Waking up at 06:25 in Via C.
Closing the suitcases and saying goodbye to Florence/Tuscany/Italy.
No time for coffee, cappuccino nor tea.
The flight is at 09:45 but with my mom we decide to go very early to the airport.
Not only because she and my sister managed to loose their flight from Rome to Florence, when coming from Prague; but also because between the flat and the airport there are 6 km of which 3 are on a viaduct that in the morning gets a huge traffic jam.
We leave the flat at 07:07.
The viaduct is empty and around 07:45 I am already in the airport deciding whether I should wrap or not my red big suitcase…
Hamlet dilemma: wrap or not wrap?
OK! Let’s do it!
My red big suitcase is now wrapped in a green paper.
I leave my black purse to my mom, take the light blue suitcase and the laptop and go queuing to the check-in number 5.
So early I was never at the airport: 2 hours before the flight…
08:05 – the check-in is done. All went smoothly – No issues for the kilos, no issues for the visa. At this moment I have all the tickets with me, oleeeeeeeeeeee 😀
Immediately, it is time to go for the last Italian breakfast, last of this year. From tomorrow on for me, there is Ecuadorian breakfast… 🙂
2 cappuccinos, 2 freshly-squeezed orange juice and 2 pastries – all is delicious.
Last chit-chat with my mom.
08:50 – time to go boarding.
Florence airport is very small. In 2 minutes you get from the bar to the security checks.
Just before the security check, my mom stops and checks the wallboard.
I never do that.
As long as I already checked in, as long as I am not late for the flight, as long as I am not looking (yet) for the gate…
But I think I am going to start now to check it.
My flight to Frankfurt is cancelled!
Oh Mein Gott! [= oh my God] – Since my Erasmus in Bonn (Germany) in 2006 I still use the German version…
Not delayed, cancelled!
Oh Mein Gott!
In Frankfurt I was supposed to have the flight to Bogota after 2h and 30 minutes and in Bogota I was supposed to have the flight to Quito after 4h and 30 minutes…
Oh Mein Gott!
Lufthansa opens 2 counters for the cancelled flight LH 0309, for my cancelled flight and the queue is already gigantic.
Maybe 30 people before me.
Couples, families, single travelers.
Everybody who wants to fly somewhere else goes via Frankfurt.
And now Lufthansa has to reschedule for each single passenger her/his route…
An American couple after me is flying to Oklahoma, an Italian couple to Costa Rica, an Italian girl, who was fist in the queue just got the flight re-booked, to Greece….
There is nothing left for me than just to queue and wait…
Friends and family write me on Facebook, they wish me luck for my new experience, for my journey, for the flights…
Oh Mein Gott! I feel so embarrassed… But I just keep on laughing…It never happened to me that a flight was cancelled.. and I did travel in the last dozen of years…
10:25- it is my turn at the counter.
An Italian flight attendant asks for my passport.
I provide it to her and ask what happened to the airplane.
I was always curious and I always will be!
She says that smoke was found during the usual technical checks before the departure and therefore it did not land.
Aha.. smoke in the plane… [thinking: smoke on the water a fire in the sky – Deep Purple]
Better happened earlier than later..
The only strange thing is that in internet at the Frankfurt Flughafen [= airport] site it seems that more planes have been cancelled arriving around 10:00: a Lufhansa from Milan, a China Airlines and a US Airlines…
The Italian flight attendant doesn’t know anything about it…
And she does know how to do her job, she starts promptly to check for other options.
There are not so many, I am traveling the world, not just going outside of Europe.
She finds an option with 4 stops (instead of 3 as mine originally) that flies in the afternoon but arrives at Quito in the middle of the night, at half past 02:00 AM.
No way! Not only the 4 stops, but how can I ask R. to come pick me up that late??? No way!
The second option is the next morning. A KLM flight: 06:35 Florence -> 08:45 Amsterdam -> 10:00 Amsterdam -> 14:45 Quito
This was actually what I wanted to book originally but was costing 400 € more.
There is also a third option: tomorrow at the same time as today, the same flights as today Florence -> Frankfurt -> Bogota -> Quito.
Rapidly I think and.. YES, let’s go for the 06:35 KLM. It is way shorter and it is now paid by them, so let’s go for it!
I ask also for the hotel options and YES, I can take the hotel next to the airport, with provided the shuttle bus to it now and tomorrow to the airport.
Great!
My mom can go back to Anselmo tonight and I can go with the shuttle bus to the airport tomorrow at 04:30. Oleeeeeeeeee 😀
I have just to inform R. and wife…. not to make them go to the airport in Quito at midnight tonight…
The Italian flight attendant contacts KLM, sends me to their counter and also to the lost and found to take back my suitcase.
Oh, the lost and found. It is just 2 weeks and 2 days I was there to collect the same suitcase from a different location… All looks like destiny… What shall it mean? I am not really (yet) clear on it…
10:45 – I have the new ticket, the red big suitcase wrapped in green back with me, a hotel booked till tomorrow morning, a meal voucher of 10 € and a shuttle bus coming picking me up in 15 minutes for the hotel. Oleeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee 😀 At the end of the day, not so bad 🙂
11:15 – The shuttle bus is not yet here but a shuttle bus guy (from Lufthansa) did appear. He told us the shuttle is arriving in 10 min but 15 are already gone…
11:25 – next to me, waiting on the shuttle bus there is the (elderly) American couple flying to Oklahoma. They have been put on a morning fly at 09:30 to another German city and then to USA…
11:35 – still no shuttle bus, the shuttle bus guy took a shuttle bus and disappeared saying he will be back in 10 min.. whyyyyyyyyyyy?
