After a nearly flawless journey from Phoenix to Washington DC, I knew something was going to go wrong. I just knew it.
I was right.
Michelle, my travel companion (that's more platonic than it sounds, I promise), and I were set to depart from Dulles International Airport at 5:51 pm and arrive in Rome at 8:30 am. Well, initially we were delayed 30 minutes, and then an hour before we were allowed to board. We were about to take off, when I noticed the plane was moving away from the runway and back to the gate. Sure enough, another problem had arisen and we were stuck for at least another half hour well the maintenance crew checked it out. For those of you who watch 30 Rock and are aware of "Sky Law," 30 minutes is a lie airlines tell you so passengers don't start freaking out. But I knew when the in-flight movies started and one of the Italian flight attendants started singing that things were not looking good.
Four hours later we were told our flight was canceled. F. Now I should point out that I purposely deprived myself of sleep last night in order to get on Rome time and be able to sleep on the plane, so I was extra cranky, hungry, and very, very sleepy at this point. Luckily, because of the largeness of the plane, they stopped sending passengers to Customer Service and instead sent a special few of us across the terminal on a tram and to another terminal to be helped by the United desk where we got on a new flight. Luckily again, Michelle and I are on the same flights for tomorrow and will arrive in Rome Sunday afternoon after a nice, long layover in New York (JFK). We also got a free night at the super nice Dulles Westin thanks to our lady who purposely defied her scary, stressed boss who was trying to send us to the Holiday Inn close to the Reagan airport (God forbid).
This is all nice but it doesn't change the fact that we waited way too long on the plane and will be arriving much later than we originally planned. So needless to say, United will be getting a friendly note from me in the near future (Mom taught me well!).
I will let you all know when/if we make it to Orvieto!
Once you get to Italy you'll forget all about the stresses of getting there and just fall in love... or so that is how it goes in every book ever written.
ReplyDeleteLove you and can't wait to read more about your trip!
That sound awful.
ReplyDeleteBut when you get to your destination, it will all be behind you, and you're going to Italy of all places, that makes me jelly.