Going Home

Day 79 away from home

What a crazy morning!  I got back to Rome so late that I just found a hotel close to the train station instead of travelling to the hostel across the city so long after dark.  Turns out the only place that had a free room was the big fancy one, so I spent my last night in Italy soaking in a huge bathtub in a posh hotel.  I set my alarm for the early morning so I could catch the train to the airport and have plenty of time to catch my flight.  As that would have been only a few hours after I arrived at the hotel, I completely slept through my alarm, waking up just in time to rush out and catch my flight.  I called down for a taxi to save time and to my surprise, it was not a taxi waiting outside the hotel, but a hired car.  You know… one of those glossy black sedans with leather seats and a handsome Italian driver who held the door open for me.  I felt a bit disoriented by this lifestyle that is so different from what I am used to.

I thought things were working out okay as we pulled up to the terminal just in time for me to pick up my luggage and check in.  Oh how naïve and optimistic I can be sometimes.  My driver dropped me off at Terminal 1, where the international flights offered by KLM leave from.  From there, I had to wander around trying to find out where to go to pick up the luggage that I had left.  Turns out, that was in Terminal 3, which I found out after asking several people.  So I trekked to Terminal 3 to pick up my bags, after which I had to walk back to Terminal 1.  Confused by the screens and signs attempting to direct people among the seemingly zillions of ticket counters, I finally found a row that said KLM with a long queue and stood in line to wait.  So I waited… and waited… and waited… and finally I reached the front, glad to finally check in just in time for my flight.  To my devastation, the not-so-helpful woman at the counter told me that the flights to the States don’t leave from that terminal and she had no idea where I was supposed to be.  I finally found an information booth and asked the gentleman there where to go for a flight arriving in Washington, D.C.  “I’m sorry, but the only flight to Washington is with United.”  What!?!  No, no, no… I’m sure that my flight is with KLM.  I even checked the flight status on the KLM website last night.  So I boot up my laptop to try to find the copy of my Orbitz reservation, and there it is… KLM flight 6037… to DETROIT, MICHIGAN!  Ahh… maybe that’s why he couldn’t find my flight.  By this time, I have spent all morning running around the airport completely lost and my flight was scheduled to leave in 30 minutes… FROM TERMINAL 5!!!  “It is not possible… check-in for that flight has closed.  And, the next flight is tomorrow… it’s a daily flight.”  So my next step was to try to find the shuttle to get to Terminal 5, which (at this point, not surprisingly) was no easy task.  As I walked again from Terminal 1 to Terminal 3, all I could do was think “I just want to go home,” as tears of frustration began to well up in my eyes.

Well, let’s just say that I am now in the air, on my way home to San Francisco, so clearly everything turned out okay in the end.  Turns out, my KLM flight was being offered through their U.S. partner – Delta Airlines – and, therefore, located in an entirely different part of the airport.  I ended up (for a price, of course) placed on stand-by on a flight to Atlanta and another to SFO.  I was able to get a seat on the flight to Atlanta, finally met the one person in the airport that was both friendly and helpful, and if my luck holds out and I get a seat on my next flight, then I will actually be arriving home 30 minutes earlier than I would have if I had made my original flight.