Monday (flying home)

Well, we've had a crazy week and it's hard to imagine it getting much crazier but here's what our Monday looked like :-( We were able to get to the airport and check in for our flight from BCN to Milan, Italy (the first of 3 legs). The man gave us our boarding passes but said we would have to get our Milan boarding passes there because the system wouldn't let him generate them. We asked if there was a problem and he said no, not at all. We asked if our bags would make it to Tel Aviv the final destination and he said Yes, I will try. That answer didn't seem very confident, so we rephrased the question. He showed us the baggage ticket he was putting on that showed TLV so we figured there was nothing else we could do. We did try to clarify that it would go straight through and there was no need for us to pick the bags up in Milan and recheck. No, it should go to TLV. Okay. In Milan we got off the plane and passed baggage claim going to the ticket counter to get our boarding passes. Here is where we learned that our flight wasn't leaving from this airport but from another airport over an hour away in Bergamo. We pointed to the ticket and said the ticket says Milan and we bought this ticket from their website (not orbitz or travelocity). We asked if they had a shuttle to that airport or better yet since they had a flight from this airport straight to Rome if they could put us on one of those flights (well that will cost you 50Euros per person to change your ticket- which quickly rose to 200 Euros per person with additional fees and taxes). Where is your luggage? We answered, the man in Barcelona said it will go straight to TLV. Oh no, if you are going through Bergamo you need to recheck your bags. YIKES. While Ken tried to negotiate a ride to the next airport or a change in flights straight to Rome, I ran downstairs to try and get back into the secured baggage area and rescue our luggage. I finally found someone in an airport uniform that was willing to let me back into the luggage carousel area, but it had been about an hour and no of the carousels indicated the recent Barcelona arrival. I asked around at the desks but no one was helpful. Finally I ended up at the lost baggage area. They asked if I had lost my bags. I said I was looking for it, do you know what carousel it was on. No, you only need to come here if you have lost your bags. Please go look and if you still don't find it you can open a claim here. Talk about the run around here. I stood at each carousel for at least 10 minutes, until I saw the same bag 3 times and moved to the next one. Isn't this a fun story? Finally I went back to the desk and there was someone different there. I showed him my ticket and asked if he could tell if our bags did in fact go to TLV or if I needed to pick them up here. He thought the bags should show up on carousel 4 in a few minutes. So I waited and waited and waited. Finally I saw them come through. Gratzi, Gratzi I said to the man and ran upstairs to see how Ken was doing. So we orginally had a 6 hour lay over which was now more than half gone now and Ken was hitting a dead end at the customer service desk which actually told him "I am not here to help you" and walked away. Uggh. We finally accepted the fact that we need to buy our own tickets to the central bus station and then take another shuttle from their to Bergamo. Racing against the clock we took the 20 minute ride downtown and just barely caught the hour long shuttle to the airport in Bergamo. We were able to check in an hour and half before the flight. The lady asked if we had any bags to check. Hesitantly we said yes, but can you make sure they get to Tel Aviv? The flight from Bergamo to Rome and then Rome to TLV were a bit late but relatively uneventful :-) We were so happy to be back in Israel even if it was 4am. We were even more elated to see our bags in Tel Aviv. Picking our rental car back up from Hertz was not an issue either. We were so thankful for a smooth re-entry. They didn't even detain us at customs like they normally do. We arrived back home just before 6am. There was a big sign on our door in Hebrew that said Welcome Home and inside our neighbors had a few things to get us started for the week. Now for a two hour nap before Ken has to be at work.