The next part of the adventure I am going to call the Delta runaround. I talk to my tour company, and he has information that there is room on a flight to Amsterdam. We can connect to Venice and still be here Thursday. Clerk one says go to customer service. Customer service says go to gate. Gate looks at me like I am speaking a foreign language, takes my boarding passes, and tells me to sit down. Call to touring company...he says I have to be insistent. I am. When the next person tells me to sit down, I refuse. It doesn't help at first, but eventually I find someone willing to help. They book me on a flight to Venice leaving Thursday evening that will put me in Venice Friday morning. So, we miss the five hour drive from Milan to Venice, the visit to Verona, but arrive to meet up with the tour group in time to tour Venice. Not perfect, but it's something.
While waiting in line for Delta to book us hotel rooms, the helpful lady comes running up and says due to weather delays, there is room on the Amsterdam flight. There is a lot of typing, a lot of talking, a lot of printing, but we get on the flight. We are confirmed to arrive in Venice at 4:30. What about our luggage? It's missed it's Milan connection as well. "It will follow you to Venice."
Storms in Atlanta. The 7:45 Amsterdam flight finally takes off around 10:00, but we are finally on our way. We eat. I start watching a movie, and fall asleep. At some point I wake up and a man is calling for the stewardess for help, another man is having a heart attack. We have just flown past the tip of Newfoundland and are over the Atlantic Ocean. With the way this trip is going, I am expecting an emergency landing at this point. They call for physicians and there are a couple on board. I find out later that if there hadn't been, we would have had to land, but they get him stabilized. I have to say that I was very impressed with the flight crew through all this. They lay the patient out in the floor and I eventually fall asleep again. When I wake up, the patient is sitting up with an IV bag hanging from the overhead compartment.
We arrive in Amsterdam, which I must say it is pretty cool to now have a stamp from Holland in my passport, go to the gate, get sent to the transfer desk, and find no record of us on the Venice flight, even though our ticket says confirmed. We do get on the flight. She scans our luggage tags...Which still say Milan. We actually have some time to kill. I buy wooden shoe magnets and brush my teeth.
Our flight leaves for Venice on time and arrives about 4:40. The flight over the Alps is breathtaking and I have another good snooze. The baggage claim wheel is "sponsored" by the Venice Casino, so it is painted like a roulette wheel. We lost the gamble. None of our bags come off the machine. We go through lost and found to discover that our bags didn't leave Atlanta till this morning. They are on their way to Milan. Because of various factors, they can't guarantee they will arrive in Venice before we leave for Florence, so our bags are going to Florence where we will be on Saturday. That's right. The same shirt, the same pair of jeans for four days.
We take a taxi, which is always an interesting experience. I think all Italian drivers think they are Mario Andretti. Sunshine said, "I thought we were all going to die!" He was not as scary as the Bulgarian driver, though, so all way good. We actually beat the tour group to Jesolo, where our Venice hotel is located. We go ahead and checkin, and they give me the wrong room.
But we are in Italy, headed to Venice tomorrow morning. The girls have had their first gelato. I have stood on the beach and breathed in the Adriatic Sea. I even found a shirt that fits well enough to give me an alternative. Does anyone know what the Miami Beach Board High Club means?
No comments:
Post a Comment