Travels (oi vay)

Air France is a huge dong. You wanted angry Adam because that means good blogging, right? Well, here I shall unravel a tale of travel that will make your pants soggy… gross. Sorry. Pretty much everything that can go wrong with traveling went wrong and I’m still only in Boston. But at least I’m in America. Gotta take ‘em as they come, right?

Where shall we start? The beginning! FIRENZE. Slept for about 4 hours because I was just too excited to get on a plane and come home! Ahahahaha! Naivite! As we say in France. But I refuse to speak French any more cause why? Cause Air France is a huge dong. Ok, so with very little sleep, I show up to the aiport with the parentals two hours early only to learn that the flight from Paris yesterday never made it to Florence because of snow. So our flight was cancelled and they had already rebooked the parentals through Amsterdam, Seattle and finally to Portland. They booked me separately because I had purchased my tickets through a group travel ticket agency long ago where I should have traveled home with the rest of the students from my program. So, they booked me separately with Lufthansa on a full flight. At this point, you might ask yourselves, “why would you book someone on a full flight when really any flight to any other European city would probably be fine.” It doesn’t make any sense. So after trying several times on several Lufthansa flights, they sent me to Alitalia and I got on a flight to Rome about ten minutes before it left. At this point the proposed journey was FIRENZE – ROMA – BOSTON – SAN FRANCISCO. “But wait! (you may find yourself saying) Adam, you don’t live in San Francisco.” You’re right! Well whoop-di freaking do! I can get to San Francisco just in time to miss the last Alaska Air flight to Portland! But at this point, I was taking things one step at a time and got on my flight to Rome.
ROME, I need to get my boarding pass to Boston here from someone who works with Alitalia. Who knows how long that is going to take. I see a reader board with all the flights, but the flight to Boston that the Air France ppl told me about is not here. I look over and over again. I then see the sign that says Leonardo Da Vinci Airport. The piece of paper with my itinerary says go to Fiumicino aeroporto. Those are not the same thing. Panicked, I find an Alitalia desk, plop down and in English, start explaining to the woman that I think I’m in the wrong airport. She assures me that of course Da Vinci and Fiumicino are the same airport. Now that’s just stupid. I’m sorry. Pick a name for your airport and don’t put up signs that say other things. The reason I hadn’t seen the flight on the board was because it was in a separate terminal. I transferred terminals, found my flight and was on my way. Here I had time to think about the end of the trip issue. I was probably going to be somehow stranded in San Francisco. Which, for those keeping track at home, is not Portland. I scrounged up all the euro cents I had left in my pocket and paid for two and a half minutes of internet time to try to track down my friend, Cristine’s phone number who lives in Berekeley, California. I came up with numbers of two other people who might have her number, so I could figure that out once I was back in the states. Got on the plane, met a nice fellow from Northern California who is supposed to be on the same flight to San Fran with me. We chatted and had a nice time.
BOSTON, home of the self-described “Mass-holes.” I was worried. I got in, knew I was searching for a United Airlines flight to San Fran around 5:58. I had to go through customs first. Let me tell you, customs are much less of a hassle if you don’t have any bags! Hooray! Hooray for no bags! Helpful! Myself, along with around 50 other people were missing bags. I assumed mine didn’t make it from Firenze because of the short amount of time I had. Whatever. I’m going home. I don’t need my bags for awhile. After that, I went to the wrong terminal and got yelled at by a bitchy US airways woman because I thought that United was the same thing as US airways. That was probably the sleep deprivation speaking. After that, I found the actual United Terminal, talked to a lovely series of woman about my issues trying to get to Portland and we found a flight from San Fran to Portland with United instead of Alaska. I already had the Alaska ticket paid for, but since they’re so helpful, they decided that they were going to charge me $100 to change my flight and still not be able to get me out until the next morning. How do you say NOT HELPFUL, A-HOLES in Italian? I ended up just buying a ticket from San Fran to Portland for $220-ish. Basically, I paid $120 to not have to sleep on the floor of the San Francisco airport/ call on Cristine at 10pm on a Tuesday asking for a place to crash for the night. I got to security and they inform me that the airline flagged me for an extra special security search. Awesome, huh? Just as everything was going swimmingly with United, they think I’m a t*****ist. (I’m in an airport right now: Homeland Security will probably be tackling me to the floor in a couples of seconds.) They patted me down and then tested my belongings for explosive residue. Not a big deal, but funny nevertheless. At the United ticket counter I got yelled at by another bitchy airline worker (Boston, right?) because I was imploring (perhaps a little too much) about how to get my lost bags from San Francisco to Portland. She had a very short fuse, and I was being very polite but she yelled at me anyway. That’s fine. She can go F herself. AMERICA! Land of the free! Grumble grumble. No, it’s cool. I’m stoked to be back. It’s 11:20pm Italy time. I’ve been in airports/airplanes for 18 hours. Only about 10 more to go. This is supposed to be all over when I get into Portland at around 11:30. That’s just 11 more hours. I’m ready! Game time! I’ll let you know how this all pans out.