11:45 – the shuttle bus guy is gone, the shuttle bus is gone too. We are left 2 US couple, a 2 couples from Italy (all elderly) and me… While waiting there is next to us a 60 years old woman trying to communicate in a very poor Italian to the customer support at the airport.. Apparently she wants to make a call, a private one but they do not allow her… She has a very strong Russian accent and no Italian or English.
11:55 – the shuttle bus guy is still gone but now arrives a woman organizer… she seems more nervous than we are, but she keeps yelling state calmi! [= stay calm!] I can’t make jokes of her… I just can’t.
The shuttle bus should come at 12:00 – she screams
Sure, the shuttle bus was supposed to come at 11:00 too – we all think 😉
12:00 – A black mini van shows up. YES, it is our… It is me, the 2 couple from US, the 2 couple from Italy and the Russian woman. We give the suitcases to the mini van and enter it.
The Russian woman decide to sit next to me. And next to her there is one Italian woman, one of the Italian couple. The shuttle bus is full, 8 passengers and even more suitcases.. Its windows are black and it is travelling to the highway from Florence to Prato.. The feeling is weird…
When I thought it couldn’t get weirder, the Russian next to me, asks me for my self phone to make a call. Her Italian is so bad that she can’t be living here, she must be visiting somebody.. and now she is lost in this country without knowing the language…
“Sure, you can use my self-phone” – is my answer.
She dictates me the phone number, once the phone is ringing she passes the call to the Italian woman next to her…
I think suddenly that they might know each other, maybe the Italian woman is her gate to the Italian communication in Italy..
Or maybe not because the Italian tries to explain to the other person on the phone what happened to the Russian, but she doesn’t know all the details.. and when she doesn’t know something, she keeps putting the other person on hold and she is asking the Russian…
– Our flight was cancelled..
– She is flying tomorrow with the same flights as today
– We are now going to the hotel
When the Italian woman hangs up, she looks at me very quickly and in the same hurry she tells me that Tatyana gets easily panic attack, we have to keep her calm – that was she was told by the man on the phone…
Tatyana must be the Russian and the man on the phone must be somebody who knows her, definitely more than me and the Italian woman do…
In 10 min we arrive at the hotel. The Gate at Sesto Fiorentino. It is a 4* hotel but the location pretty sucks. In the middle of the highway with really nothing near to it…
We enter and we go one by one/couple by couple to check in.
Tatyana is before me and when she goes to check in the Italian couple has the great idea to put us all together on the same floor to help Tatyana, in case of need…
She get the 503 room.
When I am checking in, the receptionist asks if we want the alarm clock and I do answer YES. Because the flight is at 6:35, the shuttle bus is at 4:30 and therefore the alarm at 4:00.
After confirming it, I run to Tatyana and ask her if she wants the alarm at 4:00. She doesn’t seem to understand the meaning of alarm, so I try to say:
– Tomorrow 4:00 bus (my hands are holding an imaginary steering wheel), tomorrow 4:30 alarm
Tatyana doesn’t know what alarm is so I try again:
– Tomorrow 4:00 bus (my hands are holding an imaginary steering wheel), tomorrow 4:30 RING RING – do you want the RING RING at 4:00?
Tatyana stares at me, she doesn’t know what alarm is, she doesn’t know what RING RING is.
Then it hits me: she speaks Russian, maybe let’s try my CZ
– Budik [= alarm] – zitra v 4:00 budik
Tatyana starts to almost scream: no budik! no budik at 4:00 no! My mobile, my internet, no budik!
Is she afraid somebody will knock at her door in the middle of the morning and wake her up???
Anyhow, Tatyana will not have the alarm tomorrow! That’s for sure!
Me and the Italian couple, we decide to go all together up, we have all got the rooms on the same floor.
We are all on the 5th floor.
With a very small elevator…
Once we got at the right floor, I am asked to help them on how to enter the room.
Once they all entered their room, I enter also mine.
And after a couple of second my self phone rings. An unknown numbers calls me. I do not have it saved but still seems to remember it.
– Hi I received a call from Tatyana from this number. I just wanted to ask you if you could tell her to switch on her phone as the daughter is trying to call her…
OK I am delivering the message, but Tatyana doesn’t speak that well Italian or English…
I got to Tatyana’s room, she is still in front of it. I ask her in a very slow Italian if the phone is on, I ask her if the phone is working, I ask to put it OFF and ON again.
She doesn’t seem to understand much.
She stairs at me with her big confused eyes.
She just gives me the phone.
Great all is in Cyrillic. What I am supposed to do with it???
I look for the START button and press it.
She still stairs at me but now seems to understand a bit more.
The self-phone restarts and I ask Tatyana, again in a very slow Italian if it is now working.
She understands me now, she takes back the phone, click on something, says NO, it is not working! and gives me back the self-phone with again a message in Cyrillic.. Again, I do not read Russian…
OK, I decide to call back the man who was calling for Tatyana.
– Hi, I was talking to this number because of Tatyana in Florence and the cancelled flight
– Hi, sure. Here is Valentino. I am the husband of her daughter.
– Great. Hi, Valentino! With Tatyana we restarted her self-phone but it seems that it is not working. Is the daughter somewhere there, so she could talk now to her mom?
– Sure, I can pass her right now on the phone
I pass my self-phone to Tatyana telling in a slow Italian that the daughter is on the phone.
Tatyana looks happy, she takes the phone and in a comprehensible Russian (even to me) she just explain that she is already in the hotel, in the room, all is OK and she is flying tomorrow.
The call is quick and after a minute, she hangs up, gives me back the mobile and with now very happy big eyes says GRAZIE TANTO [= Thank you very much].
Today is gonna be awesome and tomorrow hopefully I fly, this time for real, oleeeeeeeeeeeeeeee 🙂
La Chica Europea 