Today is Sunday the 19th of December and I am writing from my hotel room in Florence, somewhere in the middle of nowhere, near the airport! A huge snowstorm hit Florence Friday and everything shut down, even the San Lorenzo Market! It literally snowed from 10am until around 8pm that night! When I say it snowed all day i am not talked about wimpy delicate little flakes, I mean very heavy and thick packable snow! Now keep in mind that this is still Italy and its not the U.S. so the Chicago airport personnel wouldn't bat an eyelash at a few inches of snow, but Florence DOES NOT UNDERSTAND THE CONCEPT OF A SNOW PLOW, so needless to say I am stuck here until farther notice. The funny part is, the whether isn’t even bad anymore actually by sun up on Saturday the snow had actually started to melt. The reason the airport was closed was due to the fact that workers couldn’t get there!! With that, allow me to fill you in on how the past morning has gone for me...
My roommate and neighbors wanted to get to the airport EXTRA early because of the weather, so we loaded up a taxi just after 5am on Saturday. Upon arriving at the airport there was still no change to our flight, the screen read "On Time" while all the others had been canceled or delayed. Silly us for begin optimistic! I called home to let my mom know that there was no new information, when I looked up at the screen and saw the dreaded 8 letter word that would haunt me for the next 3days, "canceled".
Crying, frustrated sighs, shocked gasps, lots of angry cursing and complaining is what i heard for the next few hours at the Florence airport. I called Swiss Air with the hope of getting through to change my flight, but after being on hold for a 45 minuet international call, I gave up and went to get in line.
A few hundred college students mostly girls, waited anxiously in a line that hadn't moved in hours. The tiny little Florence airport was bursting at the seams and completely jammed with luggage and grumpy impatient college students who just wanted to get home. Now let me tell you the kicker to this whole situation, they had literally ONE EMPLOYEE working for Swiss Air trying to get a few hundred students rerouted, and even then he was busy working on Lufthansa group flight stuff which meant that non of us in line had gotten acknowledged in over 4 hours! NOT EXAGGERATING ON THE TIME LENGTH HERE PEOPLE! After close to SIX HOURS in the front of the line, it was my turn. I got to the front of the line and had all my papers ready to hand to the man behind the counter when he switched seats with some woman who eventually preceded to tell me that this window was closed and that I had to go TO THE OTHER DESK FOR SWISS!! WTH!!?!? I promise you that for the past 6ish hours i had been the calm one of the group, the optimistic, go with the flow, not grumpy one! But at this point I broke down! They told me not to cry... like that was going to help! Finally the lady behind the "Lufthansa" line took my passport and rerouted me, which literally only took 5 mins by the way! lol I got a hotel voucher and directions to the shuttle bus to stay the night in Florence.
So now the plan is to leave at 7:50 (Sunday) for Zurich where ill have another over night layover! Ill update you on my progress when I can. I am just praying I can make it out of Florence because that will be a HUGE step in getting home.
My roommate and neighbors wanted to get to the airport EXTRA early because of the weather, so we loaded up a taxi just after 5am on Saturday. Upon arriving at the airport there was still no change to our flight, the screen read "On Time" while all the others had been canceled or delayed. Silly us for begin optimistic! I called home to let my mom know that there was no new information, when I looked up at the screen and saw the dreaded 8 letter word that would haunt me for the next 3days, "canceled".
Crying, frustrated sighs, shocked gasps, lots of angry cursing and complaining is what i heard for the next few hours at the Florence airport. I called Swiss Air with the hope of getting through to change my flight, but after being on hold for a 45 minuet international call, I gave up and went to get in line.
A few hundred college students mostly girls, waited anxiously in a line that hadn't moved in hours. The tiny little Florence airport was bursting at the seams and completely jammed with luggage and grumpy impatient college students who just wanted to get home. Now let me tell you the kicker to this whole situation, they had literally ONE EMPLOYEE working for Swiss Air trying to get a few hundred students rerouted, and even then he was busy working on Lufthansa group flight stuff which meant that non of us in line had gotten acknowledged in over 4 hours! NOT EXAGGERATING ON THE TIME LENGTH HERE PEOPLE! After close to SIX HOURS in the front of the line, it was my turn. I got to the front of the line and had all my papers ready to hand to the man behind the counter when he switched seats with some woman who eventually preceded to tell me that this window was closed and that I had to go TO THE OTHER DESK FOR SWISS!! WTH!!?!? I promise you that for the past 6ish hours i had been the calm one of the group, the optimistic, go with the flow, not grumpy one! But at this point I broke down! They told me not to cry... like that was going to help! Finally the lady behind the "Lufthansa" line took my passport and rerouted me, which literally only took 5 mins by the way! lol I got a hotel voucher and directions to the shuttle bus to stay the night in Florence.