AJC

Plane update: we were delayed. We are supposed to get in to San Francisco 10 minutes prior to when my plane to Portland boards. A little close for me. Grumble grumble.

AJC

Well that was a series of adventures. On the plane I watched some terrible movies and television because I didn’t have anything better to do. Everyone out there should check out City of Ember with Bill Murray and the dude from Shawshank redemption who isn’t Morgan Freeman. Pretty terrible, like a Tim Rice movie on crack with worse gaudy lighting effects and a bunch of children actors. There were giant moles with tentacles on their faces, it was a blast. Now, I believe my body is shutting down on me. As I was sprinting through the San Francisco airport, my throat was tightening and I couldn’t swallow or produce saliva! Huzzah! I felt kinda like Rocky, but I smell kinda like a garbage can. I was not going to miss that flight and if there was anything I could do to avoid that, I was going to. I now am at cruising altitude somewhere above Northern California. Cristine will never know that I was so close to begging to sleep on her floor. Until I tell her in the next few days. I’ve been on planes or in airports for 27 hours now. That’s a long time. I probably slept for about three hours in that time and I’m writing this to try to stay awake to get back on schedule. Why, it’s 11 pm here! Almost bed time! Please forgive my lack of big words (loquacity). It’s been a long time. The moral of the story is to never fly Air France again. I’m scheduled to get in sometime around 12:30 am and my papa and Luis are coming to get me. I just hope I get my suitcases before I head back to Walla Walla. 2 weeks, come on Alitalia, I have faith in you! Not really. I also just beat Minesweeper on difficult in 637 seconds! Boo yah! Luck turning around? Back in the states, I can almost smell Portland! Love to the NW, baby!

AJC

PORTLAND

I’m writing this the morning after. We were scheduled to get into Portland 10 or so minutes early. The captain reported gusts of 30 mph blowing N/S while we were landing E/W, meaning there is a cross-wind. When we were coming in to land, the plane was wobbling drastically from side to side, so much so, that when we touched the ground, we had to take off again because they couldn’t land. We touched the ground and then went back up to circle around again. I can’t explain how terrifying that is. I thought we were going to crash. To see Portland, to touch the ground and then leave again… I was freaking out. I thought they were going to take us back to San Francisco or to Seattle or something because they couldn’t land. 5 minutes later, the captain finally tells us that they are going to circle around and try again. So, we tried again. Same amount of wobbling and lurching only this time, we touched down and stayed down. I’m not sure what it was, probably a combination of many things, but right then and there I started crying. So happy to be home, alive and done with airplanes and airports for at least the immediate future. 27 ½ hours later, I reached Portland. I am home, and right now we are having a giant windstorm (go figure).

Thanks to everyone for tuning in to my blog. With this, I sign off for the final time. Italy and Europe is behind me now. I’ve learned a lot about myself and about the ways of the world. Maybe I will start another blog some time in the future. Until then, friends, family, people I don’t like very much who read this because they’re bored and lonely, one final ciao. Arrivederci!

AJC