March 28/29, 2010 – Final Guitar Craft Course – Day 2 of Eternal Travel

March 28/29, 2010 – Final Guitar Craft Course – Day 2 of Eternal Travel

Travel from Sassoferrato, Italy to Seattle

Sunday March 28, 2010

To begin with, Europe went to Daylight Saving Time at 2am Sunday morning, adding insult to injury.

• 4:15am Europe Daylight Saving Time – Alarm went off. I was asleep, for real. Not sure when I actually fell asleep, but it wasn’t much more than an hour earlier.
• 5:00am – Meet the team downstairs. Ten of us heading to the airport in a cab, a car, and a van for luggage.
• 6:00am – Arrive Ancona Aeroport. Check in relatively easy.
• 7:00am – In the air.
• 7:28am – Land in Rome. A trip to a restaurant for a little food and some good coffee. Amble to the gate. So far, so good.
• 11:00am – The beginning of 9 hours of transatlantic fun.
• 3:00pm Eastern Time – Touch down at JFK. Deplane. No wait for Immigration. Bit of a wait for luggage. No wait for Customs. Say goodbye to Bill. Re-check luggage. Go to American Airlines. Because it is less than 45 minutes from departure time, American refuses to issue boarding passes to Jaxie and me.
  
• 4:00pm – Commence several hours of yelling. The most amusing – convincing Al Italia that Jaxie and I needed two rooms for the night, not one. I mean, we’re close, but not that close. Their argument was that as we were traveling together, by policy we were entitled to one room. Our argument was that, by policy, they could go straight to hell. Our policy trumped theirs.
• 6:00pm – Check into crappy airport Holiday Inn, “courtesy” of Al Italia. Grab a shower. Do some emailing. Make a phone call or two. Hallways smell like cigarettes and marijuana.
• 7:00pm – Meal and much needed drink in hotel restaurant, “courtesy” of Al Italia.
• 9:00pm – To our hotel rooms (plural!) where passing out is on the menu.

March 29, 2010

• 1:00am, 4:00am and 6:00am – wake up.
• 7:30am – Sitting in room 421.
• 8:15am – Breakfast “courtesy” of Al Italia. Brainstorming on mission/vision of Seattle Guitar School, including call to Tony.
• 10:00am – Back to rooms for personal work.
• 12noon – Check out of hotel, shuttle to terminal.
• 4:45pm – Plane pulls away from gate, goes directly to holding area where it shuts engines down and waits for an hour.
• 6:00pm – Plane gets in queue and 20 minutes later takes off. Six hour flight blissfully uneventful.
• 9:10pm Pacific Time – Touch down in Seattle. Meet the Williams clan at baggage claim. Have a word with both American and Delta regarding the absence of luggage, including guitars.
• 10:15pm – arrive home to peeved, but cuddly, cat.

Total travel time = 50 hours for humans. For luggage, still tbd.