A Day of Travel Straight to Hell and Back!

We, like many of you have had our share of crappy travel days, but THIS ONE takes the cake in our experience. It began at 10:30 am when we left the castle for Pisa Airport and our 12:40 flight to Madrid Spain where we would meet my mom and dad and Trey and Olivia would see them for the first time in three months (They had been talking about it for two weeks in anticipation). When we left, I asked Simone “How long will it take to get to Pisa Airport?” He responded “One Hour”. This of course is assuming that we don’t make a wrong turn along the way! Well, what should have been a one hour drive straight down the autostrada turned out to be a 90 minute journey with us arriving at 12:00 (Forty minutes prior to departure). The kids helped Anna, who had bags piled on her like a Sherpa on an assent of Everest, and I searched for a quick parking spot (Before you get on me about having Anna drag bags, know that had I let her find a spot she might have ended up in another country, as she still has some difficulties with directions in this land of “Labyrinth” like streets!) When I got into the terminal at 12:10 Anna was standing with the bags and the kids waiting to inform me that they closed the gate 40 minutes prior to departure and she was there 39 minutes before (Literally).

We raced over to the information counter to plead for help. After a brief wait in line I found myself across the glass counter from Georgio who clearly takes his job as the airport information guy far too seriously. At first he was quite empathetic, taking the time to call the pilot for us to ask if he would allow us to board. The minute the pilot found out that we had two bags to check, he would have nothing of such a proposal (At this point we were still 20 plus minutes before departure). Georgo hung up the phone and informed me we were out of luck. Well those of you that know me, know that at times like this, my head kicks into immediate crisis mode and often times this means, pulling out all stops! I immediately responded by asking Georgio if I could pay extra money to get on the plane and insure our arrival in Madrid on this day. To say that he was offended would be an understatement! He turned on the speaker microphone behind the glass and proceeded to “Light Me Up like a Christmas Tree” on December 25th! “I DON’T KNOW HOW THEY DO IT IN YOUR COUNTRY BUT THAT’S NOT HOW WE DO IT HERE! HOW DARE YOU SUGGEST SOMETHING LIKE THAT. WHO DO YOU THINK YOU ARE!” I was shocked by his response and put my tail between my legs and proceeded to the next line to seek alternatives :>)

When I got in line, there were seven people in front of me and three lines open (Georgio was still staring me down (like Mike Tyson before a big fight) from one window away. Within three minutes two of the counters closed and went to lunch (Or somewhere, I assume lunch!). One hour later it was my turn to find out my options which consisted of only a scant few choices:

Fly from Pisa to Milan and then on to Madrid late tonight and pay 1,000 Euro each ticket (1500.00 US dollars) as only business class was available.
Take a three and a half hour train to Rome and catch a 5:30 flight this evening to Madrid (Reasonably priced as 200.00 euro a ticket).
Wait till tomorrow and take the same flight at 12:40 the next day (Not an option in my mind as my folks were not reachable as they were in route from Croatia without a cell phone and also would be very worried when they arrived at 11:45 this evening in Madrid expecting us to be there!)

The only problem with option two was that I didn’t know if there was a train available to get us to Rome in time for the 5:30 flight and of course the lady at the airline ticket counter didn’t know either (Why should she, the train ticket counter is at least 200 yards down the hall in the same airport. It would require WAY TOO MUCH COMMON SENSE AND EFFICIENCY for the ticket agents at the airport to have access to the train schedule on their computer!) For this reason, I had to get out of line and walk the three minute walk to find out if I could catch a train to make the Rome flight at 5:30. When I got there I found out that it simply would be cutting things far too close at this point, so I returned to the airline ticket counter and of course had to get in the back of the line!

As I made my way to the front over the next 30 minutes or so, a man frantically walked past me and straight to the ticket window, cutting in front of everyone and babbling something rapidly in Italian. Of course his emergency was far more important than all of ours. This ignited an argument between him and two other people in line that became somewhat heated, but he wouldn’t back down. The result was another 30 minutes of waiting (Total of one hour since finding out the train was not an option) for yours truly as his problem took quite a while.

When I finally returned to the front of the line I informed the ticket agent that I would like to bite the bullet and go with option one (Flying to Milan and then on to Madrid however ridiculous the price might be). After about ten minutes of her playing with her computer keyboard, she looked up and informed me that those seats were now taken and the flight was sold out! “OK…………. deeeeeeeeeeeeeep breeeeeeeeeeeeeeath! Had I not had to get out of line to walk to the train ticket office and then wait another one hour I would….ah no one cares so just stop the complaining.”

Now it was back to the drawing board for the next 75 minutes with the ticket agent. We finally located an option that would work if we could “boogie big time”. There was a flight that left from Bologna (Three hours away) at 6:40 and had us arriving in Madrid at 8:40. By this time it was nearly 2:00 so making it there would be a test.

We bought the tickets (You don’t want to know how much we had to pay, it was highway robbery), reloaded the car and put the peddle to the mettle.

Think again if you thought this was the end of the saga. The next hurdle was that the machine in the parking garage that required payment for our three and a half hours at Pisa airport was broken and there was no one in sight to help! This is where I lost it! Talk about feeling like nothing can go right. Imagine sitting in the parking lot with a wooden gate in front of you (You know the one, with the bar that goes up in any standard parking garage) and you can’t go anywhere. I didn’t know whether I wanted to laugh or cry, so I literally chose the later…

Well, we finally retrieved help and were given our “Get out of jail free card” and hit the autostrada at high speed. The problem with our route is that the highway from Florence to Bologna (The last 75 minutes of the drive) winds through the Appinine Mountains and is notorious for having slow traffic due to big rig trucks. I decided to make the call to our pal Simone (You must remember him from last month’s gasoline escapade) and asked him to meet us at the train station in Florence with four train tickets to Bologna. By now the only chance we had of making it was a high speed train through the mountains as the delays in the parking garage all but sealed our fate of missing a second flight and wasting a significant amount of money.

We arrived at Santa Maria Novella Train Station at 3:55 pm, five minutes before the train’s departure! The scene that you have watched in movies of the family racing down the train track to catch the train was us! I literally had to throw our bags onto the train as it was about to begin moving. Lets put it this way, it’s a good thing that I only had family was sitting next to Anna and I on the one hour journey to Bologna, because I cant believe we smelled too good at this point!

Well, we made it to Bologna on time and made our flight, but this day was not quite over. As we were boarding we were informed that Iberia Airlines, cancelled our return from Madrid to Pisa in their system as we were listed as a “No Show” from earlier that day! It was at this point that we simply had to find humor in all the hassle. It’s a good thing we have the best travel agent on the planet in Linda Lockner. She of course as always took care of us and got our tickets reinstated with the central ticket office for Iberia airlines.

Moral to the story? Yup, take a driver to the airport, its simply not worth the stress :>)