Delayed....

After having a good, but intense week at the Gordon Conference in Tuscany, I was somewhat looking forward to getting back to Charleston - not least because i had some good feedback that stimulated new ideas about my work. Alas, the best laid plans of mice and men....and all that, came to naught with the cancellation of my first flight out of Pisa. Having arrived at the airport at 6.30am (or therabouts) and checked in, we hopped on to the bus out to the plane and boarded. We were sitting on the plane for about 30 minute when the captain came on the tannoy and announced that the visibility outside was too bad for us to take off and we were going to wait to see if it got any better. Sure enough, 5 minutes later, things had not improved and so the flight was cancelled. Of course, the amusing thing in all this was that the Captain told us that Pisa does not have an electronic system for measuring visibility but rather 'a man who stands and looks out of the window'. At this point, we weren't sure if he was being serious or not.

Anyway, after getting back to the terminal, collecting bags and waiting in a queue for two hours (after one hour of which, the mist had all but vanished i should point out), we were told that we could not get back to Charleston today. Instead, we were going to be on the evening flight to Munich (as per our original flight plan) and then get re-routed on a flight the next morning. At least one thing was that they were going to put us up in a hotel. Thus, after a day of sitting around in Pisa airport (very boring, believe me) and getting to Munich, we had to wait around for about 45 mins as they sorted out our tickets and hotel, and we FINALLY made it to the hotel at about 9.45pm. Suffice to say we're all pretty tired (we being me, Ashley and another friend Arelis, who has had quite the journey from hell already) and ready for bed. Alas, it's an early start tomorrow though to get the next flights. And with any luck we'll get back to Charleston tomorrow.