run around the whole building eventually interrupting some very busy Delta service rep who tells me it means Terminal 1, another building. Now I’m used to be in big airports and in general can navigate stuff like this, but why is JFK making it so difficult without a map to be found and random acronyms that are never explained?!
So I run out the doors towards ground transportation as the rep had advised me, despite not seeing any Terminal 1 signs. I’m in the parking lot at this point and finally spot a 1 in the distance. Is this really the easiest way to reach this terminal?! I run into the terminal up a bunch of stairs and see a closed Alitalia desk in front of me with one employee cleaning up. He looks at me (probably crazed/out of breath from running) and asks me if I am on this flight to Rome. I say yes and they check me in and tell me to go to the gate. So I have to go again through security and then run though Terminal 1 to my already boarding flight.
And here I am. Somehow on this flight to Rome from New York, instead of Detroit, on Alitalia instead of Delta. I’ve heard many an Alitalia horror story, but it has proven to be OK thus far. Maybe minus the fact that I got stuck with a middle seat wedged between a bickering Greek couple. Couldn’t they have just sat together? Besides that, the plane is full of (presumably) crazy Italians.
There were probably at least 40 movies on my little personal TV and I hadn’t even cracked my book/magazines yet, assuming that Washington would be my short layover and Detroit my long one, but I promptly fell asleep and even ended up missing the take off, my favorite part. I only figure this out when I wake up and can’t believe that we are still taxiing, and look up at the map to see that we are over the Atlantic. So I ended up dozing off or resting for most of the flight until now, 1 hour until my arrival in Rome. My eyes and throat hurt (my contacts are dry), and I have serious doubts about the whereabouts of my bag, as well as not know what to do at all once I arrive to Rome. If the bag isn’t here I think I would prefer to stay in Rome until it does arrive.. and with my delayed arrival and only 1 train an hour to Viterbo, my simplistic relaxing little trip to one of my favorite Italian spots has proven only to make my trip even more complicated. So I’m landing with no place to go and nothing to do, I guess I will figure it all out then. Maybe I’ll just head to Florence and find somewhere to stay there.
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