Vacation Hell

Saturday, Sept. 9, we left our hotel in Glasgow too early to get a full breakfast.  At the airport there was already a long line of people checking in.  As soon as our bags were checked (mandatory), we discovered that the flight was delayed by 2+ hours; meaning that we would miss all our connections.  Arriving at Schiphol, NL, we learned that the delay was for many KLM flights and hundreds of people.  Luggage would not be released; queues for help were 4+ hours long; and we had no idea of our new schedule.  We needed to get a hotel room, but so did hundreds of other people. After a couple of false leads, we found a hotel room on the far side of Amsterdam.

Dinner at The Seafood Bar in Amsterdam.  We shared it.

Our new flight schedule was for Sunday evening, flying Alitalia to Milan and Cagliari.  I attempted to notify our car rental company and hotel of the delay: no real people, just websites.  We spent a pleasant day in Amsterdam, walking to the Ann Frank house, shopping, and a tasty meal outdoors canal-side. Taking the bus to Schiphol, we struggled (no signs) to find where to get our new flight tickets.

Lunch canal side in Amsterdam.  Very warm weather and all the boats were out cruising.

The Ann Frank House was mobbed.  We didn't think it appropriate to take selfie (look at me!) photos there.  It is a symbol of solemn reflection for the horrors of the Holocaust.  We never take selfies, but many people had a different outlook. 

Arriving in Cagliari at 00:10 (11 Sept.), we learned that our luggage was lost!  We flagged a taxi from the airport to the center of old Cagliari on the waterfront.  Our taxi driver let us off on a main street about six blocks away (due to the maze of narrow alleys we had to navigate) and we GPSed our way to the final destination, arriving at 01:05.  We had been given self-entry instructions and stumbled off to bed in what turned out to be the wrong apartment.

Next morning, we needed to get breakfast and check out by 10:00.  The recommended breakfast location only served coffee and pastries, which I cannot eat. We bought buns, meat, and fruit at a hole-in-the-wall grocery for our meal. Email informed me that our rental car had been canceled due to our late arrival (my message was not received). Now we needed to find a new rental car.

Near the cruise ship terminal were three car rentals; none had any cars for us. We got a taxi to our original rental location: they had no cars! We had arrived at Cagliari but would be flying out from Olbia, at the north end of the island. No train or flight connects the two ends of the island. Do we need to cancel all our accommodations, flights, and head for home? Desperation time. We checked Priceline, Sixt, Booking.com all with no cars available.

We decided to return to the airport where airlines and car rentals are available. Several car rental companies had booths there. Dawn stood in one line while I inquired at another. They had one car available; did I hear her right? I wanted to jump over the counter and hug her. The car is a diesel Jeep Renegade six-speed manual.  Very fuel efficient but needing to be constantly shifted due to the narrow torque band and the constantly changing road contours. 

But where is our luggage? It has been four days since we saw it last.  Today we went to a local store to buy clothes, so that we can wash what we have been wearing.  Locals call then 'China stores'; stacks of merchandise piled high with very narrow aisles.  Mainly cheap things, unsold elsewhere in XXL and S sizes, but at good prices.  I found a pair of shorts and a T-shirt in M size.  Dawn found some shorts and tops.

That evening we received an e-mail notifying us that our luggage had arrived.  They would deliver the suitcases, but we only had one day left at this location.  The luggage would probably arrive after we were gone, so Dawn and I drove back to the Cagliari airport to get our luggage.