Europe at last!

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We finally made it to Rome, but not without hiccups. Let me start from the beginning.

Our flight from Melbourne to Bangkok was delayed by 25 minutes, which is not a hug deal, but I was a little worried when they said it was a mechanical problem with the cargo loader, but again, not a huge deal.

The first flight was pretty good. We were seated in 69J and 69K, which was the third last row of the plane. The whole economy class section is divided into 3-4-3 seats, but, the last 4 rows were actually 2-4-2, which was great because there was a bit more leg room because the seat wasn’t right up against the window. The downsides to this, were that this aircraft didn’t have screens in the backs of the seats, only a main screen in each section of the plane, and also that toilets were located at the front, middle and back sections of economy…yep…fart smells for the whole 9 hours! But again, it wasn’t all that bad, as it was only occasionally that you would get a whiff.

Getting to Bangkok was a little odd. They basically parked the Boeing 747 away from the terminal off to the side somewhere, and then we had to exit via one exit only (this was for everyone) and then walk down the stairs that they put against the plane. Then we were all loaded in buses. Meanwhile, it was like 38 degrees celcius, and we were in warm clothes!

They took us off to the main terminal building, and a lot of people were a little perplexed that we took the long way to get there, as we passed the entrance where we had to get off, but we had to go up to a round-a-bout to get back there. I didn’t really like the airport at Bangkok. It had huge ceilings, while tiled floors and unpainted concrete walls and lots of steel. I found that it looked depressing. The lighting they used didn’t help much either.

The line to go through security was massive, and took a while to go through, and the worst part about it was that it was somewhat inefficient in that they had very short tables where only one person at a time could get their stuff ready to go through the x-ray machines. And I think there was only like 2 lines to service a couple of hundred people.

The walk to the gate was pretty long, and all the gates are a level below, and so you walk along the walkway, and turn to your gate and go down either stairs or a ramp to the desk where they take your tickets. The area where you sit was quite large as well, and all the seats were steel as well.

We were on a smaller plane to Zurich, and it was 2-4-2 and didn’t have the upper level that the first class had on the Boeing 747, and this time we were in seats 48F and 48G, but we had no main screen to watch. This time there were screens in the back of the seats, and we could choose what we wanted to watch, as well as see interactive maps of the flight route and we could even play games.

I decided it would be best if I slept on this flight, as I hadn’t slept on the previous one. We were also delayed on this flight by about 50 minutes, but not because of anything mechanical, but the fools missed their allocated slot for take-off and we had to wait for a new one. It meant we would be pushing it to get to Zurich on time to get our connecting flight to Rome. When we first got on the plane it looked like we would have plenty of time, but the delay stuffed us up more that you could possibly believe!

Our connecting flight to Rome was meant to leave at 7:25am local time. We hit the ground at 7:20am. I knew we had missed the flight. I got nervous when we hit the ground as we were told it was -3 degrees celcius outside, and that the military police were waiting outside the aircraft to do a passport inspection. No problem really, it was quite painless. However, on with the story…

We basically ran in the direction of where we had to go and we get to this area where there is a train and nothing else. We had no idea what to do, and so we asked an information officer. She confirmed out flight was gone, and directed us to get on the train to the next station, which there is only one station after that apparently, where we proceeded to go through the maze to get to the transfer desk. By this time I was very stressed and had bad asthma from my head cold and running, and had to have my ventolin before we could go any further.

We get to the transfer desk and the lady was quite helpful. The next flight to Rome was at 12 noon, and was sold out, however we could get on a 9:00 flight to Venice, then connect to another flight to Rome with Alitalia Airlines. She needed to recheck our bags as they had been ticketed to go to Rome, and that wasn’t a problem, and they would need to do the same thing in Venice. She filled out a flight disruption form which we had to hand over with our tickets to Venice, and again to Rome. We thought it would be a miracle if our bags ended up on the same flight as us with all this confusion.

