Our 2012 trip begins - a little deja vu with cancelled flights

Hi folks,

It's been a year since our last trip.  Right now we're holed up in the Royal Sonesta in Boston.  Today was a bit reminiscent of our 2008 trip where we were stranded in England for 8 days.  I know, it's only the first day of our trip, not 8 days in.  Hopefully we'll get a flight tomorrow.

We're having a great night, though. 

We had boarded our plane and gotten settled in, when the flight attendants told us to "unfasten our seat belts".  That was odd.  I've never heard that request before.  Soon a message came on (in Italian first - it was Alitalia) telling us that one of the plane's tanks had a fuel leak and that there would be a delay.  Soon another message came on explaining that they needed to drain the tank, fix the leak (around a hatchet?), then refill the tank, and that we could not be on the plane while they did that.  So we gathered up our stuff & exited.

We found a spot with outlets & wifi, so the kids surfed & did ipod, while I worked on paying the last credit card balance that I hadn't had time to pay before we boarded.  Yes, we were going to be at least a couple of hours late in leaving, but we were still in good spirits.  Actually, we stayed in good spirits all evening, which is good, especially considering where our spirits could have gone.

After an hour & a half, we heard a message telling us that the flight had been cancelled, and to go pick up our baggage & then go to the ticket counter to make arrangements.  Despite very stern warnings to not get in line at the ticket counter unless we already had gotten our baggage, I got in line at the ticket counter.  It was an excellent move.  I was about 10 people/groups of people back.  Most people were down getting their luggage.  If people were in line, the airline people would ask if they had luggage to get & then make them get out of line & get it.  They ignored me for some reason.

Anyways, it took about an hour for me to get to the front of what was originally a short line.  Genci spent that whole time waiting for baggage downstairs.  He said the belt stopped & started many times.  At some point, people started clapping when the belt started.  But there were many false alarms.

When my turn came, I was a little worried that they would ask where my baggage was, but it was not an issue.  They tried to find me another flight tonight, and then gave me the name of a hotel that would be covered by them (the Royal Sonesta in Cambridge, very nice!), and told me to call customer service tomorrow to make get seats on the same flight tomorrow.  They're planning on fixing the plane, and then having an unscheduled flight (they don't usually fly that route on Friday) to Rome at the same time.  But since it's not in the system, it couldn't be booked yet.

Perhaps this is way too much detail.  I bet it is.  I'm too tired to edit out stuff, I guess.

Anyways, we took a cab to the hotel, and checked in (it took a while, because we were the first in this situation tonight, so they needed to confirm everything).  But it is a beautiful hotel.  Our room has a view of the full-moonlit Charles River.  We ordered room service (mostly covered by voucher we're told), which was delicious & beautiful.  Very nicely done, with all the extra, fancy touches.

We have high speed internet, and everyone is happy.

The kids were getting a little crazy near the end (they did really well overall), so we opted for room service over sitting in a restaurant where they would have to behave even longer.  Nathan and Genci skyped with Genci's brother while Nathan also played minecraft on the same laptop.  Then Nathan skyped with a classmate until the food came.  I think Luke might have briefly done Facetime on his iPod.  This skyping and Facetime thing is a relatively new phenomenon.  I think they've just been doing it for a few weeks.  It's pretty cool, though, to be able to talk and see people from anywhere. 

The food was delicious.  We had a beautiful mixed mesclun salad & a shrimp taglitore or something.  The desserts were amazing.  Soft, moist, scrumptious cheesecake, creme caramel, ice cream for the kids.  Yummm.

Tomorrow I'm plannig to call Alitalia, then hit the pool & hot tub with the kids.  I'd like to work out a bit in the fitness room, but we'll see how things go.  If our flight is in the evening, we could have a nice day in Boston.  We'll see.  Maybe we'll have to switch airlines & fly some crazy combination of routes in the daytime. 

It's late, and we're all tired (actually, Luke is asleep).  We should have gone to bed earlier, but dinner was very late.  But it was a good evening, especially considering that our plans just flew out the window.

There were a couple of times that the kids wondered why this had to happen.  I reminded them that we were very lucky that we didn't have anywhere we really HAD to be - like a wedding, or a funeral, or an event that had a specific start time. Yes, this cuts in to our time with their grandmother.  But it's OK.  We'll be OK, and we could turn it into some fun.  I'm thinking this learning that things don't always turn out as planned is probably a good life lesson.  Being able to be flexible and maintain a positive attitude is a good life skill.

I'd better get to bed.

Naten e mire!
(Gute nacht)