enfinblue's Bluey (credit to Fifi for the nickname!) Diaryland Diary

"I am seeking, I am striving, I am in it with all my heart." -Vinc3nt V@n Gogh

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I hope that my fingers won't freeze as I try to draw stuff.

Quick update to state that I made it here safely.

A rather harrowing journey though. I paid 80 bucks to the limousine service to get me to the airport in time to get stuck in a very long line for a couple of hours on Saturday, from which point the journey only got worse.

I do not particularly want to slag A!r Canada, since it has its pluses (I believe I read that it actually has the best safety record of any airline in the world - not surprising though for the only G7 country (practically the only country in the world) with banks so heavily regulated and conservative that the government has not needed to step in in these economic times to do anything.)

But, I have to say, Air Canada is not efficient; and just forget about customer service. (Well, Canadians in general, although they will give you the shirt off their backs if you're in need, are not known for customer service.) AC has the worst planning capacity. They also have the worst strategies for communicating to their clients. In other words, they don;t communicate. There were cancellations due to snow in Vancouver and freezing rain in Toronto. We had to figure out that these were causing the major bottlenecks in Ottawa and delaying our planes, since no agents were available and they weren;t picking up the phones.

My plane, for example, from Ottawa, was supposed to leave at 9:45 a.m. on Saturday, giving me a wide margin for my 16:45 airplane to Zurich that afternoon. Initially the plane was delayed by a half an hour, which I was OK with as I had ultimately waited about three hours whilst getting bumped by people with earlier planes from getting through the AIr Canada baggage check line (note to self: don;t check a bag with AC in future).

But then the agent and the two flight attendants who were sitting at our gate left. They were transferred to another plane. That kept on happening all day, and our flight even disappeared from the board. I was not worried initially, because i had a big window for my connection, but other people had major transfers that were totally screwed. It wasn't even that the planes were delayed due to very bad weather - severe freezing rain and fog in from Toronto, through Ottawa and on to Montreal - that was freaking people out; the issue was the lack of communication and seeming complete indifference by AC.

I finally found a very agreeable desk agent on a gate with a plane destined to go to Halifax (and that I discovered at about 1:00 p.m. had taken the pilots assigned to MY plane to Montreal, leaving us with nothing). He kept on calling the dispatch to me, which made it painfully clear that AC didn't have a clue what was going on with my plane. At intervals it said that it had already departed, that we had pilots, that we had flight crew. None of the above were true. We DID have a plane sitting at our gate for EIGHT hours, but unfortunately I don't have a pilot's license. :)

So I think that my persistence with the random agent called Ron, who will get a commendation in my nasty letter to AC (Ron became the only reason that I would happily fly AC again), is the only reason that dispatch eventually figured out that the pilots that could fly our plane had been redirected to Montreal because they couldn't land in Ottawa. Eventually they did make it back to Ottawa, but initally they were sent to another plane. At about 2 p.m. we had ONE pilot and no flight crew.So I kept on politely asking Ron to check with dispatch and otherwise tried to figure out for other people on our plane how they might find alternate connections (and hotels). At about 2:45 p.m. (exactly two hours before my plane to Zurich was due to leave Montreal), two glorious flight attendants and a pilot showed up at our gate in Ottawa and I thought, 'right, it's a 20 minute flight, no problem!' (At this point you might be wondering why I didn't try to take a bus to Montreal in the interim. Easier said than done - with the transit strike I wasn't sure that I would even get to the bus station, let alone that there would be a place on a bus that would get me there in time (with the freezing rain slowing the highway traffic on the two-hour drifve), it would cost more money, plus AC just wasn't giving me the info. I assumed at all points that the plane would eventually go, although I was having my doubts at 2:30 p.m...

So get this. Eventually we did get in the plane, but I had no idea how we were going to get cleared to fly. The fog was as thick as pea soup and the wings were icy. Indeed. At 3 p.m. I was sitting in a plane in a deicing facility in Ottawa, watching the faint outline through the fog of guys on trucks with giant ladders spraying the wings with EERIE AND NO DOUBT EARTH-DESTROYING GREEN SHIT.

Yes! Eventually, scared out of my wits, I sat in our plane as we followed a heaving salting truck down the runway and took off in pea soup fog. I'm sure that it was all very safe, knowing AC, but having already had my nerves broken this week I thought I WAS GOING TO DIE. DRUGS!! DRUGS!!!

I haven't had a prescription for an anxiety drug but once in my life (during grad school). Need to get me some more...

So I DID make it to my plane to Zurich. I got to Montreal with twenty minutes to spare. I got on the plane and then it was a tight sqeeze to Florence but I made it. You're going to laugh your heads off, but in spite of the tight connection when I got to Montreal I found out that on my transatlantic flight I was seated in the very last seat on the right-hand side in the very last row on the airbus. Yippee!!

Better, yet, I was seated in a window (which I hate, since I hate having to crawl over people to get to pee), next to a very fat Italian dude who was traveling with his mother. His mother sat on the other side of the aisle, swatting him periodically when he didn't open her yogurt or something, whist he spent the ENTIRE EIGHT HOUR TRIP WITH HIS ELBOWS DIGGING INTO ME AS HE PLAYED POKER ON THE IN FLIGHT ENTERTAINMENT UNIT (the console when turned sideways becomes a game console). I don't know how you play electronic poker in this way, but THIS GUY DID IT FOR EIGHT HOURS. So, no sleep for me, light on all night, one pee...He was a pleasant enough fellow but MY GOODNESS. There were also a bunch of boorish young Toronto dudes who had rye for breakfast and who were clearly en route for their first trip to AMSTERDAM. I felt as though I was in a Bob and Doug Mack3nzie skit.

So enough of my complaining. What compensates??? Well I discovered that Florence is quite quiet at this time of year. No tourists, a bunch of miserable-looking shivering Italians. It even snowed a little bit today. Honestly, I wish I had brought a warmer coat. I will layer though. I should have realized that it would be quite chilly; just as in Australia, it feels almost as cold as Canada because they don't heat interiors the way that we do.

Oh! And the most delightful discovery? Italians DO NOT DO WINTER WEAR WELL at all. We Canadians do it much better. They're all wearing god awful puffer parkas (if not FUR COATS LIKE MY GRANDMOTHER WORE IN THE 1960s BWAAAAAAAAAHHH - and not vintage ones) and...get this, they even ruined the noble toque!! (Basically knitted ski hat, if you don't know what I mean. ) I was watching women go by in gaudy-looking ones with giant pompoms on top and...get this...sequins!! Yes! No other people on earth would think to sequin a (hot pink) ski hat, but the Italians do! I think they inteded it to look like snowflakes; I was kind enough not to tell them that my first thought was 'dandruff'. :)

(So sorry - Italian keyboard is daunting me. :))

The Italians are so nice though. The people at the hostel have been so kind to me, giving me a room with only four beds and an ensuite, and letting me come back early to sleep. So sweet and kind.

Anyhow. So I suspect that once I am better rested and layered up I will be very happy to be here and will have a pleasant trip. Am seriously going to have to get drunk to endure the flight home though...

Lots of love from bella Firenze. The journey begins.

I was a bit disappointed, I'll note, not to find a welcome note from M. in my inbox. I haven't heard from him since right before he left for Paris, however, so I guess he is not donig email over the holidays. No big deal.

OK! Gotta run. (Oh, and that reminds me - my phone isn't working, so I need to check that out at the phone place tomorrow.)

Love. Love. Love. Lots of pics and post cards soon. Promise.
SO, that is about the wrap up.

5:12 p.m. - 2008-12-28

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