Stranded

So remember when I said how much I loved Florence, and that part of me never wanted to leave?

Well, apparently Florence listened. The city had its first major snow in 10 years this weekend. The odds of it snowing this hard in Florence are just as great as Los Angeles's, hence the city did not know how to handle such conditions. With that, ALL flights out of Florence were cancelled. Ours to Zurich included.

This news was not recieved well. We had been up all night, praying that our flight would not be one of the ones cancelled. We had called a cab around 3:30am to pick us up out of paranoia that a cab wouldn't be able to come due to blocked roads. We arrived around 4:00am to have our flight cancelled around 6:30, three hours before we would have taken off. Feeling helpless, we got in line to wait and see what Swiss Air had in store for our fate.

We stood in line for...wait for it....

SEVEN HOURS.

Seven hours of standing on our feet. We had not slept that night. We had not ate anything. We had all of our luggage under the watch of some other stranded travelers. Oh, and did I mention that we were at the front of the line for three of those hours? Finally, we practically assaulted a representative to get an answer as to how long we would have to wait. And do you know what he told us?

"Let me get a number for you to call Swiss Air."

Oh. Hell. No. Homie. Do you not think that us and our loved ones had been on hold with Swiss Air for hours? Oh, and do you know what Swiss Air told us?

"Stand in line to wait to reroute your flight."

So once I told this guy that this answer wasn't good enough, we FINALLY got somewhere. So at this point, IF the weather stays good, we will be flying to Zurich tonight, spending the night there, flying out tomorrow afternoon to Munich, and then flying straight to LAX from there. If all goes according to plan, we will be back in Los Angeles at 7:10p.m.

I am sitting in a hotel lobby in a city outside of Florence. I am tired. I am bored. I am exhausted. I am running out of Internet minutes (6 euro for an hour?! REALLY?!).

I just want to go home.

Hopefully the next time I blog to you will be from California. Keep all of us in your prayers! Everyone had a rough day yesterday. Ugh.

Love,

The Stranded Traveler,

Kara