on the one hand, swear word. on the other, *phew*
so my sister and i are not going to italy after all! our flight out was boston-amsterdam-florence (leaving boston saturday night and getting into amsterdam sunday morning), but we got an email and a text this morning that the amsterdam-florence leg was canceled.
two days before we're supposed to be on it.
there are no flights that get us to florence on time because - wait for it - there's going to be an airport strike in italy on sunday. normally i'm in full support of the workers' right to strike, and i know if strikes weren't a pain in the ass for people they wouldn't work, but at the same time this one totally fucked up my travel plans.
my sister called the tour company (we're going on a guided tour) but of course there's nothing they can do, and the guy she talked to suggested we fly in on monday. the tour starts on monday. we'd miss a day of the actual trip. which, dude, no. (aside from the fact that every flight would get us in late anyway.) so because there's no way to get us to florence on time - because we can't actually fly into the city on sunday - and we're not interested in showing up a day late, we canceled the trip. the tour company won't give us a refund or even a credit for a future trip but this is why you buy travel insurance. which may take a month to get us a refund, IF we get a refund. the refund for the flights should be easier.
i'm weirdly relieved, tho. i'm disappointed but honestly not too broken up about it. i won't miss having to deal with the rain. this is actually the second trip we booked - the first was canceled by the tour company because one of the hotels couldn't guarantee rooms for everyone or something, and because the tour company canceled it we got a credit when we rebooked - and we even had to redo the original flight when the airline changed the second leg of the flight home to leave earlier than the first leg was scheduled to take off. (that was florence-paris-boston, and the airline rescheduled us to leave paris while we were still in florence. so we had to rebook the florence leg. it took an hour on the phone with a very nice customer service guy.) we've basically booked three flights for two different itineraries (the original flight for the original itinerary, the rebook for the original itinerary, and the flight for the second itinerary) and this is just... enough. the universe doesn't want us to go to italy, so we're not.
we're going to new york on sunday for a couple days - i mean, we already have the time off - and i'm going back to work wednesday and i think she's going back to work thursday and at some point later in the summer we'll hopefully get to actually take a trip somewhere. fingers crossed.
i went in to work today for reasons that escape me and i finished the thing i had to finish and vented to the two other admins who were there (one had a thesis defense to set up for, by which i mean she got cake and cupcakes for the student defending the thesis, and the other admin comes in every day because her pi wants her to) and then updated them as the day went on and my sister and i learned things and made decisions, and i got to take a cupcake home and not have to pack for a week in another country. i was looking forward to the food, tho. i mean, you know, cheese.
in mostly unrelated news we saw le otto montagne last night - it's playing in an indie theater near my sister's house - because a. italy, but mostly b. luca marinelli. (who really, really needs a shave.) it's long and feels it, and it's kind of slow and some stuff happens off-screen that maybe should have happened on-screen and it's the kind of movie where not much actually happens because so much of it is internal. it didn't end the way i thought it would but at the same time the closer we got to the ending the more i could see it coming. the scenery is gorgeous - there are as the title suggests some mountains altho the eight mountains are a metaphor - and the acting is really good and the story is kind of sad and wistful and overall i think i enjoyed it but mostly i'm glad i got to see it.
we got previews for oppenheimer (in which cillian murphy is death, destroyer of worlds) and sanctuary (in which margaret qualley is a dominatrix). it's a little indie theater so you don't get a lot of previews.
two days before we're supposed to be on it.
there are no flights that get us to florence on time because - wait for it - there's going to be an airport strike in italy on sunday. normally i'm in full support of the workers' right to strike, and i know if strikes weren't a pain in the ass for people they wouldn't work, but at the same time this one totally fucked up my travel plans.
my sister called the tour company (we're going on a guided tour) but of course there's nothing they can do, and the guy she talked to suggested we fly in on monday. the tour starts on monday. we'd miss a day of the actual trip. which, dude, no. (aside from the fact that every flight would get us in late anyway.) so because there's no way to get us to florence on time - because we can't actually fly into the city on sunday - and we're not interested in showing up a day late, we canceled the trip. the tour company won't give us a refund or even a credit for a future trip but this is why you buy travel insurance. which may take a month to get us a refund, IF we get a refund. the refund for the flights should be easier.
i'm weirdly relieved, tho. i'm disappointed but honestly not too broken up about it. i won't miss having to deal with the rain. this is actually the second trip we booked - the first was canceled by the tour company because one of the hotels couldn't guarantee rooms for everyone or something, and because the tour company canceled it we got a credit when we rebooked - and we even had to redo the original flight when the airline changed the second leg of the flight home to leave earlier than the first leg was scheduled to take off. (that was florence-paris-boston, and the airline rescheduled us to leave paris while we were still in florence. so we had to rebook the florence leg. it took an hour on the phone with a very nice customer service guy.) we've basically booked three flights for two different itineraries (the original flight for the original itinerary, the rebook for the original itinerary, and the flight for the second itinerary) and this is just... enough. the universe doesn't want us to go to italy, so we're not.
we're going to new york on sunday for a couple days - i mean, we already have the time off - and i'm going back to work wednesday and i think she's going back to work thursday and at some point later in the summer we'll hopefully get to actually take a trip somewhere. fingers crossed.
i went in to work today for reasons that escape me and i finished the thing i had to finish and vented to the two other admins who were there (one had a thesis defense to set up for, by which i mean she got cake and cupcakes for the student defending the thesis, and the other admin comes in every day because her pi wants her to) and then updated them as the day went on and my sister and i learned things and made decisions, and i got to take a cupcake home and not have to pack for a week in another country. i was looking forward to the food, tho. i mean, you know, cheese.
in mostly unrelated news we saw le otto montagne last night - it's playing in an indie theater near my sister's house - because a. italy, but mostly b. luca marinelli. (who really, really needs a shave.) it's long and feels it, and it's kind of slow and some stuff happens off-screen that maybe should have happened on-screen and it's the kind of movie where not much actually happens because so much of it is internal. it didn't end the way i thought it would but at the same time the closer we got to the ending the more i could see it coming. the scenery is gorgeous - there are as the title suggests some mountains altho the eight mountains are a metaphor - and the acting is really good and the story is kind of sad and wistful and overall i think i enjoyed it but mostly i'm glad i got to see it.
we got previews for oppenheimer (in which cillian murphy is death, destroyer of worlds) and sanctuary (in which margaret qualley is a dominatrix). it's a little indie theater so you don't get a lot of previews.