The Journey Home...

Cream Cheese & Fresh Strawberries at MaMa's Bakery!

The Old School Elevator that we sent each piece of luggage down one at a time. I stood at the bottom and Emily was at the top and sent each piece of luggage down one at a time!

The luggage was definitely a lot heavier on the way home!

GOOD WORK EMILY!

Traveling is fun, but to an extent. I thought the journey to Italy was long and I thought the jet lag was bad but I think the journey home was even longer...

So, as I mentioned before, we had to be out of our apartment a night early so we had to stay in a hostel in Florence the last night which wasn't too bad because it was a nice hostel and all we did was sleep for a few hours.

We had to be checked out of the hostel by 10 am but we woke up early to help a friend get to the train station with her luggage. We then crossed the Arno River one last time to MaMa's Bakery where we enjoyed bagels with cream cheese and strawberries before we took off to the airport. We called the cab at 10:30 to bring us to the airport which is about 20 minutes away so we arrived with a couple ours to spare as our plane was not due to take off until 1:30. We checked in our luggage (which should have been easy but wasn't). On the way to Florence, Emily and I each had 2- 50 pound bags. We did get rid of a lot of stuff in Florence but we accumulated way more. So, needless to say all of our bags were over the weight limit of 50 pounds. Additionally, most airlines have now started charging for checked baggage. Our airline allowed one bag for free but the second bag was 100 euro. However, I told the lady that I purchased my original ticket before January 1st which is when the policy came into effect so she didn't charge me for my second bag nor did she charge me for my bags being overweight. I was prepared to pay because I knew they were overweight but I think she felt bad because my arm was in the sling so I escaped all charges. On the other hand, the lady that Emily went to was not as nice and Emily got slammed with charges of 210 euro which is about $300 U.S. dollars. She got charged for an extra bag and for exceeding the weight limits. I felt terrible. :( but there was nothing she could do, the lady was mean and holding her tickets until she paid the charges. So, after all of that business, we went to go through security and I'm getting ready to walk through the metal detector and the security guard like cocks her head at me as if she has never seen a sling before (it was the funniest thing ever). I told her everything would be okay and I simply took the sling off to walk through the detector. We had about an hour wait but finally, it was 1:30 and we were ready to go. We took off on time for the Florence airport and had about an hour and a half flight to Frankfurt, Germany.

We arrived in Frankfurt with a 2 hour layover. Frankfurt is a huge airport though so it took us awhile to find our gate but we finally did and grabbed something to eat and awaited the departure of our plane back to New York. We boarded the plane around 5 and took off around 5:30 for our 8 hour flight back to New York. There were no TV's on the plane so we were quite bored, most of the time we just talked and ate all of the food they offered which was quite delicious for airplane food if I must say. We finally made it to New York but JFK is such a stupid airport that we had to circle and then taxi for awhile until they finally let us get off the plane about 40 minutes after our scheduled landing time. So we finally arrived around 8:40 and my flight to Maine was due to take off at 10:30 so I was a bit worried I wouldn't make it because we had to get off the plane, go through customs, wait for our luggage, go through customs again, and then I had to check in and then re-check my bags again and go back through security. We made it though, although this time they charged me for my overweight bags and for checking two bags but luckily it was only $80 dollars. Emily and her mom had to leave me at security (Emily had carried my backpack for me all day, I still don't know what I would have done without her there all day). Luckily, though some airport official who helps the handicapped, carried my backpack for me all the way through security and all the way to my gate which was so nice. This time going through security, they didn't want me to take my sling off but rather they swatch tested it and patted it down, and scanned it. It was quite comical.

I made it to my gate with about 40 minutes to spare so I made some phone calls (so happy to have my phone back!) and then I boarded the plane, there were actual TV's on the planes so I started watching a show but quickly fell asleep. I woke up an hour later and we weren't moving so I figured that we were already in Portland because the flight was only supposed to be 47 minutes but I asked the lady next to me and she told me that we still had not taken off yet. We were supposed to take off at 10:30 but didn't end up taking off until 11:40 and didn't arrive in Portland until about 12:20 and then was happily greeted by my parents. :) We collected my baggage and then drove home and finally arrived home around 2am but because I was so excited I didn't end up falling asleep until 3:30 am and awoke very early because of jet lag. That happened for the next few days I was home, it didn't matter what time I went to sleep, I would still awake at 6am WIDE AWAKE (noon time) in Italy and therefore could not fall back asleep. So then in the afternoon, I just wanted to crash but I kept forcing myself to stay awake so I think I'm finally over the jet lag! I miss Italy but it really did feel so good to be home!