The Trip There ... 12/16-12/18

Wow!

Yeah, that’s word for it. And yes, Dallas, every meaning of that word. To start with, it was not my day for air travel. Let me explain.

According to my ticket, which I purchased months ago, I was scheduled to fly from Little Rock to Atlanta, Atlanta to Milan (Italy), and then Milan to Tel Aviv (Israel). Sounds great, right? Yeah, I thought so too. Granted, I only had about an hour and a half layover in Milan, but at least I’d be able to say I was there even if I didn’t get to actually leave the airport. I thought it was pretty cool.

Then I arrived at the airport there in Little Rock. Stupid me, I had forgotten to call the day before and check the flight schedule. They had changed it and hadn’t notified me. Instead of flying out at 11:40am the flight I was supposed to be on had taken off at 7:00am. In talking to them I learned that it was indeed their fault and that they should have called me, e-mailed me, or something so they were more than happy to get me on another flight.

The problem was, there was no other flight to Atlanta. I’ll admit, that kind of freaked me out. At first they were talking about sending me to Tel Aviv by another route. I think Zurich (Switzerland) was the airport they mentioned. However, when I told them that I was supposed to be meeting the rest of my party in Milan and then flying with them to Tel Aviv, they quickly shifted gears and started trying to get me to meet up with my flight to Milan from Atlanta.

To make a very long story very short indeed, I made it to Atlanta in time for my original flight to Milan. True, I got there by way of Cincinnati, but I’m not going to quibble about that. At least I got there. And hey, I saw a new airport. It was a pretty good deal.

The funny thing was, even though I arrived at my departure gate in Atlanta a mere fifteen minutes before the flight to Milan was scheduled to take off (Yes, ask me about running five terminals worth of the Atlanta airport sometime…) the boarding area was still packed with people waiting to board. I was expecting to be the last one on. You know, roll in Secret Agent style just as they were closing the door. Yeah, that’s kind of what I had in mind.

But like I said, that wasn’t the case. Not at all. As it turned out, the flight had been delayed coming in so, naturally, it was delayed in its departure.

To once again significantly shorten a rather long story, the flight was delayed just over two hours.

Aha! I hear those gears grinding in your heads. That’s right, I only had an hour and a half worth of layover in Milan. No, the math doesn’t work and no, just because I teach math doesn’t mean I can make those numbers add up. It didn’t work. I missed my flight.

Not a big deal though, or so I kept telling myself, I landed at 10:30 and the stewardess told me that there was another flight leaving for Tel Aviv at 12:30. I would have plenty of time to make that flight. Dr. Fisher would realize what happened and wait for me at the airport in Tel Aviv. I’d already left a message on his phone explaining everything from Atlanta. I just knew this wasn’t going to be a problem.

That was, until I found the transfers desk and realized just how long this was going to take. There were about fifty of us on the flight from Atlanta who had missed our connections. No, not a pretty sight. Most of these people where very upset. The ladies working the transfer desk were about to go nuts with all the work and grumpy people.

This is when I learned my first lesson in dealing with people from other cultures:

Sarcasm is completely lost on people who are not native speakers of your language.

Oh, I can hear you laughing. It was pretty funny. After waiting in line for over half an hour I finally stepped up to the counter when the lady called “The next one please!” in a stiff Italian accent and brightly commented, “Boy, it sure looks like you’re all having fun!”

Seriously, my voice wasn’t just dripping with sarcasm, it was marinated in it! But just as seriously, she missed it. All I got was a look that could have curdled milk while it was still in the cow and a very stern, “We are working very, very hard here. What is it you need?”

So yeah, that’s lesson number one.

Once again, I will abbreviate this story immensely in order to make it readable in a single sitting.

They got me a boarding pass, they checked my bags, they were about to escort me to the gate so that I would make it on time, and security showed up. It seems that they had forgotten that there was a routine round of questioning required before I could board the plane. The questions weren’t a big deal and the guy asking them was pretty cool, but it was another delay of about a half hour. Yup, you guessed it. I missed that flight too.

So there I was, once again dumped rather unceremoniously at the Delta check-in counter wondering what on earth was next. By this time I was pretty sick and tired of dragging my suitcases around the Milan airport.

Then the strangest news of all came. There were no more flights to Tel Aviv that day. Not only that but all the flights going to other airports in Europe that had flights to Tel Aviv that day were full. There was no way to get me to Tel Aviv that day and the first of the two flights the next day was full as well. I was going to be there in Milan until 12:30pm the following day.

I was inwardly groaning at the prospect of spending the night curled up in one of the seriously messed up airport chairs behind me when the lady at the counter suddenly handed me my ticket for the next day and told me that a driver would be there in just a few moments to pick me up to take me to the hotel.

Yes, I got to spend the night in Northern Italy and not in the airport!

I was pretty jazzed. As it turned out, the Milan airport is actually about 55 kilometers outside of Milan itself and so they put me up in a hotel in a nearby village. After checking in, putting my bags in the room, and calling my folks I hit the streets; camera in hand. That was so much fun.

I found out rather quickly that the name of the village was “Somma Lombardo.” Pretty cool, huh Pop-pop? It was quite small with a population of just over six thousand and a lot of fun to walk around. Trying to find a gift shop, I talked to a lady who knew about ten English words. Seeing as how I know three Italian words, we had quite the lively conversation. There were many hand motions, monkey signs, and exasperated sighs, but we were laughing the whole time and I’m fairly sure we both enjoyed it. I know I did at least.

After a couple hours of walking I returned to the hotel, ate a quick dinner at the restaurant there, and went up to my room and crashed. Thirteen hours later, my alarm clock went off. Yeah, I was that tired.

I caught the airport shuttle from the lobby and back to the airport I went. My problems were not yet over though. When I went to check into the flight, the “standard” round of questioning was much more strenuous than it had been the day before. I think the lady was just having a bad day and taking it out on me. Whatever the reason, she decided that she didn’t like my answers and called her supervisor over. So I talked to her supervisor and her both for another fifteen minutes. At least he seemed to be in a good mood and was quite pleasant. However, she was still pitching a fit over something (I still don’t know what, they were arguing in Italian) and so they decided that I would get a complete search. That took about an hour and half.

I kid you not. First they pulled me off behind the curtains away from the rest of the passengers in line. Then they brought in the Italian police so that the police could get my permission to give the airline permission to search my bags without me present. Then the police officer had to go get a form for me to sign to prove that I had agreed to this. Then they had me open my bags and show them all the electronics in them. Then they took me somewhere else and searched me. Then I waited for about an hour before the supervisor finally showed up holding, of all things, the packet of tuna that Mom had me bring for a snack.

With a very grim face the security supervisor told me that everything except this one item had cleared their search and that if I wanted to board the plane I would have to agree to have this item destroyed. It was all I could do not to bust a gut laughing. I readily gave my permission and things started happening.

They quickly tagged my bags for the trip, gave me back my shoes, sweater, and passport (These were the items they had confiscated when they started the search) and escorted me to the gate.

I really don’t know why I was so tired, but I was. I fell asleep during take off. I didn’t even make it until the pilot turned off the seat belt light. I just zonked out. I woke up half way through the “The Illusionist”, watched the last half of it, and then we landed about twenty minutes later.

I was picked up at the Tel Aviv airport, driven to the Grand Court Hotel in Jerusalem, and there is where I met up with the rest of the group. I was about 26 hours late, but I got here. It was quite an adventure.