2009 / january / 10
Praise and scorn, or: a long journey home
January 6, 2009, Italy. Winter weather.
Thumbs up: for the friendly lady of the newspaper stand in Trento FS, who called her daughter immediately as she heard we were flying out of Bergamo to check the weather there.
Thumbs down: the planners of Trenitalia. Yes, the 6th of January is a festive day in Italy, still a school holiday, but this year it also was the last day before work and school commenced after Christmas and New Year. So why they not only cut down two-third of the trains running on a regular day, but also shortened the train that we took to a mere four carriages long is just downright shitting on your customers.
Thumbs up: the controllore of the train from Trento to Verona. Despite the extreme loading, he worked his way through, checking everyone's tickets.
Thumbs up: the ever so galant Italian man, who insist on offering a seat to the young lady that is my wife.
A thumb down, again to Trenitalia, and more especially the personnel on the train from Verona to Pioltello, where we needed to change to Bergamo (a long way around, normally you would change for Bergamo in Brescia, but that line sees barely any train on a holiday). Without neither announcements in the train, nor any visible announcement boards on the platforms on the stations where we stopped, we had to guess where we were. The train was even more packed than the previous one. Apart from the end of holiday crush, due to the snow, two prestigious Eurostar Italia trains on the same line had been cancelled. We were like sardines in a tin. People were left on the platform in Verona that simply couldn't squeeze in anymore.
Thumbs up though to the friendly fellow travellers that we had a lovely time with, discussing music, mountains, italian politics and family life, our life dreams, all the dialects of the Trento valleys and ever so much more.
The train was already over half an hour late when we left. And we were clearly losing more time (waiting to let a CIS take over in Brescia ad generally going very slow). But hey, our next connection was hourly, and anyway, we had timed it so that we could even miss two of those and still be in time at the airport.
The biggest thumb down of them all goes therefore to the driver of this train - who stopped in Pioltello for a moment along a barely platform, barely recognizable under thirty centimeters of snow, then drove on without unbolting the doors.
Leaving us in quite a panic. Next stop Milano Centrale! By now we were quickly using up all the extra time we had alotted ourselves.
Hey, maybe the flight would be late, too? But we found out that amidst many severe delays and cancellations, ours was the only one that was scheduled on time.
We did make it, thanks to the airport bus from Milano Centrale to Orio. Dense snow kept on falling. On the radio news that was on in the bus, there were warnings for severe weather in the whole north, especially around Milano. Accidents already. Drive slowly, if at all, sounded the warnings.
Thumbs up to the driver who drove safely on the white autostrada, which thankfully was eerily quiet with hardly a car in sight. So, no accidents either.
We were at the airport a good ten minutes before the checkin desk closed. Our flight was in time. That we then spent an hour and a half on the tarmac, waiting for extra de-icing and sweeping of the runway was just the weather, no thumbs in either way for that.
But... a big thumbs down to the baggage handlers of Bergamo airport! While we were driven with the bus to our plane (BGY is a typical lousy provincial airport) from the gate, people noticed two suitcases falling off the cart in front of us. The bus driver then started driving as if he was on the autostrada, honking loudly and accellerating, and managed to overtake - and cut! - the cart. When we stood still, both drivers brought their windows down and some heated words ("hey you! can't you see that two suitcases have dropped!") with accompanying gestures followed. The cart went into reverse and we went on to our plane.
Those two were not ours. But when we finally arrived at Schiphol, one of our bags was indeed missing. And apart from the turmoil that caused, it also cost us an extra hour of waiting for the next train, since it was so late that by then only the hourly nighttrains ran.
Home by three and minus twelve (and yes, I had to work on wednesday morning).
I did receive a text from the airport two days later that it has been found. However, the delivery company managed to bring it to the wrong address... this afternoon we finally got it back. Part of the chassis has broken through the outside, and the zip is torn away from the fabric leaving a fifteen centimeter hole. It was sheer luck that nothing was missing.
But one small mercy: the pot with funghi had not broken!
