Fast forward from 1999's Dogma to 2003's the author (I mean actually the author, me) deciding where to go on her high school exchange. I thought Italy. I'd really like to go to Italy. But because my sister had such a good time with her family in Spain I decided to go to them. The rest is a very good story for another time, but the relevent bit for this story is that I figured I'd visit Italy while I in Europe anyway.
Well, I didn't.
And not only did I not go, but everyone else on the planet seemed to go to Italy over the next five years, whether they wanted to or not. I never seemed to make it, something would come up: someone's birthday, a visit to a friend. Anyway, I began to think that should I ever had made it through the arches of that Italian immigration office, wherever it was, I would open a black hole that would end all existance. And guess what? I did.
It seems like such a long time ago (a week) and I really want to forget it ever happened. The short of it was that I had a really, really hard time getting to Venice. Here's the long:
As you probably know, I had been living in Edinburgh. I was leaving on the Monday, and it started to snow on the previous Friday. No big surprise there. It's winter. Comes every year. You can set your really slow watch to it. Got to the airport and it's closed. Meaning no flights leaving (see previous post).
Next day, I wise up and ring British Airways in the morning. Flight still on? Yes. That's weird, the website says the airport is closed. Still on? Yes. Ok, I'm going in then. Ok? Ok.
Flight cancelled. Get me on a bus to Glasgow, and a flight NOT through London. One outta two ain't bad, and the bus is leaving now. Get to Glasgow, check into flight. Get boarding pass. Get a VERY intimate pat down. Get to gate. Wait. 2 hours. Flight seems to have disappeared from the monitors with no explanation or announcement whatsoever. What's that you say? CANCELLED?! Well I never...
No more flights for the rest of the day. 8:55 tomorrow morning? I'll take it. At this point I was really looking forward to having a go at someone, but there were so many other people that looked like they had many years experience having go's at people I figured I'd leave it to the professionals. I laughed a bit with the lady at the desk and told her she was doing a great job.
Airbus to town. Sleep. Airbus back to airport. Aaaaaaaand you can guess what happens next.
Back in the queue. Got talking to a very large man with a Tintin haircut in front of me who had come to Glasgow to be on The Weakest Link. We discussed the perils of missing orientation days - people have time to make alliances and you become the latecomer, an outsider. Training day for this job in Italy, you ask? That was yesterday morning...
I'll speed it up because this is becoming unbelievable (it was). Got on a flight to Heathrow. Flight delayed.
Because of said delay, I had to sprint to the next gate to catch my flight to Milan. You may have noticed that I was not originally going to Milan but Venice. The previous two sentences will be important later.
Arrive in Milan and go to get my bag. No bag. Turns out the baggage handlers in Heathrow are not so nimble as I. Bus to Milan Central Train Station to go to Venice BUT because I wasted time not collecting my bag, I had missed the last train to Venice. Hotel. Dinner. Sleep.
SIX A.M. TRAIN TO VENICE. Get on the vaporetto. Meet my wonderful landlord. Venice is eerie, but pretty. Boats everywhere. No cars.
It's starting to be OK.
No comments:
Post a Comment