Over the course of the last week and a half, a lot has happened to our little group of college kids. In fact, so much has happened that I must split this blog into multiple parts as you can see above. Right about now I should be working on a 6-8 page paper for Senior Seminar, but I need to get my words flowing so I have turned to the Chasers first. I hope the stories that follow sufficiently fill your thirst for some Scott on the Rocks.
When I last wrote, we were on the verge of leaving Greece once and for all (well, probably not for all…I’m sure I’ll be back some day). We woke up early on Saturday morning in order to get out of our apartments by 8:30 and off to the airport. At first, everything seemed as if it would go swimmingly. I initially thought that getting on the bus to the airport would be our biggest problem, but the X95 bus sat at the stop like a Christmas present under a tree. This was going to be easy. We would be arriving at the airport a full two hours before our flight left, which would leave us plenty of time for any problems. And problems we would have.
They began the moment we made it to the EasyJet counter. First up was Matt. The lady at the desk stared at his passport a little too long, making us nervous. She looked again at the confirmation email and then back to the passport.
“Is your name Matt or Matthew?” she asked.
“It’s Matthew,” responded Matt. “But Matt is my nickname.”
“Alright. Well it says Matt on your ticket, but I’ll let it go.”
Whew…one man through, three to go.
Next was Ryan. Apparently his bag was too big for the scale, so the lady made him take it to a special area on the other side of the airport. According to Ryan, the man working at this other place took his bag without even checking any tags and threw it on a conveyor belt. Hopefully it would be meeting us in Rome. Two down...kind of.
I was the third man through. By this point I was getting annoyed with the lady’s pettiness, which she of course continued to show. My problem was that I had “too many carry-ons,” one of them being my backpack and the other being a duffel bag. She made me squeeze the backpack inside the duffel bag before letting me walk away with it, but eventually I got it in and moved back so Bill could walk up. Keep in mind that I just addressed him as Bill.
While Bill placed his bag on the scale, the lady eyed his passport and the last name on our group confirmation email. Again, she did a double take before looking back up at Bill. The question she asked was like déjà vu:
“Is your name Bill or William?” she asked, just as she had before.
“It’s William,” responded Bill. “But Bill is my nickname.”
“Hang on, I have to get my supervisor.”
That was not the response I had expected. Here was Bill, sitting there with almost the exact same clothing, haircut, and of course face as appeared on the passport sitting on the counter. But the confirmation email said “Bill Solinger,” while the passport stated that he was “William Solinger.” Dear God.
We waited for a supervisor to show up, not knowing what to do. When he did, he grabbed the confirmation and the passport from the lady, looked at it, and again asked Bill what his name was. Bill tried desperately to explain that “Bill” was a common nickname for “William,” but the supervisor wouldn’t buy it. He directed Bill to the EasyJet help desk where he could try and change the name on his ticket.
Naturally the help desk made Bill call a help line, which kept him on hold until his phone ran out of battery a half hour later. Meanwhile, our two-hour window to get on our plane had narrowed to under an hour, forcing Bill to “purchase” a new name. The transaction cost an extra 45 euros, which I paid for since I had made the clerical error. I have done my best to say “William” instead of “Bill” for the last week, and will continue to do so for the remainder of the trip.
The rest of the flight was uneventful. Ryan’s bag did show up in Rome and we all hopped on the train into the city, eventually making it to our respective apartments. Our apartment is huge (there are 7 of us, including Matt from the original Caballeros…the other players who may now factor in to future blog stories are Brian, Joe, Steve, Aaron, and Matt B), but I didn’t have much time to enjoy it then. We needed to get to bed and be ready to leave for Venice on a 7:30 AM flight the next morning. If you thought the Bill/William problem was a bad one, you ain’t seen nothin’ yet.
Since our travel group was split for the night (Bill…sorry William and Ryan are about a 20 minute metro ride from our place), we had planned to meet at the train to the airport at 6:00 AM. The train would take a half hour to get to the airport, where we could then run to our terminal and get on our plane. In theory, it sounded flawless. But, as you might have guessed, we knew nothing about Rome and how long certain things would take. We were in for a long day.
Matt and I arrived at around 5:30 AM at the train station, hoping that William and Ryan would do the same. We bought a ticket for the 5:52 train and waited. And we waited some more. We waited until the train whistle blew to get on without Ryan and William ever showing, so we hopped on. After all, the airplane departure was the important one and maybe William and Ryan were already there.
With hope that our friends would be somewhere around the airport, we made our way to the EasyJet terminal. When we arrived it was already 6:30 and there was no Ryan or William in sight. So we waited again. I had Ryan’s confirmation email with me and I didn’t want to check in without him. We tried to talk to the ladies at the EasyJet counter to see if they had seen Ryan or William, but none of them had checked them in. We were now running out of time. The check in ended promptly at 6:50, giving our counterparts about 5 minutes to show up before the clock hit zero.
With one minute left, we were ready to give up. If we missed the flight, our only other option would be to pay 74 euros for a one-way ticket at 3:40 PM, or 95 euros for a flight at 9:20 AM. Awesome. Suddenly, we heard running from the hallway. We looked behind us, praying that it was our two lost travelers, but instead it was four other girls from our trip trying to make the same flight. We sprang up to join them in the check in line, yelling at them as they passed.
“Are Bill and Ryan with you?” (I messed up on the William part there)
“They’re right behind us!”
We were in business. We stopped chasing after the girls and turned to wait for our companions. But, once again, our waiting was in vain. 10 minutes later, the girls showed up and told us that check in had just closed right before they got there. Game over. Time to pay up. But where were William and Ryan?
While Matt waited in the terminal, I decided to venture out with the girls to look for other ticket options and the other two guys. Our search provided us with no cheaper options than the ones we already knew of, so we headed back to the EasyJet terminal. Still no William or Ryan. What follows from this point is my account of what happened.
It took until 7:30 for William and Ryan to actually stroll in to the terminal. Tensions were high. I personally can’t remember a time that I’ve been angrier. According to them, they had arrived at the train station “right at 6,” probably moments after our train had left. They “waited there as long as they could” before getting on and heading to the airport. Once there, they decided against sprinting with the girls and instead waited at the train station outside the airport for Matt and I to show up, not knowing that somewhere inside we were doing the same thing. This story didn’t help my emotions. I could see that, deep down, they were blaming us for not waiting at the train station while I was busy blaming them for not making it to the airport; the one place that you can’t be late to. (A little aside: we made a pact later on the trip to never speak of this incident again with Scott on the Rocks earning a special exemption. So please, don’t ask us about this. This is the last time any of us will ever speak of it)
Eventually we made it to Venice, but that’s for Part Two, along with the rest of the fall break trip. If we were to label these parts, Part One would be Problems. From here, there are many questions that I’m sure you have. Do we sulk the rest of the trip? Do we reconcile our differences and have a good time? Do we even make it to our next destination? The answers to these questions and more can be found in the next post.
Special Shout-Out of the Day: Ben Hause. Hause might’ve quickly moved in to the top stop for “doing the most to get on the blog.” He arrived in Rome to visit yours truly on Thursday…now that’s dedication to the cause right there. For some odd reason, I don't think that dedication will be bested.
European Insult Tally:
Bill-1
Scott-3
Matt-1
Ryan-3
During Part One of this three-part post, we definitely received more insults than we gave out. I would count the EasyJet lady not calling William by his name (I mean, come on…it’s Bill) as an insult for sure.
Ya digg?
Your friend or family member (or random acquaintance)
Scott Twelves
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