Friends of Marco and me got married on 4th of June, down in Sicily. Several incidents made this a remarkable trip for me. So let's look at it chronologically:
1. The flight:
Try to find a way - an affordable way - to get from the North of Europe (Oslo) to the complete South of Europe (Sicily) with the fewest transits possible while at the same time being restricted in the days that can be taken off from work (in high season usually zero, but exceptionally 2 days max, i.e. travel date 03/06 and wedding date 04/06)
2. The outfit:
An issue not every men can understand when it causes us girls sometimes a problem. The problem was not to find a dress. After having found a very lovely brown cocktail dress in Holland and some nice accessoires, the very huge challenge actually turned out to be the shoes. Damn, try to find brown (not black!) shoes, which are elegant, high heels (not too much and not too little), affordable, fitting the dress and available in your size that match that style and colour of the dress! Ok, after 6 weekends in a row looking for shoes, this problem was solved.
3. Flight cancellation:
2 weeks before departure to Sicily Air Berlin sends me an email informing me of a change in my flight times... but not by changing the itinerary by maybe 30 minutes or so. No, by 2 days! My initially booked itinerary for 03/06 Oslo - Berlin Tegel - Catania had been postponed to the 5th of June! "We kindly ask you for your comprehension and apologize for any inconvenience caused". My comprehension? Any inconvenience caused? Well, first: the wedding is on the 4th, so no way that I'll fly the 5th. Second: which sense does it make to fly the 5th if my return flight is already on the 6th? Third: I only have those 2 days off from work, means the only day I can fly is the 3rd.
After hours in waiting line of the Air Berlin service hotline and denying offers of flying already the 1st or 2nd of June, Air Berlin came around with the following solution: a flight from Oslo, via Berlin-Tegel and via the additional leg Munich down to Catania.
For that additional leg via Munich they wanted me to pay +300 Euro! No way! Ok, telling that lovely lady on the phone whatever stories about me being the marriage witness and stuff, they offered (how generous!) to change my booking Oslo-Tegel-Catania to Tegel-Munich-Catania so that I "only" had to rebook the leg Oslo-Tegel (for 60 Euros). We'll, I didn't have much choice. At least now it was sure I would still fly... on the 3rd of June, not before and not after that day.
So everything seems finally fine. Let's start the tour... which by the way started with getting up that morning at 03:45 a.m. taking the first airport shuttle train for the flight at 06:15.
Here even some pictures taken from the shuttle train at 04:30 a.m. on my way to the airport. It's so incredible. That early in the morning and such a light!
4. A380:
Upon arrival in Tegel I had a 3 hours stopover which happened to be exactly during the time a new A380 was supposed to land in Tegel airport. The airport was completely crowed by curious and gawping spectators that came to the airport just for being present at this moment and for taking a picture of this new big plane.
So did I:
5. Arrival in Catania:
I arrived well... but my suitcase didn't!
When I checked in at Oslo they told me they couldn't check me through to Catania (I assume because of my complicated booking situation that resulted in several tickets) so I would have to check myself in again at Tegel airport. I asked about my luggage and they assured me that this wouldn't be a problem. That would go directly through to Catania. Same response when asking again when I checked in at Tegel.
Well, obviously that wasn't quite correct. It didn't even get lost on that short transit time in Munich where it didn't have enough time to get on the connecting flight, but it simply never left Berlin airport as we figured out later at Catania's lost luggage counter.
Now that we knew it was still in Tegel: how the hell do I get it the quickest way possible from there down here to Sicily? Sicily wherever, that can be Catania, Palermo or Trapani. I don't care. I just knew I needed my suitcase before noon the next day. Otherwise I wouldn't have clothes for the wedding... especially not my cautiously selected outfit I was so much looking forward to wear :-)
6. Speed-shopping:
An hour later than expected I left Catania airport, still travelling 2:30 hours before finally arriving in Agrigento.
For the moment Catania's airport luggage service couldn't do anything else for my luggage then waiting for news, waiting for news on when and to where my suitcase will be sent from Berlin. "We will contact you immediately, as soon as we know more. So we might even contact you later this evening." Bu of course, no news. Is it really that difficult to find out which flight is the next one (either the same evening or early the next morning) to leave Tegel in direction Italy? Simply put my suitcase on it and transfer it from there again on the directly next flight down to Sicily. This way I might have had a chance of getting my suitcase incl. wedding outfit before the start of the wedding. However, I obviously demanded too much with that; they couldn't handle that.
Without any news by friday morning I was forced to look for an alternative outfit. I definitely couldn't go with the clothes I was still wearing since my departure. And one might not believe it: within about 1 hour express shopping in Agrigento I found a dress, a matching pair of shoes, a blouse (to cover the shoulders), a scarf, accessories and of course underwear! What a stress!
In the end I think it looked quite ok. These were really the only important things to get. I didn't buy anything else on Air Berlin's costs. But those costs I definitely wanna have reimbursed. For the rest of the days I was content with borrowed clothes.
7. The wedding:
The wedding itself was actually quite nice. Relatively extravagant, I'd say. Agrigento's Cathedral for the wedding ceremony and a nice manor off the road in the centre of Sicily for the dinner and party. This was unfortunately a bit too far away from Agrigento which dragged out the whole evening. Plus: lightly dressed it was quite freezing at that time of the night.
But I hope Eugenio and Valentina had an unforgettable day. I wish them all the best for the future.
I won't put any pictures of the wedding on this blog, because in the end this blog is about my time in Norway. So I preferrably only post pictures taken here.
8. An appointment with my suitcase:
Finally, on Friday afternoon - when it was far too late for getting the clothes for the wedding - I received a call: "your suitcase just landed in Catania!" Wow, "already"! Congratulations! So when will I have it here? Usually a courier is supposed to deliver it. "However, our courier will only be able to come and bring it to Agrigento by Sunday morning". I do understand that Agrigento is not really located in the proximity of Catania (2:30 hrs), but only on Sunday morning? Thanks, in that case just keep it and I'll pick it up on my return. And so I did. Thus, 4 days without my suitcase. I could have simply left it at home. But yes, I got it back then finally on Sunday and brought it back home to Oslo without even having opened it since I left.
*** The end... of this post! ***
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