IN TRANSIT—OY!

IN TRANSIT—OY! (Sept 14-15)
Arrived at the LP airport with plenty of time to sit around before my flight to Bangkok, made it to Thailand without incident, and after much transportational ado, made it into the city for my 7-hour layover. Of course, in order to leave and reenter the airport, one must go through immigration both ways and pay the exit fee to get out of the country. Ridiculous: as often as not, layovers in Bangkok are several hours long—it’s not like anyone wants to sit around the airport for 7 hours. Whatever. I’d decided to do a couple of things I hadn’t done on my Thailand trip, like ride the skytrain (nifty and new), see the main train station (like a little Grand Central), and probably shop en route. There was a big promotional something-or-other happening outside the Siam Center, and I tried to figure out what all the lines people were in were for. Next door, at the HUGE MBK mall, I picked up some basic nice t-shirts and an ipod case and had some yummy thai food.

It was raining by the time I needed to get to the train station, so I took a cab. Of course, while at the airport I’d been told that there were trains every 30 minutes to the airport, they really meant every 90 minutes, so I had to wait around and get to the airport with only an hour to re-check in. …which would have been fine, except that I was sent to two wrong and long lines at opposite ends of the airport before I was finally given correct instructions. So by the time I got to the line for Passport Control, my plane was about to board. I asked my way to the front of the line and promised to repay 14 good deeds to the universe, and got to the gate, where they were at least a half an hour behind and nowhere near boarding yet. (Not that anyone at checkin could have given me that info…)

The flight to Zurich was long, and I slept very little, but had a great little personal TV screen with fun selections, including the Tour de Suisse, so between that and my journal and my reading, it passed quickly enough.

In Zurich (my bag had been checked from LP through Zurich, but not to Venice), my Tevas were missing from the outer pocket of my bag, where I’d had them strapped in. The strap was broken and the pocket ripped. I reported it all, and there was a SYSTEM! And they checked with both airlines—NATURALLY! And the woman in the other Lost and Found office, where I’d been told to check one last time before I flew again, knew all about it—so they must have COMMUNICATED! Oh, no, we’re not in Asia any more, kids! The airport even made sense! And people waited IN LINE!

Alas, the flight to Venice was delayed by over an hour—but at least they made regular announcements. It was quite a shock to be hearing romance languages, to see blond hair, to have personal space, and to get looks of “nice legs” instead of horror at the sight of flesh above the knees. Unfortunately, that all came with the return to loud, fat, tacky, American tourists traveling between tour buses, who manage to make English sound downright ugly. One of the great perks of traveling in Asia is the mix of nationalities (Asian and otherwise), and the hardy, usually younger, souls trekking around. I think Americans are probably less intrepid and more amenity-demanding than all other westerners. I suspected I’d see a lot less of the sturdy backpacking crowd in Europe, especially since summer was coming to a close.

(Suisse Air had my bag repaired and gave me $50 for the sandals—but I was still sad because they were the only shoes I had aside from my sneakers, they were fabulous walking shoes, they’d seen a lot of places, and heck, I had great Teva tan lines on my feet!)

At long last, our plane to Venice boarded and took off. When we arrived, I got my bag and got into the lost luggage line, as I’d been told to check there in case the Tevas had been found and forwarded on the flight. I waited for 30 minutes (Delta—“Don’t Expect Luggage To Arrive”-- had left an entire plane’s worth of luggage at JFK), and the lady at the counter just yelled at me—what did I expect her to do?!? How could she know?!? Oy. The phones in the airport weren’t working, and the buses and vaporettos were on strike, but, after many false directions, I managed to get a ticket for and board a bus that actually did take me to Piazelle Roma. Once there, I had to take a water taxi with a very high fixed price (they LOVE it when mass transit goes on strike) to Piazza San Marco. Finally in the neighborhood of the apartment where we (college pals—more info soon) were staying, I took off my shoes to wade through the flooded square (“I’m not walking through pigeon shit, I’m not walking through pigeon shit…”), found a tobacco shop with phone cards, and managed to contact my roommates. WHEW. This feels more Asian than European, except for the architecture… but 32 hours later…I’m in VENICE!