catching colds and missing planes
do you like tragic travel stories? i’ve got a fresh one just for you.
it all started in charlottesville, va. i got there last saturday, to attend and present at a conference on visual media. as i flew in from europe, i landed at washington dulles airport and then rented a car to get to charlottesville, which is about 2 hours away. the conference was at UVa. it was hot and humid outside, freezing inside the conference hall. after 2 days of conference, on tuesday morning, i woke up, checked out from the hotel and at 9.30am I was ready to jump in the car i rented, drive back to the airport, to catch a 12.45pm flight from dulles to jfk. the car would not start. panic. i called some car assistance service and they managed to jump-start it and i was on the road by 10am. 35$ and maybe i could still make it to my 12.45pm flight.
i thought it was a good idea to speed up a little, to make sure that i would get there on time. and bang. woop woop that’s the sound of the police. $165 and “drive safely”. so i thought, now i’ll take it easy. if i make it, i make it. if not, i’ll take the next flight. i took the dulles airport exit at 12.05pm. check in closed at 12.15pm. i said, i’m gonna drive straight to departures, park outside the jetblue entrance and check in at the machines real quick. and then bring the car back to enterprise. i tried. but this really funky parking officer on one of those segways would not let me leave the car unattended in front of departures, not even for 20 seconds. oh, did i mention that since i jumpstarted the car, i could not switch the engine off? oh yeah. the assistance guy told me not to switch it off in no circumstance. so there i am, trying to convince this guy that i really need to get on that plane and that check in would take 20 seconds. really. just 20 seconds and i could see the automatic check-in machines from outside. they were right there. just 10 meters away. ready to produce a boarding card for me in 3 seconds. but no. he smiled, he laughed and he would say no, no way. you can’t walk in. there are rules. and he would keep swinging around back and forth left and right on his segway. i should have taken a photo of him. really. he had a helmet and the biggest smile i have ever seen. genuine.
so ok. it was 12.10pm. 5 minutes left. let’s take the car back to the rental office and see what happens. after all, the offices are only 2 minutes away. and jetblue are notorious for being the most laid-back airline. sometimes they managed to make me hop on impossible-to-make flights. i take the car back. i try to tell them that the car had a problem in the morning and had to be jumpstarted. they want to know more but i say come on come on take me to the airport quick. they did. they also charged me for gas. i could not fill up the tank cause i could not switch off the engine. remember? so bim! $60 extra.
i get to the jetblue check-in desks at 12.22. 7 minutes late. the jetblue guy tries to help. for what he can. he says i cannot make it to the 12.45pm flight cause it’s closing already. he puts me on the next flight to ny, the 5.25pm to jfk. that’s $25 changing fee and he tells me to try to catch the 12.45 flight anyway. run run run to gate b24. maybe you can catch it. i get there at 12.50pm. and i see the plane doors closing in front me at the gate. planes that should be delayed are somehow never delayed.
so i wait. i buy myself some 4 hours of wireless connectivity, i sit down and i do some work on my laptop. i get into some sort of email writing coma for 3 hours. then i decide to go check the status of my 525pm flight to nyc. cancelled. and there’s people everywhere queueing up in lines with blurry endings. will they put us on the next available flight? it is at 8pm and it is also cancelled. bummer. it seems like all airlines are canceling flights to jfk.
so i say the hell with planes. i woke up at 8am. it is 5pm. and dc-ny is only 2.5 hours on a train. what am i doing here? is a plane really worth it when you end up spending extra hours getting to far away airports, checking in, showing passports, going through security and smelling like airplane seats? i left the airport and got a taxi to union station in d.c. $60. then got a train ticket to nyc’s penn station. $90. in a nutshell, i should have spent $0 and gotten to nyc by 1.30pm. instead, i spent a good portion of my student salary in 10 hours and it is getting dark already. but these 90 bucks were the best-invested money of the day.
union station is for reals. it is sylish and smells like jazz. i talked to a homeless guy outside, i told him my story and he said: well done on choosing the train. you are italian. and italians are real people. and union station is for real people. he was right. train stations rock. airports suck. trains and stations are more sincere. they represent a way of traveling in which travelers savor the journey as much as the destination they are visiting. i am writing this from a comfortable window seat on a very tranquil train coach. listening to chet baker. many people around me are sleeping. lighting is osft and diffuse. travelers in a train are more beautiful.
i guess i’ll go through life
catching colds and missing _planes_
everything happens to me
(Chet Baker)