We made our way down to the gates where our flight was to leave, and then there was a gate change, but it was only 2 gates away. To put this in perspective, in Terminal A where we had to go, there were 10 gates. Each gate was about 10 meters apart. You might be wondering how this is possible in a major airport? I’ll get there…

We went through passport control which was basically a lady at a portable booth who looked at the passport and stamped the ticket, then you stand back to get ready to board your flight. I had to laugh, because all these Europeans were dressed in black…black pants, black tops, black jackets, black scarves and black gloves. I stood out like a sore thumb in my bright red jacket, which is no where near as embarrassing as being in 0 degree weather (by this time it had gotten warmer) and having a short sleeve shirt on…no jacket yet! It was so funny to see like 400 people in black woolly winter stuff, and then us.

Anyway, it seems to be a thing at these major airports to have buses run you to and from planes. I guess their size kind of demands it. We all had to get onto a bus, which then took us to our plane, where we had to go up stairs to get on the plane again. The flight to Venice was only 45 minutes and it was daylight by the time we took off. From the air Switzerland looks so amazing and beautiful. Lots of wooded areas and small villages and then in the mountains they were covered with snow and every now and then you could see a small village as well. There were 3 air hostesses on the flight, one young guy who was unusually camp…I mean, male air attendants tend to be a little camp, but this guy looked and acted like he should have been in a dress! The other two were women, and one was quite uninteresting to even bother talking about, but the other I had to laugh. She was totally mutton dressed as lamb with blue eye shadow to boot.

We landed in Venice and got off the plane (again down the dodgy side stairs) and walked into the terminal, where we had to go through Immigration and Customs to transfer to the domestic flight. Apparently, this is where they would need to re-ticket our luggage to get to Rome. We boarded the flight without much trouble and had a 50 minute flight to Rome. By this stage my ears had popped so many times that I had a headache, and I still have blocked ears from a cold, and I am still sick.

We got off and proceeded to the baggage carrousel where we were to collect our luggage. After about 15 minutes, everyone else had gotten their luggage, and we still didn’t see ours there. We thought that it had probably been left in Venice. We both had a feeling that it would have been a miracle if we could get it when we got off the plane. So as I sit here writing this entry (which I know is long…I promise the others will be shorter!), I am pleased to tell you that we are in our, basically 3rd day in Rome, and still no baggage!

Yesterday when we went to the Colosseum (which I will write about in another entry) I had soggy pants, underwear and socks, and I have been in the same clothes for about 5 days now. Fortunately since I had two pairs of underwear I have been able to wash a pair every day and at least have clean ones on! Anyway, the airport gave us a little kit with toothbrushes, toothpaste, brushes, shaving gear, a t-shirt, deoderant and detergent in a little bag, so we can still try to maintain some hygiene.

Anyways, we called the airline before to see what is happening with our baggage, as tomorrow is our last full day in Rome, and we finally get ONE suitcase back most likely tonight. The other is still in London! I don’t know how it managed to get there, but we think that Thai Airlines might be the source…there was a flight to London leaving the same time as us at the next gate in Bangkok, and it would not surprise me if it were there that they got lost.

Well, sorry for such a long entry! I will try to make the rest shorter, and about each place that we visited so that it is easier to read. It’s just that so much happened on just getting here instead of it being what SHOULD have been an uneventful arrival!

By the way…we are staying in Hotel Golden in Rome, near the Villa Borghese and City wall, just near Via Veneto, the ‘premier’ street of Rome. It’s in a great location and has friendly staff. The room is small, but I believe that all European rooms are small. The best thing was that our airport transfer to the hotel was in a Mercedes Benz…leather seats and all! It was so much fun! I lost my mobile phone in the car and I thought I must have dropped it at the airport or something…it seemed to go from bad to worse on that first day. But the man at the hotel called the driver and the driver found it in the back seat and delivered it back to the hotel. Thankfully, we had given him a decent tip when he dropped us off! He was even kind enough to turn it off before he delivered it so that I wouldn’t lose too much charge.

So long for now!
K’n’K

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