OK, so we started out trip by hopscotching from here to Toronto to Switzerland. My folks -- well, come to think of it, probably only Mother -- wanted to hang out with my sister and brother-in-law at their place before their wedding.
We make it to the airport just fine. But, at some point during our stay at the airport, I don't exactly remember when, we were told our flight to Toronto was delayed. It had to have been before we got on the plane because I don't remember being stuck on the plane for an inordinate amount of time. All I know is that we were strapped into the plane, and then I heard through the PA system that our new time of arrival was going to be about ten minutes after our connecting flight is supposed to take off. Shit.
Nothing we could do except bitch. The reason, apparently, was runway construction. You're constructing a runway? During the middle of the day?? When planes are taking off and coming in??? That's the reason our plane was delayed????
Not only did we wait on the ground, apparently we had to loiter above Pearson, also because they were building a new runway or some other fucking thing. When we finally touched down and raced through the airport, we were told that our connecting flight into Switerzerland took off 25-30 minutes before. This is why I hate international flights: If you miss yours, you are fucked basically for an entire day.
As we were. We were running all over Pearson. After noting that our bags were at the carousel, we immediately went to Air Canada to get another flight. We asked for everything: Another transit point to get us into Zurich at about the same time or earlier, flip us back to the States so we can leave in the morning, etc. The woman who tried to help us, though nice, did not inspire a lot of confidence. She gave us a lot of stares at the computer, slow glances down towards some sheet she had beside her, and then, finally, a morbid shake of the head. No, she couldn't guarantee us a potential itinerary through London because we were on our own if British Midlands didn't have a spot for us in England. In fact, she told us that the flight we were going to be on for the next day was totally booked. Fuck.
Finally, she gave up and asked her supervisor for help, and she promptly just crammed our names into the next day's flight. We could not get into Switzerland any earlier, which meant that the one day and four hours we were planning on spending with my sis and bro-in-law was now reduced to four hours. What was the point? I needed to figure out what the plan was now. We were now up against a scheduled train trip to Milan and, more importantly for me, a tour to see The Last Supper.
The conversations I had with my sister to figure this out is its own blog post, as well as what happened after we got our hotel voucher. My God, just thinking about those two subjects makes me want to lie down in bed and cry.
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