Cannes Aventura

Look! Oh, that’s not the one. As we rehearsed: two girls go with the tickets directly to the driver while the other girls will occupy double seats. The boys will put the luggage in the bottom compartiment. There’s no time to lose. Look! Oh, that’s not the one.

It’s the plan improvised by a group of Romanian delegates returning from Cannes Lions, after the train they were in was blocked by a pack of sheeps standing on the railway, somewhere in a small French town with a name suspiciously close to “mouton”, the French for sheep.

Look! That’s the one! That’s our bus! Go! Inspite of all the chaos created by the pack of people switching a train for a small bus, the only small bus stopping in the small French town, we’ve made it. The girls charmed the driver. All in. All the thirteen delegates, along with the gold medals won by Bianca Dumitrascu and Razvan Ghilencea in Young Lions Cyber.

It seemed the day was going to be just fine, since we got in time for the next train to Genoa. It seemed the day wasn’t going to be fine, since our flight back home was postponed for several hours. Never mind, time to visit Genoa – the birth city of Christopher Columbus. Genoa – the city with the biggest historical center in Europe. Genoa – the city where you can buy souvenirs from a very nice lady for five euro each and thirty meters away you can buy the same souvenirs for one euro each. Never mind.

Cautious, we came back early at the airport, to avoid any other unpleasent surprises with our postponed flight. What flight? It didn’t exist anymore. We had our tickets in our hands. It just didn’t. Did we? We were angry. We were hungry. Yes, we were for real.

For flight sakes, there was nothing up there to take us home for the next two days. But there was this guy downhere who recommended himself to be a ship captain in Monaco, who happened to be around and to know the airline company CEO, who called the airline company CEO,  who answered, yeah, who answered and offered to pay for our accommodation in the airport hotel, while we found out from several local passengers, who were also supposed to be in the cancelled flight, that the guy who happened to be around is constantly around. Do mind.

After a couple of chaos hours we finally got into the airport hotel. No, not in the rooms. We had to spend a couple of lobby hours, hoping the CEO will pay. We didn’t even know if he was for real. Yet, he finally paid and promised us another flight. Next morning, we were offered tickets to Rome.

Rome – the city of countless historical and cultural references. Rome – the city of great architecture and misterious romances. Rome – the city we didn’t got to visit. We just had two hours to catch the flight home. Did we? Well, at least half of the passengers embarked. Not in the plane, no. In the bus that was taking them to the plane, but brought them back, instead. There was a problem with the plane wheels, that’s what we’ve heard. Of course, at that point in our trip we were hearing lots of voices, most of them inside our heads. Yet, there were louder ones outside – the other passengers were complaining. We were looking them haughty. Just for 90 minutes though, ‘cause the wheels got unfixed. They were ready to spin. Damn, just when we were ready to have ourselves an adventure, life turned us down.

After all this, all we can say is the name of the airline company that deceived us. What airline company?

Material written by Lucian Talpes