Planes, Trains, and Automobiles: The Long Way Home

Traveling is FUN!

RPP Note: The following is the long version of our marathon trip home yesterday from Seville.  It is written in 'novel' form, as an example of a chapter from my as-yet untitled book project on our European Adventures... so I apologize upfront if it's too long for time-challenged visitors to the site.  It does, however, contain some pretty interesting situations.  Enjoy!

Ryan Air, Europe’s most famous budget carrier, has the highest percentage of on-time flights compared to any other European airlines, at an impressive 84%.  I know this because the airline boasts about it in the official Ryan Air in-flight magazine.  From personal experience, I am proud to say that I have contributed to the ill-fated 16% of flights that haven’t arrived on time, seeing as I’m now a perfect 3-for-3 in tardy arrivals this year.  However, it was the latest of these adventures that had me standing under the baking sun at an unnamed rest stop somewhere in the middle of nowhere outside of Seville, a little perplexed.

Checking my cell phone, I realized that the time was 11:50am, or the exact moment when our flight was supposed to be touching down halfway across the continent in Milan.  Yet at this moment, I found myself with a busload of Ryan Air passengers being ferried across the dusty hills of Spain to a distant airport to somehow catch our a plane home. It was one of those surreal moments that force you to just chuckle and accept, knowing that there’s really no reason you should be standing in that exact place at that exact moment.  Unless of course you consider the bizarre and often (to me) comedic moments that had taken place earlier that morning.  

Instant Line (formed in 4 seconds) at the Ryan Air counter in Seville.

The fun began with a long line at the Seville Airport.  After waiting a half hour to check our bag, we were told by the counter representative that we would have to go to another counter for a “Visa Check” stamp.  It would be far too convenient for him to have performed such a brilliant display of multi-tasking as to be sure the name on our boarding card and passport matched.  So we dutifully turned and began to make our way over to counter number two a mere fifty yards away, when out of the corner of my eye I spied a thundering herd (not the Marshall football team) of two hundred crazed passengers bearing down on that very counter.  We broke into a full sprint to head them off, as if we were teenagers playing the game Capture the Flag.   You could see them coming with a full head of steam and an intensity unmatched in Western Europe.  Yes, they were Italians.  I mean this in no disrespect, only to re-enforce for the first of many times that morning, that lines are considered an unnecessary nuisance in their culture and that there is no genetic coding against moving directly to the front of any queue.  We soon found ourselves completely swarmed, suddenly 50 people further from the front of the line than when we arrived.  Our flight departure time was fast approaching.  “What is happening?” I asked a local in Spanish.  “Cancelado.”  Her Spanish needed no translation – a light fog had rendered the airport nearly useless, canceling the first flights of the day.  

We luckily had spent 6 months in Italy and were prepared for the situation.  Christie gritted her teeth, threw a few elbows, and in a few minutes had collected our stamps.  We hustled to the gate, hoping our flight hadn’t suffered the same fate.

Cancelado.

It only took ten minutes before we received the bad news.  Flight 382 headed for Milan Bergamo was cancelado as well.  Having just encountered the situation a few minutes before, we knew our only hope was to sprint back out of security to the same counter.  The scary part was that at that exact moment, two hundred more Italians were learning the same thing.  We hustled down the long corridor, images of Indiana Jones and a giant stone ball bearing down on him fresh in my mind.  The Italians were on our heels and we’d have to move fast.  However, before we would have to employ our basketball rebounding box-out techniques, a representative from Ryan Air – Europe’s most on-time airline I remind you – told the growing mob that we were now going to be bussed to the Malaga airport two hours away and flown from there.  At least we weren’t stranded.

"Please make one line on the left."

The next few hours are a blur, but I do vaguely remember them involving fighting people to get on an elevator, fighting people to retrieve our luggage, fighting with people to get on a bus, and finally fighting to find a seat on said bus.  Don’t get me wrong – I love my adopted brothers from Italia, but these are the same people who caused massive headaches shortly after the opening of EuroDisney for jumping every line and reportedly created a major safety hazard by sneaking onto rides through the exits.  (I shouldn’t mention this either, but the world-famous Hofbrauhaus in Munich does report 90% of missing mugs walk out the door hidden under Italian jackets.)  I’m just saying.

I had finally settled into a peaceful slumber when our bus lurched off the highway and into a deserted rest stop boasting a lone gas station & restaurant.  We wandered off the bus, wondering if it had a flat tire or something mechanical go wrong – only to be surprised when the three other busses that comprised our convoy pulled up as well.  The bus driver leaned against the hood, as if this was just another Monday afternoon, lazily lighting a cigarette.  He was completely and utterly oblivious to the fact that we were already three hours late.  Curiosity forced us to find out what was going on.

Christie (politely) questions our smoking driver.

“Umm,” he began with the universal English-As-A-Second-Language sentence starter, “We are taking a break.  Thirty minutos.”  Thirty minutes?  Just a day earlier, Christie and I had covered the Malaga to Seville route in an hour and forty-five minutes!  Christie’s look at the driver made me glad that handguns are banned in the European Union.  I wandered off for some chocolate.   

Futtutini!            

Thus we find our heroes – Christie and myself – back where this blog began, sitting at a dusty rest-stop in the middle of nowhere, wondering why some things on this continent are so difficult.  Let me just put it this way: I have never gone through so much trouble to get on a plane whose seats do not recline and where they charge 3 euro for water.  But then again, this situation is so much more interesting – and necessitating of a blog post – than all those “by the book,” on-time flights in Germany and Austria.  (I would later find solace in knowing that the Rome-London route has just an 18% on-time, and that overall 4% of Ryan Air flights are cancelled/diverted.)   Yet these are the moments that make you laugh, and force you to remember that the trip is not about the destination but the trip itself.  There was a reason why we – and by that I mean the North Americans – were the only ones questioning the driver about our unnecessary pit stop.  (The Italians were too busy pushing each other out of the way to order their cappuccinos.)  And thus I just shook my head, smiled, and jotted this note to myself: when you find yourself in these situations, the best thing to do is just buy a Milka chocolate bar, drink a coke, and soak it all in.

 ~ J. Twice

All's Well that Ends Well... Christie got home in time to greet her mom, Lynn, at the train station.

* As a side note, we would eventually reach the Malaga airport, check our bags and depart, reaching Milan a mere 5 hours late.  It was just another 4-hour car ride home from there.  No Italians were harmed in the process.