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Published: March 18th 2007
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riculously long lines!
I stood in this line from 7:30-12pm. They were averaging 30 minutes per person for rebooking... craziness This morning, as I wake up BACK in Milan, BACK at my same place with my same life coach landlord, it just seems so surreal! I thought I'd be livin it up on St. Patty's day with dave and friends... but no. I'm stuck here in Milan until god knows when. Read on... I was SO proud of myself. Yeah, maybe I was tired... but my only 2.5 hours of sleep last night would mean that I would sleep for the entirety of the plane ride home to the US and beat the jet lag. Up at 5:20am, taxi to Milano cadorna at 6am (which, in milan is still considering "night time" and the fare STARTED at 10.20 euros!!!), and train to the Airport at 6:27am would mean that I'd get to the airport around 7am... plenty of time to navigate the airport and catch my flight at 9am.
So with my three suitcases and timbuktu bag, I miraculously made it to the airport and got a cart and proceeded to wander around until I found a monitor of departing flights. YES! Finally found it! okay, flight 1565 to philly... which gate... wait... no... maybe I'm looking at the
chillin with the suitcase!
hilarious... got the shades for style and the suitcase for a pillow! wrong one... no, it's right... no... CANCELLED. It happened simple as that. Everyone was as surprised as I was. We were all shuffled to this one line with
4 US Airways representatives behind the desk, where a monstrous line formed in no time.
Thoughts going through my head: 1. I'm SOOOOOO disappointed... it's been a GREAT month, but I'm ready to go home... I miss dave. I miss my ladies. this SUCKS 2. holy s***! I haven't even had any caffe this morning. Usually: triple espresso. Today: none. I'm in trouble. 3. oh no! I only have about 50 pages left in my book... I knew I should have looked harder for an english bookstore! 4. Thank god I wore my sneakers instead of one of my cute, high-heeled italian purchases 😊 5. Maybe the 2.5 hours of sleep wasn't such a good idea after all... 6. I wish the guy a little way behind wasn't talking so gosh darn loud! geez. 7. and then the thoughts just go downhill from there and I start cursing in my head like a sailor 😊
Anyway, I think you get the picture. It was an absolute disaster. Not chaotic, but
guess who
me on 2.5 hours of sleep (tryin to fight the jet lag!), NOOOOO caffe, no breakfast, TONS of luggage (the black one next to me is mine, too) and standing in line for freakin ever. GUESS who's not happy?! I disaster all the same. Turns out that because of the weather in Philadelphia, the flight that was supposed to depart from philly the night before never left. This same situation occurred with all the other airlines up and down the east coast all the way to chicago. No planes had left the US.
You can imagine that this was a scheduling/re-booking NIGHTMARE! And the time it took for them to re-book each person was reflective of that. People were up there for at least 30 minutes each. I waited in that line from 0730-1130 before I was seen. Then I understood why it took so long. As a person who was screwed, even though I KNEW there was no hope besides what they told me, I felt like I had to keep asking about other possibilities. At one point, I was ready to fly from milan to seattle to phoenix and then to the east coast- but NO flights to the east coast were open because of this problem.
I even asked if I could be re-routed through AFRICA. I'm not kidding! Turns out I might be able to get on a flight on TUESDAY, but not certain. So
nap time!
i guess in extreme circumstances, even the old men take refuge [:)] I had to leave being okay with that.
So, in my exhausted, hungry, disappointed state... with my lack-of-caffeine-headache setting in just on schedule (at least something was on schedule!)... I got back on the train to Milan, back to Viale Piave, 11.
I found a place to store my things in the courtyard until my lanlord got back from his meditation conference at 20:00, and then treated myself to lunch and two espressos. Feeling a bit more ready for the day after that, I headed for Pinoteca Brera, a collection of northern italian paintings that I had wanted to see but never found the time. This was a gorgeous gallery with famous paintings such as Raphael's
Marriage of a Virgin and Hayez's
The Kiss. The Palazzo Brera is a 14th century baroque palace and had large, spacious rooms. In one of them, I was excited to discover that there was a concert. For about an hour, I decompressed while listening to a string quartet with a backdrop of Bellini's "Predica di S. Marco". Yes, I wanted to be home, but yes... things could be worse.
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