Tag Archives: airports

Ireland. Tomorrow? Wait, what?

I am currently sitting in the Pittsburgh airport.  My flight goes out of Pittsburgh at 5:45pm into JFK.  I leave JFK at 9:40pm and arrive at the Shannon airport in Ireland at 9:00am.  I will try to sleep on the plane so my jet lag isn’t horrendous.  If there is even a crying baby…..

I was in Antigua from January 1-8, trying to get my tan on (which is impossible.  I am almost always incredibly pale…..will fit right in in Ireland).  It was a nice getaway, but then I had to face the chore of unpacking from a week vacation and packing for four months.  Packing was not the most fun in the world, but I got it done.  Fingers crossed I didn’t forget anything (though, let’s be honest, I am sure I did).

I went up to State College for the weekend to hangout with my friends one last time.  Saying goodbye to everyone was way more difficult than I ever thought it would be.  I whined to some of my best friends, “I don’t want to leave you,” over and over.  But I’m starting to get more comfortable now that I’m in the airport and on my own.  I don’t think Ireland is ready for me.

Will update again once I get settled in!  Hoping the internet is the first thing I hook up when I get into my new room.  I will be sharing with five other people, but they did not tell me who (pumped for that surprise).

Here are some photos from my vacation in Antigua and my last weekend in Pittsburgh!

Cheers,
Mel


Location: Pittsburgh International Airport

Delayed Travel Accounts

Ciao!

I am finally in Milan! After 2 days of frustrating travel, I have finally got here. My trip got off to a rough start when the night before I was scheduled to leave from Pittsburgh, my connecting flight from Atlanta to Milan was canceled due to heavy snow and ice. My flight was rescheduled to then go from Pittsburgh to New York to Amsterdam to Milan. But, my flight from Pittsburgh was delayed for 2.5 hours (thanks Delta) and caused me to miss my connecting flight to Amsterdam. Since there were no flights out of JFK until 6:30 the following evening, I was put up in a hotel for the night. Luckily, I experienced no more delays from then on and the flights went smoothly (thank God for noise canceling headphones!). One word of advice for future students, make direct flights if at all possible and avoid Delta airlines!

After making it to Milan, I found that my luggage had not even left New York yet! (another great job by Delta). But, I was able to make it from the Milan Malpensa airport to the Cardona train station in downtown Milan despite my inability to speak English. Overall, it was an interesting experience and just highlighted the unreliable nature of air travel. My advice to future students is just to remain patient while traveling, all will work out for the best. Well, I have to get going to the next orientation meeting, look for pictures of my apartment and some sights of Milan in my next entry later in the week!  


Location: Via P.S. Mancini, 4

And now I’m stuck in the UK

I have the worst luck with flying. Seriously. I was supposed to fly home this morning to be with my family for Christmas. I have a flight back to the UK on the 26th because I want to do New Year’s in London, so it was already a short trip. 

Yesterday, there was a “blizzard” and Heathrow and Gatwick closed down. Now, let me remind you, I was stuck in Austria a couple of weeks ago for the same reason. Well, Gatwick was closed then. I ended up having to take a bus to Bratislava in Slovakia and flying out there in a blizzard! They literally guided my plane through completely snow covered tracks. We couldn’t see anything. The only thing that was cleared was the runway. That much snow and we still got off fine. 
Anyway, I was thinking “good thing I booked my flight for Sunday”. And it should’ve been a good thing. The snow stopped around 6pm last night so, as all of you Northeastern people know, that should be ample time to clear. Well, no such luck. I woke up at 7am this morning, an hour before I was supposed to, and checked my flight. A big red “canceled” glared at me from the screen. I cried a little.
I spent $15 trying to call Delta’s customer service, but never got through. Eventually I found a link on my reservation and rebooked on a flight tomorrow, but it’s a shit flight. It’ll take me 14 and a half hours to get to JFK and from there I have to figure out how to get to my home in upstate NY. I called my mom to see if she could switch the connecting flight I’m going to miss tonight to tomorrow. 
Like in Austria, though, I’ve lucked out a bit. In Austria I was staying with one of my best friends from back home who was studying there. Here, in London, I’m staying at my boyfriend’s. So at least it’s not costing me a fortune on hotels. 
I just want to get home for Christmas, though. I already bought everyone presents!

