Dont Be Slow, Oh, No, No, No!

I am currently writing this from my seat on Alitalia flight 201. Even though we are only 20 or so minutes into the flight, I am already less than impressed. The SkyTeam Alliance should be ashamed. Ok, so maybe I am going a bit too far, but the entire process of getting onto this plane since arriving at the airport (because getting to the airport was easy!) has been one that is just void of any sort of planning.

Leonardo Di Vinci airport is actually quite nice, and somewhat dangerous for me – there is fabulous shopping there. I browsed Gucci, Hermes, Prada, and Tumi, among other stores while I waited for what I thought was the time that we were supposed to board the plane.

Right as people start to line up at gate 33 (because the screen at the gate said that we were boarding at 8:50 PM, and it was 8:50 PM) some lady comes over the loud speaker in Italian and announces that the gate has changed from 33 to 29. Ok, fine, whatever. I can handle moving myself 3 gates away. The real issues (at least for impatient me) started when we got to gate 29. I was one of the first people in line, so I assumed that I would be on board in just a few short minutes. Oh no. How I was mistaken. They had us stand in line for over a half hour. Why wouldn’t they have told us to sit down and then proceeded to call us up to board by rows on the plane. Wouldn’t that be the smart thing to do? But no, I stood in line, and finally at 9:25 they started to board us (and some Italian man cut in front of me in line after sitting down the entire time). I go down the escalator expecting the plane to be right there. Yeah right. What was I thinking? I had to drag my rolling suitcase down about 50 steps and then wait 15 more minutes for a bus to come and take us to the aircraft. Why didn’t the plane just pull up to the gate? There was a jet way and everything.

Maybe I am being an anal American, but I just think that the whole process is insanity. I don’t have all the time in the world, even though I wish I did. It is late, and I want to get to London before the Tube closes so I don’t have to mess around with the busses. Is a little efficiency too much to ask? Yes, I know, that is supposed to be the “charm” of being here. I’m not so sure how I feel about that. I think that there are better ways to run things. Maybe Alitalia should bring someone on to help them with that – after all, they are supposedly in bankruptcy or close to it.

I know that all of this will be forgotten the second I get to Kingston and meet up with Butzer and Jason, but right now I am just slightly annoyed and sitting here eating the bread of my sandwich because the meat that is on there looks somewhat like mystery meat. But I got my first amaretti cookie, so I guess all really is a-ok in the world.