Still so excited about Kenzie from Chasing Happy's blog challenge, The Thankful Project. It is seriously a joy to think about the things I am so thankful for. Well, today is Day 4 and I am reflecting on an experience I am thankful for and get a quite a chuckle out of.
Last Spring, I studied abroad in Seville, Spain for the semester. Over Spring break, one of my friends, Kassi, and I decided we wanted to explore Europe for the 9 days we had for break. After about a month of deciding where we wanted to go, what we wanted to do, our route, and arranging our flights, we set out on our 9-day-cross-Europe-adventure: Athens, Rome, Venice, Prague, Zurich, and Lucerne.
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| Where I thought Kassi was going to slip and fall into the water |
Our journey to Athens and Rome, went off without a hitch. By the time we were in Venice, it started to get very cold (snowing, raining, sleeting, the whole shebang.....yuck...). We were getting a little drained and tired from our travels. We tried to rest more in Venice because it was so yucky outside and we couldn't do the one thing we wanted to do, ride a gondola (oh well, just means I have to go back again!). Our time was used to mosey around the city and enjoy Italian pizza and wine.
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| The closed gondolas... *tear |
With 8 flights from city to city, something was bound to happen. The night before we left to catch a flight in the morning from Venice to Prague, we checked our tickets and made sure we got up in enough time to catch a bus out of the city to the airport. Everything went smoothly, we got to the airport with an 1.5 to spare. We arrived at the airport and searched around for our airline, but couldn't find it. We went to a guest service desk and asked where the airline company was. One glance at our ticket and they knew we were at the wrong airport.....EXCUSE ME? What do you mean wrong airport?? Their are two airports for this tiny city??? We just happened to be at the wrong one... and had the wrong time of our flight. In our tiredness the night before, we looked at our boarding passes for our Prague to Zurich flight instead of our Venice to Prague flight! (*begin
We had one hour before our flight took off. We took off outside the airport and ran to a taxi outside to frantically tell him we needed to get to the other airport ASAP. The taxi drive told us 50 euros (roughly $75) to get there and it would take 30 minutes. Well, we had no other choice. So if going to the wrong airport, our flight leaving in just one hour, and an expensive taxi cab wasn't enough, I realized my bag did not fit the bag restrictions for this particular airline (cheap European airlines have really strict bag restrictions.).
When we got there, I had to wait in another line to check my bag and pay another 20euros to take it on the place. We arrived to our boarding gate with 15 minutes to spare. I don't think I have sweat, freaked out, or worried more in my life.
I am so thankful for that crazy experience. First of all, it makes for a hysterical memory, as Kassi and I were in major panic mode. But I also learned a few things: taking time for rest during a strenuous trip is important, the little details are probably some of the most important details, double-checking/ triple-checking/ or quadruple-checking is never a bad thing, and take time to laugh about a crazy situations (it makes things much easier).
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