BWI >> JFK >> FCO

Day 1/2

When I was in England on a concourse flight, awaiting the arrival of the next plane, I wrote notes on things that stuck out to me while traveling. Why did I say England, when the title of this post doesn't mention London? Let the nightmare story begin.

My itinerary was to leave from Baltimore, arrive to NYC, and then fly directly to Rome. Things could not have gotten any worse. I will leave the name of the airline out of this, although they haven't yet made it right for me, but let's just say, I will never fly with them again unless they give me a free round trip to China or something. Let me explain it in a nutshell.

My flight out of Baltimore was an hour late for departure. I thought, no big deal - I've got a little under two hours to get to the next plane once I'm at JFK. But not only did the plane leave late, "due to air traffic control" as they said, but it took another eternity to taxi it to the gate. As I rushed to the nearby terminal to find my gate, I saw "LAST CALL" blinking on the board. Long story short, I missed the flight. The customer service representative for the airline booked another flight for me, to Rome, via London. This time, the concourse period between the two planes was about four hours. We left late yet again, but not very late. I waited in London for three hours to board the next flight.

As I boarded the final flight to Rome, I prayed that everything would work out. Originally, I was set to arrive in Rome in the morning, where I would meet a ride who'd drive us to the University for free. I thought, "What are the chances that THIS flight will also be late," completely disregarding what I had just learned in Business Statistics this past semester. Turns out, this plane was even more late than the Baltimore plane: we left two hours behind schedule. Seventeen thousand cusswords in three different languages were on my mind, as I realized that there was no way that I will physically get to Rome in time for the last student pickup by the University. And that wasn't even the worst part: the University closes check-in at 5pm, and as I did the math in my head, I realized that there was no way I'd come before 8pm. This meant I would have to get a hotel for the night, and I had zero information on hotels in Rome: I didn't know where they were, how much I'd have to shell out, and what would be the best way to get to them. I'm an optimistic person who said "I'll be fine" as I had no other options - I was already on the plane, and there was nothing I could do about the best airline in the world that did this to me.

I get to Rome around 8pm. Up for about 24 hours and running on 3 hours of sleep, I eagerly walk over to baggage claim. As I went from Baltimore to New York to London to Rome, every customer service rep that I spoke with assured me that despite me missing my New York >> Rome flight, my luggage was on the way to Rome. The story quickly changed once I spoke with them at the arrival terminal at Fiumicino Airport. "Your luggage is still in New York City, Sir," I was told. While I was thinking exactly what you would have been thinking at the time, I was patient and gave them the University's address. After waiving my right to not have my stuff opened and looked at by Customs, I realized I needed to let the family know that I'm OK. But first, I wanted to check into the hotel. All hope was lost when I learned that the only hotel around was Hilton, but I walked there to find out the prices anyways. I was handed two incredible bargains: 220 Euros for a night's stay, or 235 Euros with breakfast included. Wonderful. I said "thanks but no thanks" and decided to save $30 / hour on sleeping by going back to the airport. Now was the time to call my folks. They worry - sometimes too much - but it just means they care, and it would be impossible to survive a study abroad program if you knew no one back at home cares about you.

I quickly found a pay phone card ATM and get a 10-Euro calling card to let the folks at home know that I'm fine. One minute into the call, I hear "You have one minute remaining." What the heck? I expected this calling card to last me at least a week! After an abruptly ended conversation, I called customer service, who eagerly told me that I just paid 4 Euros a minute for the call. Beautiful. Welcome to Europe! But of course I knew that everything was going to cost through the roof in Italy, especially at the airport full of rich tourists and businessmen. After all, I was arriving for two marketing seminars! So I took it as a lesson learned: bring an unlocked GPS phone with you, and buy a cheap, disposable SIM card ASAP.

I finally got a hold of them via collect call, and told them how everything was going. I hope they don't get a bill for $800,000 at the end of the month, but I wouldn't be surprised (I'm kidding, Dad).

It was time to pass some time. I roamed around the airport, just to check it out, when I noticed the first Italian peculiarity. They had five terminals, the fifth one being in a separate location that takes you to terminals 1-4 on a shuttle bus. Terminals 1-4 are all connected, but there's a trick to them: the doors to the outside are closed at random times in the middle of the night. One terminal, said a sign on the door, would be closed from 00:30-3:30am; another one would be closed from 3-6am. I found this odd, because I didn't see any barricades inside the airport - you know, like metal gates or posts that would prevent access from one terminal to the other. But that's just how things were.

