Been Down So Long It Looks Like Up To Me
It started with a transatlantic flight on Air France from hell. We were seated in Premium Economy in the same row as a totally clueless father traveling with an adorable looking and out of control 2-year old girl. She literally screamed and bawled for the first 2 and 1/2 hours of the flight. Several Air France crew members made futile attempts to calm her with no success. Anne went over to him and suggested that he get up and walk her around. That worked for about 1/2 hour. Then she screamed and bawled off and on for the rest of the flight, reaching a mind-numbing crescendo on the descent into Paris.
And that’s when things got worse! Our next flight was to be on Air Malta in a few hours, but we were told that we had to go to an Air Malta counter to get boarding passes. Only for no reason that we were given, they would not allow us to go there without first going through immigration. So we were directed to a room with hundreds of people from all over the world for an hours trek to the immigration desk. In spite of multiple attempts asking for guidance from people in various uniforms, we could neither skip the wait or understand what we were to do after clearing immigration.
After clearing immigration, we spent several hours (this being the middle of the night body time) going from terminal to terminal without being able to gain access to an Air Malta ticket counter. So we missed our flight. We were told to go to an Air France rebooking counter to get another flight. After another long walk through the airport, the women at the counter told us that she could not issue Air Malta boarding passes and that we would have to go back to Air Malta.
By this point we had walked over 3 1/2 miles, eaten nothing, and were near exhaustion. I expressed my anger and frustration in what I think was in a remarkably controlled manner, making the point that we had booked and paid for the entire journey through Air France, and it was their responsibility to get us on the next flight to Air Malta. So after several phone calls and consultation with colleagues, we were booked on an Air France to Malta that left at 3:30 pm. It was now 11:30 am. And we were assured that our luggage would be on our flight.
It was not. When we finally disembarked in Valletta, we waited for an hour at the baggage claim office to be told that our luggage would be delivered to our cruise ship the next afternoon. By some minor miracle, I had successfully communicated with our hotel, and they sent a taxi to pick us up and take us to the hotel. A lovely Nepalese taxi driver had waited for an hour and a half and was there to get us. We had a pleasant ride to our delightful little hotel, arriving just at dark, starving and exhausted.
The hotel reception was closed, so we were given a code to enter and were left an envelope with keys and instructions. We entered what we thought was our room and started to settle in when we read the instructions again and realized that we were in the wrong room. What else could go wrong? After phoning the hotel manager, we figured out our error (our key should never have worked on the room we entered). Our correct room is just right with a sweet little balcony that overlooks a narrow picturesque street.
We ventured a short way up the street to a bustling row of restaurants where we enjoyed a lovely dinner. A young couple at the table next to us struck up a conversation just as we were paying the bill, as they saw me leaving a tip in US $. They were Maltese who were on a staycation, their hotel just up the street. They were delightful and sweetly sympathetic when we offered up a summary of the days trials and tribulations. Leaving them I felt as if we had been embraced by the city of Valletta and all of Malta!
We had no trouble falling asleep at 10 pm and slept through the night, waking up to a sunny day and a generous breakfast on the hotel roof top. (Photos to follow). At 11 am, we take a short walk to the Viking Venus where we will be COVID tested and quarantined in our cabin for four hours. I will not give any thought to what happens if we test positive.
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