My flight that was supposed to leave PHX didn’t leave until 3:30 which meant that I missed my flight to Edinburgh. Why was I going to Edinburgh? Because when I booked the flight I didn’t know that my student visa meant that I couldn’t enter the country until exactly one month before my program started. I had bought the ticket and I couldn’t modify it, so I booked another flight where I wanted to go instead (Florence). However because I had missed my flight to Edinburgh, I was also going to miss my flight to Florence. At 10:30pm in Atlanta, I went to two different help desks, talked to 6 people, made 2 calls, and got 1 free diet coke as I tried to figure out what to do. By the time I figured it out, I had my flights exactly how they had been but 24 hours later. It was so late that none of the customer service desks were open to get me any vouchers so I had to buy my hotel room and room with my own money. Instead of a day in Florence, it would be replaced by a day in Georgia. First stop on my Europe trip? Atlanta! I got to the airport around noon, got lunch, and tried to fill the hours until 10:30pm. I started my period which is fine but also the timing felt personal and descending from the airport shuttle bus, carrying all my baggage, I twisted my ankle and fell hard so I was achy for the whole rest of the extremely long trip. I felt so bored and angry.

The flight from Atlanta to Edinburgh wasn’t too bad– the seat next to me was empty which makes a huge deal on a long flight like that. I got to Edinburgh having slept 3 or 4 hours and had to go through security where I learned I had brought way too many liquids. I had to throw lots of them away which threw me off my groove– I was worried about getting to my flight to Amsterdam on time and eating. I got there fine though, got to Amsterdam and settled in for my 4 hour flight. After finishing a movie on my phone, I reached for my iPad and suddenly realized that my laptop and iPad were missing. After some panicked mental backtracking, I realized that in my disgruntled Edinburgh Security rush, I had left the bin with my iPad, laptop, and sweatshirt. I got on the phone and found that airport security acutually had a pretty good lost and found system and started emailing with them to try and find my stuff. This meant that all the work and writing I had planned to do in the new two weeks were no more.

I got to Florence, jetlagged and weary at 11pm only to have to wait for my Airbnb host to come and let me in. I got gelato and walked around the Duomo in the interim.