Thursday, July 20, 2006

So, funny story:

My luggage finally arrived at 1:00 Tuesday night, I just happened to look out the window and see them sitting on the front porch.  Needless to say, I was ecstatic.

So, I pull the stupid suitcases into the house and start unzipping the first one-I notice that the zipper isn't working very well and seems to be caught on something...the pretty scarf I bought a friend for her birthday.  Not only is it caught on the scarf, but the entire zipper track is soaked in a quarter inch coat of thick greek honey.  The small jar of honey I had purchased in Maren's great-grandmother's village, Livadia, had been sealed and placed inside a ziploc bag so that in case of an accident, it wouldn't leak.  Unfortunately, during one of the searches of my baggage, someone stupidly ripped a large hole in that ziploc bag and then failed to re-screw the lid of the honey on. They managed to put the honey back in the bag, but it didn't really matter because they had torn a giant hole in the bag to remove the jar...leaving an open jar of honey in a bag with a big tear. 

Seriously.

The honey is also all over the inside of the suitcase, covering my stuff in various degrees of nastiness.  Thankfully I had put all of my clothes in spacebags, so they were protected, but everything else had been dumped out of the ziploc bags I had used to organize.  The bag my jewelry was in had been ripped open and dumped out-so my expensive lava and citrine jewelry set was completely covered in honey.  I had earrings and rings stuck to various other packages and items (like my brand new photo printer) with layers of honey.  The cool Santorini luminary I had bought as a gift was shattered into a million pieces-which would not have happened during normal suitcase wear and tear. 

Not only were all of my souvenirs disgusting, but the large ziploc bag storing my electronic equipment was missing: my camera cord, camera battery charger, extra camera battery, iPod cord, cell phone charger, energizer rechargeable battery charger, rechargeable batteries, and 512 MB jump drive...all gone. 

I now have to file a claim with Travelocity (through whom I purchased travel insurance), Delta (because they lost my luggage), and TSA (because it was during their search that all of the damage occured).  I was told by the Travelocity insurance people that it takes 3 business days for a claim form to be mailed, 4-6 weeks for the claim to be processed, and then hopefully I will be reimbursed (if I'm lucky) for all the damages/loss that occured.

Stupid travel.  I'm never flying Delta again.  If they had managed not to lose my suitcase in the first place, I would have had it at customs, it wouldn't have been searched, and none of this would have happened....and I wouldn't be re-buying $200 of electronic equiptment, all of which was brand new to begin with. 

So, long story short: I now have to figure out how to remove honey from all of my possessions, and then figure out how I'm going to file all these claims and replace all the stuff I'm missing since I can't use my camera, cell phone, or iPod until I do so.

grr.

I spent yesterday on campus with madre, helping her with her class of Israeli students visiting from Mar Elias University.  They were all upset because the conflict going on is hitting close to home, quite literally.  It was a really interesting day, to get to hear a discussion about the situation from people who have lived with it and are actually experiencing it first hand.  One girl made a particularly poignant comment, she said, "They can't call it a war because it will make it worse, that's why they call it a conflict...as long as its just a conflict it won't be as bad."  Listening to all of them talk and seeing what they are going through made me feel like a stupid person because I don't have to deal with things like that, I know how much of a blessing it is to be in my situation, but sometimes being this 'lucky' makes me feel like scum.  It was an interesting day.

I also got to see Amber and Laura; Amber passed by the classroom on her way to the computer lab and then Laura came over and hung out with me for the afternoon.  The Israeli's were painting tiles as their art project for the day, so Laura and I got to work on extra ones and sat around painting and talking, and occassionaly helping the students.  It was really fun, and good to see her. 

Then last night, Sonia came over to look at dresses to borrow for a wedding she is photographing this weekend, and then we went to McAlister's for a late dinner-we were both starving and she had never been there.  After dinner, madre and I watched the new episode of Project Runway (which has been simultaneously picked up by NBC and airs there one day after it airs on Bravo, which is incredibly exciting b/c I can now watch it when I go back to school!).

Today we are going to see Pirates 2!  Finally.  Of course, they were all traitors and went to see it without me (which still makes me mad), and then didn't want to go see it when I got home b/c they had already seen it.  But today is the day, and hopefully we will do a double feature and see The Devil Wears Prada as well-madre doesn't want to, but I don't care.  I'm excited, I've been looking forward to both movies since I left.  I also finally got all of my scrapbooking stuff lined up so I can get started on that, it should be a pretty good day.

~RLM