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Monday, July 27, 2009
Wednesday, July 22, 2009
The Ball
We parted company on Friday - my sister, dad and the hustler went back to Gerona so Nicci could show them the moving alleyways and mum could ruin the livings of many an ice cream maker, and I found my way to the Hilton for a spot of enjoying the good life at the company's expense.
I joined the band of cheerful employees for a spot of networking (generally spelt 'drinking'), and actually met up with "AMY"!
Turns out she had arrived in London on the flight from Singapore the same as me, and had travelled on to Venice, whereupon her luggage had not. A few days later her luggage did in fact reappear for her onwards trip to Barcelona, but at this point it seems her luggage had got a taste of the single life and went AWOL again.
I thought I had it bad - the last time I saw Amy she was boarding the flight back to Australia and still did not know where her bags were.
Highlights of The Ball for me would be Lenny Henry hosting and Richard Branson as guest speaker, and getting my clean pants back. Low points would be (apart from the obvious) being called on to the stage in front of 2000 people to receive a gift (a china bull) only moments after shovelling a forkful of oily pasta and twigs into my mouth.
I joined the band of cheerful employees for a spot of networking (generally spelt 'drinking'), and actually met up with "AMY"!
Turns out she had arrived in London on the flight from Singapore the same as me, and had travelled on to Venice, whereupon her luggage had not. A few days later her luggage did in fact reappear for her onwards trip to Barcelona, but at this point it seems her luggage had got a taste of the single life and went AWOL again.
I thought I had it bad - the last time I saw Amy she was boarding the flight back to Australia and still did not know where her bags were.
Highlights of The Ball for me would be Lenny Henry hosting and Richard Branson as guest speaker, and getting my clean pants back. Low points would be (apart from the obvious) being called on to the stage in front of 2000 people to receive a gift (a china bull) only moments after shovelling a forkful of oily pasta and twigs into my mouth.
Barcelona proper
Finally the whole family (luggage not being part of the family) met up in Barcelona and we spent a pleasant few days browsing the shops and markets and testing the sangria (me & Nicci) and drinking tea and wishing for a nice jam sandwich or slice of malt loaf (mum & dad).
Our hotel, which I had so carefully selected for being in the centre of everything, turned out to be a meeting point for people who needed to vomit loudly in the middle of the night outside the window of our cupboard. Luckily I gave up sleeping a long time ago, so it wasn't a huge issue, but I wouldn't recommend overlooking Las Ramblas in the future.
Had a very nice day trip to the Salvador Dali museum in Figueres, where dad declared that the paintings were almost surreal... And I think mum thought some of them were a little bit rude.
On the whole the parents were quite well behaved; although a word to the wise - don't play cards with the innocent-looking one they call "Mum" - it's a good job only champagne, and not real money changed hands.
Our hotel, which I had so carefully selected for being in the centre of everything, turned out to be a meeting point for people who needed to vomit loudly in the middle of the night outside the window of our cupboard. Luckily I gave up sleeping a long time ago, so it wasn't a huge issue, but I wouldn't recommend overlooking Las Ramblas in the future.
Had a very nice day trip to the Salvador Dali museum in Figueres, where dad declared that the paintings were almost surreal... And I think mum thought some of them were a little bit rude.
On the whole the parents were quite well behaved; although a word to the wise - don't play cards with the innocent-looking one they call "Mum" - it's a good job only champagne, and not real money changed hands.
Thursday, July 16, 2009
Reunited
I was promised on Monday evening that my luggage would be on the first flight out of London on Tuesday morning and they would call me when it arrived in Barcelona. On Tuesday afternoon I called back to be told it would be on the first flight out of London on Wednesday after a problem in London.
On Wednesday morning I was told it was in the air as we spoke and would be in Barcelona at 10am. By lunch time I found out it would be leaving London later that day.
On Wednesday evening they proudly announced good news they had found my luggage and it would be sent out to me on Thursday morning. And on Thursday morning great news it was in Paris.
By Thursday afternoon the first call resulted in them waiting for a flight from Paris to Barcelona and the second call told me it was in London.
Finally on Thursday evening the couriers in Barcelona rang and said my luggage was in Barcelona and they would be delivering it that evening. Hoorah! I returned to the hotel who had a message saying it would arrive on Friday morning.
By now I wasn´t capable of being reasonable so Nicci called them and they hung up on her twice. I called back later and was told it would be delivered to me on Friday morning. So I rang Air France and their retarded desk and they said they had no idea why I thought it was coming on Friday, it was quite definitely coming Thursday evening and I must wait at the hotel.
So I rang the couriers at Barcelona airport again, who said it was coming on Friday, shortly followed by she didn´t know where it was, closely followed up with it was on its way.
Turns out it was - and finally me and my luggage were reunited 5 1/2 days after parting company.
Gerona
Have you seen the Harry Potter movies, in particular Hogwarts and the moving staircases? Well the idea was copied from Gerona´s streets and alleyways. You walk down La Rambla, the main street, and turn right at the shoe shop and find a lovely little bar. Later on you decide to return to the lovely little bar and turn right at the shoe shop but it is now a dead end alley with a restaurant at the bottom. You retrace your steps and turn right at the ice cream parlour instead, walk through someone´s courtyard, turn right left right and oh look there´s the bar. Come out of the bar and turn left and you´re back on La Rambla - which incidentally is straight, so that just isn´t possible.
