My flight from JFK to Austria wound up getting in a few minutes before schedule. That would be great if I needed to hurry through baggage and customs, but considering I have no luggage and therefore nothing whatsoever to claim, who cares that we're early?
JetBlue took responsibility for losing my luggage and shipped it to Nina's house...after 2 weeks with them, I left to go to Maribor and they left for Spain. After a few failed attempts to retrieve the bag with Sara when I first visited her in Ljubljana, conveniently the same day the bag arrived there. We filled out the requested paperwork and wrote a document stating I only have personal items in the bag; we were told that this action would speed up the process. They lied. My mom kept tracking the bag and calling the local Slovenia branch of FedEx and finally told me to talk to Cory and Andreja for them to help contact the Ljubljana FedEx and allow me to get my bag. Nejc and I drove in circles around a town outside of Ljubljana before finally stopping and asking for better directions than were provided to us by the FedEx woman. A few suspect left turns later, Nejc pulled up to the store and we went in to request my bag. Reaching our destination, we went in and requested my bag. While Nejc conversed with the manager in Slovenian, I was able to play a convincing dumb-American role, responding with a confused “no?” in response to their requested payment. There is no way I would be playing for my own luggage. In the farthest back left corner, behind a car and boxes lay a familiar black duffel bag. Victim spotted! After checking the tags and tracking number for about the millionth time, I received sole custody. I signed a paper, dating it 6/2/09, 16:30 as the retrieval date. Package signed and delivered! Never again will I do international business win FedEx. After spending just shy of two weeks without clothing, I had been reunited with my belongings.
Here are the many places it has traveled:
May 18 my house, Ponte Vedra, FL
May 19 JIA, Jacksonville, FL
May 20 Jamaica New York
May 21 Newark, New Jersey
May 22 Paris France
May 23 Frankfurt Germany
May 24-June 2 Ljubljana, Slovenia
June 2, 16:30 Nejc and I picked it up from FedEx