Getting Home

(You might want to read the post before this as it kind of leads up to this point).

We had been walking all day in the hot weather, our feet were tired and we were ready to head to the airport. We got our luggage and caught an early shuttle to the airport, deciding it was better to wait in the air conditioning. I had carefully packed our bags, hoping that they did not exceed the weight limit. I had thrown a few warm clothes into our checked luggage that we would change into once we got to the airport, considering the temperature in the Netherlands was half of what it was in Sicily. We get to the airport and Dan goes to the counter to check in. We had considered checking in the night before but were too tired and figured we'd have plenty of time at the airport.

The woman at the counter tells Dan that she does not have any flights scheduled in our name. Dan assured her that we did have tickets and that there must be some mistake. She checked again and discovered that in fact we did have tickets, however they were for a 5:20 flight. It was 5:30. We had apparently read our tickets wrong because our flight from Rome left at 8. The woman told us that the flight had been delayed and if we hurried, we might be able to still make it. So we ran to another counter to check our baggage (it was right at 23 kg!or 50lbs) and got them to re-open the flight to us. They were just getting ready to board so we rushed through security and Dan was going through when "beep beep beep". Right then I knew that he had forgotten to take out his pocketknife I had gotten him for his birthday. He had planned on changing to jeans in the airport and then putting his knife in the luggage, however due to our circumstance, that never happened. He took out some coins and his money clip and attempted to go through again, with the knife in his pocket. It beeped and he had to pull it out. At this point, I was worried we would be detained or something for having that knife. This is not a small pocketknife, it's probably 3-4 inches long, folded. However, being the laid back people they are, they told him he wasn't allowed to have it but if he wanted to check another bag, he could put it in there. Unfortunately we didn't have time for that so he gave up the knife and begged them not to throw it away, for someone else to take it home and make good use out of it. He was pretty bummed.

But we made it on our flight and made our next flight out of Rome to Amsterdam. When we arrived in Amsterdam, we were not all that surprised to find that our luggage had not made it. So we stood in line with  a lot of other people whose flights had been canceled and filed a report. Hopefully our luggage will make it today as all of our toiletries, including dan's contact and glasses, are in it.  We wearily caught the train home and nearly froze to death since our jackets and warm clothes were still packed in our lost luggage. We were 40 cents short for bus fare for both of us from the station to our house so I took the luggage we had and rode the bus and Dan walked. Finally, we made it home about 12:30am and collapsed into our comfy bed. 

It was an amazing two weeks! Definitely a trip that will live in our memories for a long time! Now it's back to the real world. However, we do have friends coming tomorrow for a few days so that will be exciting!!!