(Sorry this is a rant)
I am in an amazing hotel 40 km near Barcelona right now. I arrived on tuesday evening to attend “All Hands”, a Canonical event just before UDS Karmic. The weather is really nice, the tracks are challenging and stimulating, and I get to meet coworkers coming from 26 different countries.
So why I am pissed off? Because apparently, stupid Air France/Roissy Charles de Gaulle employees were not clever enough to put my luggage in my plane. They announced it would be in Barcelona at 12:30 on Wednesday, then delivered to the hotel in the afternoon, but this turned out to be too complicated for them and my luggage did not arrive. It was then scheduled to arrive in the evening, then maybe by night. At 2am I got to bed, tired of waiting for it. This morning it was still not there. Apparently it arrived in Barcelona at midnight, and they still need to bring it to the hotel. Right now it’s 11:30, it’s still not there and I feel more frustrated than ever.
In fact, it would have been more efficient for me to rent a car, drive to Paris, grab my luggage and then drive back here.
I wear contact lenses and my eye drops are in my luggage… if I didn’t took the precaution of bringing a pair of glasses with me in the cabin, I would be essentially blind right now. Since the hotel is quite isolated, it takes quite long to get to town and buy essential stuff like toothpaste and toothbrush, underwear and clothes… and of course since they keep promising me it should arrive soon, I have not taken the time to go shopping yet. If it was not for Ken Wimer, I would be without fresh socks and tshirt at the moment. Thanks Ken!
So, lesson I learnt from this fiasco: try to pack as much as possible in the cabin. In particular:
- Minimalist toilet bag
- Some underwear to live one day or two
- Daily doses of contact lens eyedrops
- Anything else?
And I probably need to study this site: onebag.com…
Update: Got my luggage at lunch time! Hurrah!
Reminds me of my trip to Glasgow where my luggage got lost in Heathrow. After a week I flew back and asked in Heathrow about my luggage. They said it right now was under way to Glasgow *by car*. By car? Now? I’ve told them that I’d only be there one week… It’s really amazing how incompetent – in fact how incapable they handled this given that it’s their job. I finally got it, two weeks later, wet and moldy inside.
Have a great time anyway
Hope it’s coming faster for you, but this really sucks
Another blog post on Planet KDE without any relation to KDE at all.
(Sorry this is a rant, too)
Hey, my roommate is Jonathan Riddell, does this make it a KDE-related post?
Oh no – that pushes it dangerously close to 3%!!
Oh but wait, with all those necessary things you wouldn’t even be able to enter the cabin. “For your security…” of course.
“For my security…” I wasn’t even to bring an artisanal cheese in the cabin, it was packed in vacuum, so I promise it wasn’t the smell.
Anyway… welcome to Barcelona, and have a great time here.
I never admit to bringing food in the cabin. so far they haven’t asked.
You can find at Carrefour travel items and I always pack in my cabin luggage some basic stuff in a zip lock bag.
Well however you are in Barcelone so it does not look like you are so unlucky! The one and only time I was invited to a UDS summit my plane never took off because of a strike… Never was invited again, too bad as Barcelona is only a few kilometers from Toulouse.
I’d be happy to learn more about the future of Edubuntu which seems in jeopardy. For the sake of KDE-Edu, I hope you’ll push it.
What exactly is your role within Canonical?
Have a nice time!
Oh I remember you blogged about this disaster. I was so sorry for you… who knows what opportunity was missed with that :/. I guess I should be happy at least my body got delivered correctly
Will check these Carrefour travel items!
About my role within Canonical: I have been hired as a KDE developer, in the Desktop Experience (DX) team.
At least they didn’t steal nothing from your luggage.
my last trip, somebody on the airplane stealed all my gifts.
I’ve heard that CDG is the worst European airport in terms of luggage loss – or was it actually a statistic? In any case it was pretty convincing. So everybody try to avoid this airport if possible :/
One of my coworkers says the same and he says this is because CDG has a really good software system to handle lost luggages, so they try to use it as much as possible!
Buy whatever you need and send the bills to Air France/Roissy Charles de Gaulle to get a refund.
My god.. I know about the contact lenses pain!
(I did!)
This post will remind me that contact lens eyedrops are needed just as much as the toothbrush
BTW: be cool, everything will be all right, and you’ll love Barcelona
It’s said that the traveler’s best friend is the credit card…
I’d personally pack less and avoid the hassle of lugging around extra weight and the risk of losing things. You can always buy inexpensive, consumable items (toothbrush, contact lens fluid, etc) at your destination.
That makes lot of sense in most situation, but in this case we are located quite far away from any shop (It’s 70€ to reach Barcelona by taxi if I am not mistaken), not to mention that I would miss interesting talks, so it wouldn’t have been an option.
The only reason to check luggage is for liquids (which sounds like is your case, so that sucks!). Otherwise you’re a fool to trust the airline.
Pack some travel insurance next time.
I really do not think that you need an insurance for that. At least for me the airline paid for lost package the one time it happened. And the other time my bag was delayed, they paid for the necessities. So my recommendation would be to go to town, buy everything needed and send them the bill, including the taxi one.
I remember this problem when I came back from my flight in Toronto to Houston. Apparently when I made a stop in Charlotte, South Carolina. They mistakenly put it on the wrong plane and when I got back home I had to wait 2 days to get it. Lucky I get it all back in one piece. This was my first time air traveling >.<. It sucks, why can't airports do a better job at this?
[...] 2, 2009 by Aurélien Except for some (now considered) minor issue, All-hands and UDS Karmic were both [...]