The next day, and after much debate over sangria, we decided to test the theory that if you walk in a straight line in Gerona the streets will move around instead of you having to make turns and you will get to where you are going. We went to the shoe shop which was now not there, and neither was the alley.
Instead we chose to cross the bridge over the river (also a straight river, parallel to La Rambla) and walked away from the old town in search of the city for a spot of light shopping. After around 500m or so we took a small left turn and were back at the river, albeit further to the right.
It really is a very strange place.
Tuesday, July 14, 2009
My luggage, and its holiday plans
After four phone calls to the retarded luggage people yesterday we established that
a) my luggage had been identified
b) my luggage was not my luggage and had been sent to someone else
c) my luggage had been identified and why was I calling
d) good news - my luggage had been identified and would be sent to me.
Only worrying thing about this is I am moving from Gerona to Barcelona in a couple of hours and I can quite confidently predict that the luggage will turn up at this hotel shortly after we check out.
Lucky it´s not the middle of summer in Europe and I´m still in my jeans that I started the journey in, or things really would be unpleasant.
On a less stinky note, Gerona is really lovely - we have heaps of photos but haven´t found a means of getting them uploaded at this point. Hopefully the next hotel will have more sophisticated (ie not clockwork) internet access and even more hopefully my luggage will turn up with all my cables and chargers and clean pants and things.
Monday, July 13, 2009
In the spirit of all things diversionary, and to commemorate my plane going to Kuala Lumpur, I decided to fly to Paris and my luggage decided it would prefer a holiday without me. I guess I shouldn´t complain though - one man I met in London was trying to get from Australia to Moscow and he was being sent to Vienna, and a lady trying to get to Birmingham was also being sent to Paris with me. I even heard someone getting off the 12 hour flight from Singapore being told that to reach their final destination they would have to go via Singapore - I think that might have made me violent...
More problems ensued at the Air France check-in because I had been re-ticketed with an unknown person called Amy, and because she was not with me at boarding they wouldn´t let me on. Turns out it didn´t matter that I had no idea who she was, but I was very pleased they´d given me an invisible friend to keep me company.
Finally, after they´d got everyone on board and done the final head count, they agreed to let me on - so yes, that´s me, the person that everyone else thought had made the plane late. However my new special friend never did materialise so they just scribbled her off my ticket - very advanced.
It was around this time that we established that my luggage had not made it from Qantas to Air France, and no amount of asking them to hold the plane/phone Qantas would help; they advised me to wait til I got to Barcelona to complain. On the plus side there was some luggage on board that belonged to a man that they would not let board, due to Qantas messing up his ticketing (perhaps because he didn´t have an invisible friend?) - but they wouldn´t let me borrow his clothes and insisted on finding his luggage and getting it off the plane - bizarre, but he was the actual reason for the delay fellow travellers.
All this led to me arriving 11 hours late to Gerona where my very patient sister had been waiting at the train station for me. Unfortunately when I borrowed a text message off a very kind spanish girl to let Nicci know my ETA, I never specified where we would actually meet - so very patient Nicci waited at the train station, while I walked right past where she was sitting and made my own way to the hotel.
As for the saga of the "retarded luggage" (I´m quoting Air France) - I spoke to them this morning and it has been identified. They didn´t tell me where it is, but we know for sure it is not in Barcelona. But I am very pleased it has been identified.
More problems ensued at the Air France check-in because I had been re-ticketed with an unknown person called Amy, and because she was not with me at boarding they wouldn´t let me on. Turns out it didn´t matter that I had no idea who she was, but I was very pleased they´d given me an invisible friend to keep me company.
Finally, after they´d got everyone on board and done the final head count, they agreed to let me on - so yes, that´s me, the person that everyone else thought had made the plane late. However my new special friend never did materialise so they just scribbled her off my ticket - very advanced.
It was around this time that we established that my luggage had not made it from Qantas to Air France, and no amount of asking them to hold the plane/phone Qantas would help; they advised me to wait til I got to Barcelona to complain. On the plus side there was some luggage on board that belonged to a man that they would not let board, due to Qantas messing up his ticketing (perhaps because he didn´t have an invisible friend?) - but they wouldn´t let me borrow his clothes and insisted on finding his luggage and getting it off the plane - bizarre, but he was the actual reason for the delay fellow travellers.
All this led to me arriving 11 hours late to Gerona where my very patient sister had been waiting at the train station for me. Unfortunately when I borrowed a text message off a very kind spanish girl to let Nicci know my ETA, I never specified where we would actually meet - so very patient Nicci waited at the train station, while I walked right past where she was sitting and made my own way to the hotel.
As for the saga of the "retarded luggage" (I´m quoting Air France) - I spoke to them this morning and it has been identified. They didn´t tell me where it is, but we know for sure it is not in Barcelona. But I am very pleased it has been identified.
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