A Tentative Start

When my plane finally arrived in Florence, after transfers in New York and Paris, I should have known that my bags would not arrive with me. Looking back on my itinerary, I had scheduled too many transfers too close together. In addition, I had missed my connecting flight from Paris to Florence; arriving three hours later than scheduled ensured that my bags would be listed among the missing.

Of course, I say all this in hindsight. At the time, I was happy to have finally arrived and was looking forward to getting my bags and my car and driving the 45-minute route to Siena. As the last of the bags were retrieved by their owners, and those of us orphaned by our bags were left to console each other, I was forced to accept that my journey was not yet complete. The woman at the counter told me that my bag would arrive in five hours. Did I want to wait or would I like them to drive it to my hotel? I was told that it would arrive at my hotel by courier by 9:00 AM the next morning. I could call that evening at 8:00 PM to ensure that it arrived, and it would all be taken care of. I was tired, and they made it sound so simple, so I agreed and started for Siena to get some rest and wait for my bag.

When I called at 8:00 p.m. to check on my bag, I was told that it had arrived and that it would arrive at my hotel by noon the next day. "Noon?" I asked. "I was told it would be here by 9:00 a.m." The guy on the phone told me that the courier didn't open before 9:00, but that it would go out as soon as possible, definitely by noon. Thus, at noon I was holding a lost-bag vigil in the small, dark lobby of my hotel, waiting for the courier who opened at 9:00.

When I mentioned the delivery delays to the woman who ran the hotel, she took a moment to give me a quick lesson on Italian culture. She had a heavy accent, and a perpetual cigarette dangled from the corner of her mouth. The glowing tip bobbed and danced as she rambled on in her broken English. As she spoke, I couldn't help thinking about how much this small, thin, energetic woman reminded me of my aunt Minnie.

The cigarette was bobbing away, and a coarse, animated voice was telling me how Italians were well-intentioned procrastinators who eventually got the job done. "Oh sure, they tell you 9:00 a.m., 12 noon, 3:00 p.m. They say lotsa things. But everyone here moves at much slower speed. More relaxed, you know? But it's okay, your bag will come eventually. Today's only Sunday. Maybe Wednesday, maybe Thursday, but they will bring it."

Now I was really getting scared. My desire to get my bag involved more than just a simple desire for a clean change of clothes. To save space, I had packed my tripod and a few crucial pieces of gear in my suitcase, and the Palio was going to be run at 6:00 p.m. the following day.

Copyright © 2005 by Dan Giordan