Home For the Holidays

I am home.  It only took a 26.5 hour travel day, but I am home :)

We were due to fly out of Venice on Sunday, but our flight was canceled - a combination of the European snow storms from Saturday and the storms in the North East US on Sunday.  Rather than rebook us right there at the airport (as they do in the US), we were given a hotel and meal voucher with phone numbers to call, and sent on our way.

Lovely.

After our (surprisingly) tasty airport lunch, we set off for the hotel.  I then spent from about 2 pm until 7:30 pm attempting to get a hold of a ticketing agent at Delta.  After several near misses (we thought we'd get out the next morning from Milan), we were told that we'd been booked on a flight on the 24th.

Lovely.

We settled in for the evening, watching some TV on the laptop (did I mention that the hotel's TV was out?) and tried to come up with a game plan.  Rumor had it that Delta would only provide for one evening at the hotel, so we set the alarm for 7 am - get up early, eat breakfast, then head to the airport to try to get information regarding our hotel situation.

In a full hotel shuttle, our baggage in hand, we set off to the airport. 

And walked into yet another madhouse (this time, it was Air France who canceled all of their flights to northern Europe).

As luck would have it, the Delta line was pretty short.  We watched as our compatriots who'd arrived earlier in the morning were turned away from the counter with nothing more than "pay for a reduced rate at the hotel and submit it to Delta for reimbursement".  Urgh.

So, imagine my surprise when I approached the counter, said "Hi, we're stranded here until Thursday" and the gentleman says something that sounds like "trying to get you out of here today".

Long story even longer, British Airways apparently added another flight from London Heathrow to JFK and WE GOT ON IT!   We flew out of Venice at 12:45 pm, arrived in London at 2:45 and were scheduled to depart for New York at 7 pm.  We boarded our flight at 8:30 pm and sat on the runway until MIDNIGHT (I have to say that BA was great, they broke out the bar cart, and turned on the video system).Landed in NYC at 2:15 am, walked into our front door at 4.   Hit the sack at 5 am, up and at'em by 10 am.

It's good to be home.

Now, if you'll excuse me, I'm off to get reacquainted with my running sneakers.