Spending two days in Italy sounds absolutely delightful in theory…but if you’re flying from San Francisco you’re relegated to spending an almost equal amount of time travelling as you are enjoying the destination. Not to mention the jet lag so you’re a complete zombie for the entire two days. But still…two days in Italy!
I recently made the trek to Orvieto. It was the first time I had been on a plane since before Covid. I booked the flight about five or six weeks prior — and in those weeks leading up to my journey both my outbound and return flights got cancelled. The key with this flight was to have the most direct route and to arrive in Rome as early as possible — preferably without having to leave home at 4 am. The best laid plans…
The email letting me know that my flight had been cancelled indicated that I had been rebooked on another flight…however the new flight was literally impossible: it had me on a flight to Rome that left two hours before my flight from San Francisco had even landed. I blinked at the email several times hoping I had read it wrong…nope!…so I promptly called Lufthansa. Their phone system would pick up and say all the agents were busy and call again later…not even the possibility to wait in some hideous queue…sigh…So I called again. And again. And again. After about 16 attempts to reach someone at Lufthansa I started to panic. I tried changing it in the app — didn’t work. I tried changing it online — didn’t work. I tried calling a bunch more times — couldn’t get through.
So I did the next most sensible thing…I drove to the airport. I figured someone had to be there at that huge Lufthansa counter in the international terminal at SFO. But no…I realized the new flight they had me on was a codeshare with United so I waited in line at the United counter — but they weren’t able to access the ticket so they couldn’t help me. They made some phone calls and clicked some buttons — no luck. Argh….it was a couple of hours until the Lufthansa counter was supposed to open and I figured I’d already probably need to sell a kidney to get my car out of airport parking so I headed home.
After more phone calls I managed to get on another, sightly less desirable flight. Then a week later when my return flight got cancelled — I went through the whole process again — this time without the panicked visit to the airport.
My general recommendation for catching connecting flights at Frankfurt airport is to run like you’re being chased by a hungry bear!
As the flight drew near I kept getting reminder emails from both Lufthansa and United to upload my documents. Somehow my title got tacked onto my first name on the ticket (Hanslip, Lisamrsdr) so the name on the ticket didn’t match the name on my passport. This meant I couldn’t upload any of the preparatory documents or check in prior to going to the airport…sigh…so although I’m typically the person who likes the bare minimum of time in the airport I allowed oodles of extra time to sort out everything at check in.
The first flight — which was SFO to New York — was completely full. I kept reading about people on mostly empty planes during the pandemic — I guess I missed the window on that. Then before the boarding of the New York to Rome flight everyone needed their EU locator form documentation checked and needed to be wearing a KN95 mask. This was a big gong show — but I was all sorted so I tried to take some deep breaths and relax a bit before the next long flight. This too proved slightly problematic as my germaphobe nature made me slightly nervous about deep breaths but I tried to roll my eyes at my own neuroses and keep it together.
I’m typically not the best at sleeping on flights at the best of times but I didn’t manage a single, solitary minute of sleep on the entire journey. So I arrived in Italy feeling oh-so-perky.
Even though I started learning Italian a while ago, it’s been a slow process. Knowing my synapses would probably not be firing after the long flight I prepared some phrases that I thought might be useful. I forgot most of them but I did try to communicate a bit in Italian — when anyone answered me in Italian, however, I fear I stared at them like Bambi caught in headlights. Sigh… I did have a fairly successful exchange with the pharmacist when I went to arrange my Covid test for the return flight to the US. It’s amazing how well you can feel you’re doing with a language during your daily dose of Duolingo — or in class even — but when faced with a room full of Italians that don’t speak any English you (meaning me) tend to panic!
My return flight was through Frankfurt. I tend not to have the best luck in this airport. Especially when leaving from Italy. The flight is usually running late and then I magically have to get from a gate at one end of the airport to a gate at the other end of the airport in an inconceivably short amount of time — plus make it through passport control and security. As I was staring at the minutes evaporate while we were sitting on the tarmac in Rome I was getting more and more nervous about the likelihood I’d make my connection. I asked a flight attendant if she had any tips or recommendations for me as I didn’t think I’d make my flight. She took pity on me and five minutes before landing began she let me move to the one open seat near the front of the plane. As soon as I got off the jetway I ran – like my life depended on it — like I was being chased by a hungry bear, even. I had to stop to catch my breath at passport control and then resume my sprint. There was an additional checkpoint for travellers going to the US — I had to show my vaccination card, my negative test results from the day before, my passport, my green card, and explain if I was a doctor of medicine or philosophy. Then the final leg of my sprint resumed and I arrived at the gate, totally out of breath, and feeling not totally unlike said hungry bear had caught up with me, only to hear them announce that boarding is delayed so we can allow connecting passengers to arrive. Seriously?!?! They have never once held the plane for me in Frankfurt — not a single time. Apparently I could have strolled through the airport like a sane person and avoided my ill-advised sprint (cough up a lung anyone? No? Just me? Ok….).
Well, I made it onto the plane and found out that they were providing free WiFi for messaging purposes. This was actually kind of fun — I’m sure because of the novelty — so I spent an hour or so messaging lovely husband. Then with only 11 hours left to kill I dove into the tv library. It was slightly weird for me to feel slightly uncomfortable on a plane. For so much of my life I was constantly flying somewhere or other. But between my nerves about the pandemic and all the potentially germ-y humans stuffed all around me — and not having been on a plane for several years — and not having slept in four straight days — I was very ready for the flight to be over. I won’t even get started on the stupid travel pillow I purchased for this trip. I spent days reading reviews and watching YouTube videos attempting to choose the best one. I chose poorly. That’s ok — there were two very snuggly pugs waiting at home for me, along with an accommodating Amazon Prime return policy to get rid of the stupid travel pillow. All was well.