January 6, 2010

  • Christmas and New Year

    What a long time without an update! Firstly, Happy New Year to one and all! May 2010 be an excellent year!

    So I haven't updated since the 21st, which seems like a whole world of time ago! On the 22nd the snow had got a whole lot worse and many flights were cancelled, so things weren't looking great for the 23rd. My private lessons were cancelled for that afternoon as it was going to be impossible for me to get to their side of town. I did manage to make it to the SDA (parcel service) depot to collect my books from Amazon so was relieved to finally get hold of them! The depot was in the middle of nowhere in a bleak, snowy landscape. Quite an adventure!

    The adventure really began on the 23rd though. I got the email through saying that my flight had been cancelled at about 10pm on the 22nd. I was meant to be flying easyjet from Milan-Gatwick. There weren't any other flights going from Milan, and nothing available the following day either. In the end, the only thing available was a BA flight from Verona. My internet connection decided not to play ball so I was having real trouble booking onto said flight from here, and in the end my parents had to do it from London. Once that was done though I was able to relax and assume I was getting home ok the following day. The flight wasn't until 4pm, check in at 2pm, but I turned up at the station at about 8.30am to get the train to Verona. Chaos at the train station. Trains to Milan were going fine, but trains to Verona/Venice basically weren't running. Or at least it wasn't clear whether they were or not at the start (no announcements, departures board just hanging) but one by one they started being cancelled. For a while it seemed like it would still be ok as there was always another one in half an hour etc, but soon it was clear that they were pretty much all being cancelled. At that point I decided to see about buses. Normally it would take 40 mins to Verona on the train and about the same on the roads. I've never got a bus there before so I don't know how long the usual bus takes, but when I turned up at the bus station she said 3 hours for the bus to Verona. She sold me a ticket and only then told me that it was actually going that second and said "you might make it if you run", looking at her watch. Gee, thanks. The bus had actually left 5 minutes before that! I was now in possession of a redundant train ticket to Milan, a validated and useless train ticket to Verona, a useless bus ticket to Verona, a cancelled flight ticket and still no obvious way of getting to Verona. In the end I had to get a taxi from Brescia to Verona airport! Felt a bit extravagant, but was the only way to ensure I did actually make my flight (and having had to pay a lot to rebook onto that flight there was no way I was going to miss it!!). So it was all a bit of an adventure but I made it to my brother's that evening and he and his wife made it back safely from their holiday in Oslo as well.

    We had a lovely Christmas there and then Boxing Day spent at my auntie's - a nice big family affair. Then on the 28th I set off for Poland by coach! I went to the 32nd Taize European Meeting of Young Adults which was held in Poznan this year from 29/12/09-02/01/10. We left at midday on the 28th and arrived in the morning on the 29th after a relatively smooth journey. The meeting was absolutely fantastic - the Poles really know how to do hospitality! It was my first European Meeting but I certainly hope to make it to the next one which will be held in Rotterdam next year! Lovely to have a dose of Taize ready for the new year, and seeing 2010 in at a Festival of Nations with entertainment from all the various countries present was wonderful. The company throughout the meeting was fab - met some lovely people who I hope to stay in touch with!
    Our journey back wasn't quite so smooth as we got caught up in a snowstorm somewhere in Germany and had to go extremely slowly, which meant that the whole journey door to door was 30 hours long (this left plenty of time for more great conversation and theological debate though ). Was also very impressed with the drivers though who managed to get us back safely even though we were driving on a totally snow covered motorway (couldn't see any lanes etc) for much of the night!

     


    The beautiful main square in Poznan


    Very luckily I flew back to Italy yesterday with no problems (flight delayed by an hour but I still made my train and got back to my flat at midnight). If I had been trying to fly today then I fear I would have been stuck in England for rather a long time as the airport is closed today and everyone is snowed in. Sadly there is no snow here now, although I have to say that the snow has cost a small fortune this holiday season (both in lost earnings from cancelled private lessons and in expenditure for travel disruption) so I'm not its biggest fan right now, even if it is very pretty!

    I'm still in holiday mode but need to get back into the swing of things fairly quickly as tomorrow I have to teach 5 lessons and then on Friday I have the first session of my CELTA course in Verona. Hopefully it'll be easier getting to Verona this time than it was last time!! Plenty to keep me busy anyway!  It's very nice to be back in Italia too :)