ROME/TORINO SPRING 2018
This spring we had to go to Italy on the early side. We normally go in April but this year we are taking care of one of the items on the Queen’s bucket list and going to Machu Pichu in April. This meant that if we wanted to continue our streak of 14 years of going to Italy in the spring and the fall we needed to go on the early side this spring. The other reason to go was that an Israeli scientist that had done a sabbatical in Hynda’s lab in 1997 was doing a sabbatical in Torino. If we wanted to see him we would have to go in March. We had never been to Torino so we decided to go at the beginning of March.
Uber to Dulles
We experienced our first bad Uber ride to Dulles Airport. The Uber showed up on time and pulled in front of the condo. We had decided on the Uber Pool option since it was half the price of the Uber X and according to the time estimate it showed there was no difference in arrival time at Dulles. We had done Uber Pool twice before and it seemed to work fine. A young lady in a nice BMW pulled up and opened the trunk from the inside of the car. She did not get out to help us with the bags. This was the first time that an Uber driver had done this ? even the female ones had gotten out. When we got in we noticed that the car was very warm and I saw the temp was set at 84 degrees for both the passenger and driver side. It was hot!!! I asked her if she could lower the temp and she very reluctantly did. There was also a large crack in the front windshield from one side to the other. I am sure even in VA where the car was licensed this would not be legal to drive. This was a very healthy crack.
As we left the condo the driver got another call and went to Rock Creek Park and proceeded to head north ? the opposite direction of the airport. I had started my usual chat about her background and Uber experiences with her but stopped almost immediately as she had given very surly responses to all my questions. When I asked her why she was going north she said she had to pick up another passenger. I told her that whenever we took an Uber Pool and they picked up someone else it was always on the route with maybe a slight deviation but never in the reverse direction. She basically said too bad this is the way I am going.
We wound up going several miles and in traffic to arrive at a pickup spot where no one was there. She pulled off the side of the road put on her blinkers and waited for the other passenger. She finally called and they said they were on the way. She said she was not waiting any longer and left only to get a call from them two minutes later and made a U turn to go back to the pick up spot where there were two men with large suitcases waiting. We had already almost filled up the rather small trunk with our bags. There was some conversation about whether we could all fit in but it ended with them deciding to call another Uber and we left for the airport. When you select Uber Pool they do ask for the number of passengers and if we had no luggage we probably could have all fit in the car but our destination was the airport so I would assume that the Uber Pool algorithm should have figured this out.
We did arrive on time but only because we tend to add in additional time for our trips to the airport in case something happens.
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