I got a great opportunity last week to go to Naples, Italy, for a 2-day training program for military court reporting. I love court reporting, and I was very excited about getting to go to Italy! The schedule was for 8am-5pm; the first day, dinner was planned for afterwards and the second day, we would get to go on a tour in Naples.
If I were to have flown from the base here to the base there, it would’ve taken me two hours. Of course, that couldn’t happen - we drove the 1/2 hour from the base to the Jerez airport, flew to Madrid, from Madrid to Rome, and then from Rome to Naples. I got in late and finally got to my room at midnight and training started bright and early at 7:45 the next morning. After training let out for the day, we went to dinner - Italian food in Italy! We were to meet our ride on the other part of the base that’s about 20 minutes from where the hotel was, and once we all gathered, we visitors split up into 3 different cars. My master chief had his family with him, which included his charming 6 year old and his adorable and delightful baby girl. I got to ride with them to the restaurant about 10 minutes away and was happy to have kids to sit with in the back seat. I leaned over and peeked in the carseat to smile at the adorable an delightful baby girl whose face immediately contorted in pain from seeing my face and started screaming at the top of her adorable and delightful little lungs, until eventually the car was pulled over and I was kicked out of the back of the car.
Fortunately, dinner was nearby. This was the one non-work part of the trip that was great: I had prosciutto wrapped melon, bruschetta, caprese salad made with bufala mozzarella, and pasta in a white wine sauce. Because I wasn’t driving, I got to enjoy some wine with dinner - an entire bottle of a very nice white wine was only 3€! (about $4).
The next evening was our chance to take a tour and see Naples. Of course, the trip was full which left us on our own to tour, and with the cost of the taxi (40€ each way), plus the fact that everything touristy closed at 6, neither I nor the person I was with felt much like going out. So she and I instead went to the little courtyard area where there were some picnic tables, and we sat and chatted. While we were sitting there, something came out of nowhere and attached itself very painfully to my hand. Being the very calm and reasonable person I am, I jumped up and started screaming and waving my hands around trying to dislodge whatever was attached to my hand. When I finally felt it fall off of me, I looked at the table and saw a giant wasp laying on the table. A wasp! That sucker HURT. I’ve been stung by a bee before a couple of times but it never hurt anywhere near as badly as this one. My middle finger was swelling up and when it stopped swelling, my finger was swollen from my middle knuckle down to below my bottom knuckle. It was all red, with a big white patch around where the stinger went in.
The next morning was my flight out. Returning, I flew from Naples to Milan to Madrid to Jerez. After a 5 hour layover in Madrid, I finally got into Jerez a few minutes ahead of schedule and was so happy to be done flying.
The airport in Jerez is one of the smallest I’ve been in. The departures terminal is one room with 4 gates. The arrivals terminal has 3 small luggage belts to it. When you land, you take a bus from the plane across the runway to the terminal, which is about a 2 minute ride. This is not a busy airport. However, we waited for 35 minutes for them to start loading our luggage on the belt. I waited, and waited, and waited, until all the luggage had arrived. Apparently, a 5 hour layover in Madrid wasn’t long enough for them to get my luggage to my plane, because it never made it to Jerez.
Yesterday I made 3 calls to find the status of my luggage: the first time, I had to hang up after being on hold for 40 minutes without a human ever answering so I could go pick up the kids from school. The second time, I waited on hold for a half hour before the line terminated suddenly. The third time I only waited for 15 minutes to talk to a woman who told me they didn’t know where my luggage was.
I have not yet heard from them today. I had both of my uniforms in my luggage, my shoes, my (brand new 1 day old) hat, my ribbons, everything. I can deal with not having my civilian clothes and my toiletries, but now I don’t even have a uniform to wear to work.
<>Apparently, bad luck is deferrable to another person because B hasn’t had one bit of bad luck since he broke that mirror, but I have managed to traumatize a 5-month-old, get stung by a wasp, and have my luggage lost in the span of 3 days. Maybe I should try breaking a mirror. >
