Tuesday May 25, 2010We’re married…it was AWESOME but EXHAUSTING. This honeymoon has been something we’ve been looking forward to for what seems like years. What began as a seemingly well planned out itinerary of CMH-EWR-FCO, with a scheduled arrival in Rome at 750am on Tuesday morning, transformed into a survival of the fittest shove grandma over in the terminal race against last boarding calls, flight delays and the uncertainty of our belonging’s whereabouts. It’s 600pm local time and Caroline and I are somewhere between Florence and Bologna en route to Venezia (finally). Here’s how we got from arriving at the Columbus airport Monday at 11am, to now:
Flight from CMH to Newark delayed a few hours, so naturally we missed our direct EWR-FCO Alitalia flight. I think our arrival from Columbus approached the gate in Newark as we waved to passengers headed out of the states and toward Italy on our Alitalia flight. Fortunately we had secured a ‘plan b’ at the Columbus airport…that involved catching a Frankfurt,Germany bound flight and then connecting in Germany on to Rome. The 7.5 hour Continental flight featured on demand movies in our own personal headrests. I must say, well done Sherlock Holmes and the clan from the Hangover as you allowed us to arrive in Frankfurt safely and (SURPRISE) on time. This allowed us all of 25 minutes to spurt some broken Itanglish to a Lufthansa attendant about where the Rome flight gate was, get practically strip searched by customs (cargo shorts are almost always a good idea for travel…but this was one drawback) and then sprint to the ticketing attendant at gate 24 at the Frankfurt airport. After a comparatively short two hour journey and arrival in Rome, Caroline and I headed to baggage claim for the moment of truth. Conveyor belt begins turning. 5 minutes pass….no bags. 10 minutes….15 minutes…other happy travelers get bags….20 minutes…getting more nervous…and then…here comes a big ass blue bag! It was BEAUTIFUL. I corralled a luggage cart for 1 Euro, grabbed our other bag (KICK ASS) and headed for the uscita (exit). After a failed ATM withdrawal and downright abuse at the Forex exchange (I am convinced Rome airport and train termini force unwary tourists to those sharks by never maintaining ATMs) we validated our Eurail Pass, hopped the airport-termini train shuttle and secured reservations for 15:45 high speed AVI train to Venice. At just under four hours, the journey is almost now complete. We are exhausted, ready for a nice meal upon our arrival in Venice and a good night’s rest. Off to find a good family restaurant on the island of Giudecca where our Molino Stucky hotel’s located. Full report to follow.
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