Location: London, England

Trapped in Austria

I came to Vienna, Austria last Sunday (Nov.28th) to visit one of my best friends from back home who is studying abroad here. I was supposed to fly home on Wednesday (Dec.1st) early and take a bus back to Leeds so that I could get back to class for Thursday and Friday. Well, I showed up at the airport in Vienna and my flight was completely canceled because Gatwick was closed due to snow. I started to stress a little, but got rebooked on a flight for that evening. An hour later, I’m on the phone with Bertie in London who informs me that the BBC just announced Gatwick would be closed all day and not reopen until Thursday morning.

So I go back to the window and there was no line (no one else had heard yet) and I got rebooked onto a flight for this morning (Thursday). I had no way to reach my friend, no cash, and was slightly panicked. More than slightly. Until the airline says they’ll put me in a hotel for the night. So they took my to the Hilton Vienna (SO NICE) where I had a suite to myself. I called my parents, Bertie, and wrote on my friend’s Facebook wall from the lobby computer. I fell asleep for a bit from stress exhaustion and when I woke up my friend showed up at my room. I went back with her to her apartment to use free internet and phone.

Anyway, I check my emails, Facebook, etc. I email my groups for my classes to let them know I can’t make it back. Then I decide to check my flight time again. Turns out, it was CANCELLED. Again. I start freaking out, get Bertie on Skype, and try to reschedule to the flight later on, but there were no seats available until Saturday, at the earliest, and even then I couldn’t book because the website was crashing from traffic. My friend got one of her friends who is here in Vienna on her Skype and he found me a flight out of Bratislava for tomorrow morning to Luton Airport rather than Gatwick. He also found me a bus from Vienna to Bratislava. I leave, in theory, tomorrow on a bus at 6:50 to Slovakia (this would be more exciting under different circumstances) and my flight should leave, in theory, at 10:40am back to London.

I applied for my refund from EasyJet, and to buy the other ticket on RyanAir it cost me about 45 euros more than I’d be getting back from my refund, but at least I have a better chance of getting back to the UK? Maybe? For now, I’m staying in the spare bedroom at my friend’s flat and hoping.

In summary: I’m stuck in Vienna (3 canceled flights so  far) until further notice. At least I have a friend here.


Location: Vienna, Austria

Arrival in Istanbul, Turkey

May 22, I woke up at 5:30, and got ready to leave for Istanbul. It is now 10:39 p.m. on May 23, 2010 and I am getting ready to sleep.  My trip started out normal, but I had to drive from York, PA to JKF airport in New York. I decided to leave at 8 a.m., thinking that would be plenty of time to get to New York for my 4:45 flight. However, I was wrong.  In New York I got into heavy traffic, and I ended up missing the boarding of the plane I was supposed to get on. It took about 6 hours instead of the 3 and a half it was supposed to take to get there. After some conversation with the woman at the ticket counter, I was able to get a flight that took me from JFK to Paris, France then from Paris to Istanbul.

I have to say for my first time flying, this was definitely and experience. However, I loved it. It wasn’t as bad as I thought it would be.  The delay between my flight to Paris and my flight to Istanbul was about two hours, which gave me plenty of time to depart from the first plane, find the gate for my next flight, and board my flight that took me to Istanbul. I am going to say, that for the first part of my trip I was a nervous wreck. I had never flown before and here I am taking a non-direct flight.  Instead of Turkish Air, I flew Air France.  I was fed pretty tasty meals (my first flight had dinner and breakfast and my second flight had lunch).  I arrived in Istanbul around 2:30 p.m. and went through the lines for passports and grabbed my baggage. I had no idea what most people at the airport were  saying, and it was hard to understand where to go. I happened to run into a college student about my age that was studying abroad in the United States (he actually missed the same flight to Istanbul that I missed), who helped me make a call on a pay phone.I then went to find the place where we were to meet up with the rest of the group members.

After several students and the professor and grad student were assembled, we headed to the hotel. After a little time unpacking and resting, we ate dinner, and afterward we went out to walk to an open air market that is close to where we are staying in Istanbul. We have a Turkish tour guide, and he would point things out as we walked. When we got to the market he said good bye, and we started walking toward taksim square.  As we were walking I noticed how hard it is to drive without people walking in front of the cars. We even saw an emergency vehicle that had to yell at people to get out of the way. 

As it is getting late, I am going to head off to bed now. I have to get up early after only having a few hours of sleep on the plane to hold me over until now.


Location: Grand Hotel Halic Refik Saydam Street 37 Tepebaşı 34430 Istanbul / Turkey