Around 3am, a group of bums - me included - got kicked out of terminal 2, which was closing. We walked 2 minutes over to terminal 3, which said it would be closed, but the automatic door kept automatically opening and closing, without anyone even walking by to set off the motion detector, all throughout the night. When I first walked up to terminal 3, an Italian security guard approached me: "YES!?" he asks, as if I looked out of place. "I need to check the arrival times," I said. I thought it to be a much better answer than "I'm a bum from America, I need to crash here until my study abroad university opens." I didn't even know if the security guard spoke English well (it didn't look like he did). He let me through to check the times. I pretended to talk on the phone, and when he wasn't looking I sat down behind a group of people - some waiting to leave in the morning, some were homeless - and read the chapters I needed to know as a prerequisite for one of the seminars.

My brain refused to shut off, and that's when I could no longer ignore the undeniable jetlag that I faced. I would sit and read my text book, look around the airport, and roam outside and inside for some fresh air just to kill the next 8-9 hours ahead of me. But like I said, I'm an optimist. At one point in my life I would like to backpack across Europe. Bumming a night at the airport is an adventure to me. And if I want to survive Europe later on in my life, this would be a great conditioning. The worst part about it was loneliness. I had no one to talk to. I would hope I'd recognize an American backpack and have a friend to chat with to pass the time, but that simply wasn't the case until around 4am. I met a girl who sat next to me and was flipping through printed-out powerpoint slides, which I recognized to be formulas from Economics. They were in English, so I asked, "Are you waiting for AUR?" She seemed confused, but I explained what I meant. She was from Lebanon. She said she was waiting on her plane at 6:50am, and that she was spending the night because her Italian friends said they'd give her a ride at 5am, but that Italians are always late: 5am means 6am in Italy when a friend promises you a ride, she said. We chatted about business (she was going for a double Masters in Econ and something else), celebrities and our home countries. Before I knew it, 7am rolled around and I went to double check on my luggage. "It's still in New York, Sir." Interesting, because I could have sworn there was a flight arriving at 9:30am; the arrivals screen said so. I had filed my complaint about the lost luggage nearly eleven hours before, so this surprised me. Yet another piece of evidence of great customer care by the nameless airline.

Tired as a dog and walking around in a frenzy like a zombie without sleep, I got on the train that would take me to downtown Rome. From there, I would take a cab to the airport. Because I was so exhausted and nothing made sense, I bought the wrong train ticket. The ticket checker person came by. I had to pay the extra 6 Euros for getting on the express train instead of the slow train that I had paid for, plus an 8 Euro fine. No big deal - just another story to tell.

So I got to downtown Rome at Termini, and hopped in a taxi. My parents had warned about the taxi scam, so I tried finding bus #75 that would take me direct to the University. The departure guide that I was given back at UMD said the stop would be right outside the train station. After half an hour of roaming, I could not find it. I saw a HUGE line of people in queue for taxis: I'm talking like 300 people lined back 50 yards or so, with an occasional taxi pulling up every 30 seconds or so. It was already 9:30am, and I had no time to spare. This was already Day 2 of my adventure, I was exhausted, and I needed to shower badly. On top of everything, I didn't want to miss our orientation - the school said it was mandatory. I didn't know what time it starts, so expecting the worst, I knew I had to get there ASAP.

So there I was, with a my carry-on backpack and no luggage, looking at this huge taxi line. The departure guide said that the taxi ride would be approx. 10-15 Euros. Around the corner I saw three taxis waiting on passengers. Knowing my basic supply-and-demand theory, I knew right away these were the crooks. Exhausted, optionless, and in a rush to orientation, I sacrificed myself to be their victim. I asked, "how far is this address?" and the friendly taxi driver with Euro signs in his eyeballs said "about 5 kilometers, very close, very close." I get inside, and he looks at the map. There started his Italian sales pitch. I didn't understand a word, but it basically boiled down to, "it's very close, I'll get you there fast, it'll be about forty Euros." It was frustrating, but just about as much as I would pay for a taxi at that moment. Fifteen minutes and forty Euros later, I was finally at my destination.

Should've taken Dad's advice to spend the extra $400 and fly direct without concourses.