Arrivederci, Italia

It was an adventure getting home.

Our teachers had the hotel give everyone a wake-up call at 3:15 in the morning on Tuesday (which would of been 8:15 Monday evening for you Texas people). We got on a bus, drove an hour to the Rome airport, checked our bags (mine were underweight!!), went through security and made it to the gate right as they started the boarding for our flight. We made it to Frankfurt on time, I didn't sleep at all on the plane, went through Passport Control in Frankfurt (I have two Frankfurt stamps in my passport but NO Italy stamps!!), found our gate and got comfortable for a three and a half hour layover until our flight to Atlanta.

Well, here's where the fun starts....

11:30 AM comes to pass and they haven't started boarding for a 12:10 PM flight and there is no information on any board we can find in the terminal. No one is at the desk to answer questions and we're hearing whispers about an airline strike and that our plane has been delayed until 2:40 PM or the next day. So I do what any kid would do while stuck in a foreign airport with no information - I called Mom. Needless to say it's barely 4 AM in Texas when I call and Daddy and Sammie weren't too happy with the wake-up call. I asked Mom if she could get on the Internet and look up what was going on, Daddy got involved and called the Lufthansa 1-800 number, and I finally got some information.


Some Lufthansa workers held warning strikes over wages on July 1. They want a wage increase of almost 10%, while the company is offering 5.5%.

That's great and everything, but geez-louise I wanted to be home. Or at least on the flight heading to the States. I did not want to be stuck in the Frankfurt airport from 9 AM to 3 PM and still have a nine hour flight to look forward too. It wouldn't have been so bad on any other day, but I was exhausted, the airport floor was cold and uncomfortable and nothing was holding my attention for more than 30 minutes. I couldn't read for long, I couldn't listen to my music, the conversations with my friends weren't holding my attention. Nothing.

Italy was wonderful, amazing, and something I'll never forget, but by those last couple of days in Rome I just wanted to be home.

We finally take off at 3:15 PM Germany time and make it to Atlanta at some time. I don't even know. I was kinda on auto-pilot by then: get off the plane, go through customs, get my bags, go through some more customs, re-check my bags so that they'll get to another terminal, go through security, get on the train to baggage claim, find Mom, get my bags, go to the hotel. I don't know anything else other than that.

The next morning we go back to the Atlanta airport for our flight to Dallas. Our flight was to be at 8:50, we go to the counter to check my bags and the ticket counter person tells us that the 8:50 flight has been delayed so they moved us to a 9:50 flight. Boy, am I glad he did too! I looked at the Departures board at 9:20 right before our flight started boarding and the 8:50 AM flight to Dallas was delayed until at least 1 PM.

So, it was an adventure, but I finally made it home to the States.