We are sorry for the inconvenience...eat some airport food!
June 17 or 18th-ish: Sometimes it doesn’t matter how well you prepare yourself, how well-packed you are, how early you arrive. If you’re at the mercy of the airlines and their flight schedules (or lack thereof), anything can happen.
I’m somewhere over the Atlantic Ocean, about halfway to Amsterdam according to the in-flight navigation screen. I just woke from a two-hour nap after dinner service. All of my raw food carry-on survival items have been long consumed, as of course it was not in the planning to be stranded for a whole extra day. The meal wasn’t half bad though, as utterly grotesque and frightening as airline food can be. I ate my mixed green salad, warm nuts, some cheeses and crackers, a few bites of mushroom ravioli. Over my shoulder, the whole “Business First” cabin is sound asleep, except for my husband, who is playing in-flight Texas Hold-Em, some guy across the isle pounding down little bottles of scotch, and me. It’s only 10:00 pm on Tuesday evening by what my watch and brain thinks is Eastern standard time, but realistically it’s 4:00 am on Wednesday where I’m going, and will be landing in just a few short hours to a new day.
In-flight dinner salad
When we left Orlando Monday morning, little did we know that we’d be joining thousands of travelers whose flights got completely jacked by tumultuous weather which seemed to be all over the mainland United States. We had some shady signs of travel hell from the moment we arrived at Continental’s ticket counter upon check-in. Ironically, this time we were nearly 2 hours early for our flight, rather than the typical last minute sprinting to the jet way just as they’re closing the door. We were looking forward to this trip and anticipated relaxation and wanted it to begin just as soon as possible. No rushing, no stressing, no sweating over last-minute details. Besides, hubs and I like being in airports. These days, a lot of them are like going to the mall, or indoor urban biospheres.
A nice lady at the ticket counter began the check-in process by tagging our oversized bags and logging in our passports. Then came a perplexed look as she glanced alternately from our itinerary and then to her computer screen. “I don’t understand this,” she said. “Hmmm. Something’s not right.” With that she picked up the desk phone and rang someone who seemed to perplex her even more. “ Mmm hmm. Yes. Oh, my. Really? Oh.” She turned her back to us to finish the conversation discretely, as if she were shielding us from some classified information. And then, turning back to us again, she hung up the receiver and gave us the news, “I’m sorry, your connecting Alitalia flight from Milan to Venice seems to have been cancelled. They may have gone on strike. They do it all the time,” she chuckled. Oh well. It wasn’t the end of the world. Milan is a mere 150 miles from Venice. It would be an easy and lovely drive along a straight-shoot west to east highway. We probably should have just planned it that way in the first place.
So we leisurely strolled on toward the gate, catching an update along the way from the departures screen in the terminal. Departure time to Newark, where we’d be catching our connection to Milan, was postponed 30 minutes due to thunderstorms in the New York area. And then, 30 more minutes….not good. We finally boarded an hour and a half after scheduled departure, only to sit on the plane for another hour and a half at the gate. By now, it wasn’t the New York weather thorning in our sides. In classic Florida summertime style, the great wrath of Mother Nature ensued with a thunderstorm so intense, the airport was shut down. Fabulous. Now there was no way we would be on that flight to Milan.
Flying between thunderstorm clouds near Orlando. Can you say turbulence!
This was all quite nerve-wracking to say the least. We had a boat to catch out of Venice, a boat that we paid a lot of money for, not to mention the fact that we had looked forward to being on, for nearly a year now. Being faced with the reality that we would miss our most important connection, which, being trans-Atlantic would no doubt mean a once (twice at the most) a day occurance, I had visions of us arriving in Venice a day, or minutes too late. I saw the Insignia pulling away without us, my husband and I running frantically after it screaming “Wait! Waaaait!!” as happy passengers waved bon voyage to us. Oh, this was not a very comforting vision.
Once we arrived in New Jersey, things did not get anymore reassuring. In all my years of flying, I have had nothing less than nightmarish experiences with EWR airport. In my book, it is jinxed and should be avoided at all costs, and unfortunately this time around was no exception. Once we stepped foot into the terminal and began our quest as to what to do next, complete airport pandemonium was all that seemed to meet us. Every person gave us different information, different options, or no options at all. It was entirely too crazy and too lengthy of a soap opera to even compose in a sane, unfrustrated manner.
We finally found our way into Continental’s Presidential Lounge, where we were greeted by a kind, intelligent woman named Veronica who took pity on us and worked quite vehemently to get us on another flight without losing our upgrades, and get us to Venice on time.
Veronica, Continental's angel agent, and me. We LOVE Veronica.
The end result to all this madness was a handful of meal-vouchers, an overnight stay in a cigarette-stinky hotel room in Newark, and a re-route the following day through Amsterdam. Bottom line? We should make the cruise ship just hours before it leaves Venice, IF our KLM connection is not delayed. Even though we lost an entire day of sightseeing, I suppose we should just be glad to be getting there in a potentially timely manner.
Wednesday, June 18th: Wow, what an airport Amsterdam has. It’s HUGE! And what a pretty countryside. So green, and the trees are perky and symmetrical. I saw some windmills from the airplane window. How quintessentially Dutch.
I’m tired. My Apepazza wedges, once a favorite pair of shoes, are now ones that I don’t ever want to see again any time soon. They have worn blisters through the randomly placed band-aids on my feet that are now peeling off. My calves hurt from being in the tippy toe position for way too long. Like a raw food survival kit, wedges are not designed for more than a few hours of trucking through airports. And let me just emphasize again that Amsterdam’s airport is HUGE.
By the way, our luggage is no where to be found. We were supposed to have claimed our bags through customs before re-checking and boarding this KLM flight to Venice. But they never showed up. The agents said it’s possible they were loaded on a later flight from Newark, which was to arrive just two hours after ours, so I’m keeping my fingers crossed. It’s nice to have this amazing scenery outside my window to keep me distracted. The Austrian Alps are just beautiful, far more plush and dimensional it seems, than when flying over the Grand Canyon or the Rockies. Wow, I would love to be down there…
Austrian Alps from my window...click to see more on Flickr
<3, JMK
