We are getting snow today. I wasn't sure it would snow again. Wrong. It is coming down and making everything a nice shade of pure white again. I love it. Some of you...okay....one of you....JOHN.....didn't think this would be possible, but it is. I still love it!
Why is it that the day before you have an appointment to get your hair cut, not just trimmed, that your hair looks the best it has ever looked and you second guess your decision to get it cut? Mine did it to me yesterday and so I got up this morning and cancelled my appointment. Okay, the snow did help me make that decision. Of course, there have been days that I would have trudged through snow to get this head of curls cut. I now know these curls have a mind of their own and will probably look like crap today, laughing the whole day.
I visited the broken arm doctor on Monday. He said the bone is growing back where it should be and would not need surgery. Which is always a good thing to hear because I have had more surgery than most people and don't care to have any more. Ever. I go back in a month. I will probably need some physical therapy, hopefully not too much.
Okay.....now on to the fabulous trip to Italy! Our plans were to fly out of Portland on Saturday, March 1, change planes in NY and fly to Rome, change planes and fly into Catania, Sicily. Dick's mother, Gran Gran, was going on the trip with us, so we had to get her up here to fly with us. So she was flying into Boston on Friday. The plans were for me to drive there on Friday, pick her up, drive back to Maine, finish up with last minute packing, and leave leisurely and carefree on Saturday morning. Hahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahah! Thursday, the local weathermen started strongly hinting that the flurries we were predicted to get beginning Friday night was turning into a full blown snow storm. By Thursday night, they were warning about the incoming snow. Dick had a particularly stressful week at work and every time I mentioned to him my concern about the weather and our scheduled flights out on Saturday, he would immediately stop me and say he didn't want to hear about it. On Friday morning, I got up at 5 and watched the weather and decided to call him around 6:15. I told him I thought maybe we needed to drive down to New York that night because if we didn't, based on what the weathermen were saying, we wouldn't be able to fly out of Portland. No he said......we weren't going to get out on the road that night. Okay.....I have tried to tell him about the weather several times. I have tried to not press the issue because of his stressful week. I mean, it was his family we were going to see and would be cutting the trip short because he didn't want to put a little thought into it, but it was his decision. I was just trying to help. So, if we had our flight cancelled because of a foot of snow that had been predicted for 2 days.....so be it. I was leaving in 30 minutes to go pick Gran Gran up and wouldn't worry about it any more. Fifteen minutes later, he calls back, and someone at the office said if we didn't get out of Maine that day, we wouldn't be leaving on Saturday for Italy. Hello? Did I not just say that? Had I been talking to myself for the past two days? Okay. It was decided that I would pick up Gran Gran and hang around Boston until Dick and Julianne drove down. I started looking around like a crazy person at the things that I had planned to do when I returned from Boston that afternoon. I grabbed a big bag and started throwing things in it. Cause I wouldn't be back before flying to Italy.
On the way to Boston, I called Julianne and gave her some last minute instructions about my things. I picked up Gran Gran and decided to go find the airport parking lot that we would be leaving my car in. I plugged the address into the GPS and it was unable to find it. Add to this problem the fact that Boston doesn't have street signs and that my brain was on overload. I couldn't find the place. We drove around and around and around and around and finally we pulled into a Wendy's and wait for Dick and Julianne. When they got to Boston, they couldn't find the Wendy's but were able to find the parking lot! Well, finally, we found them. It was so frustrating. But finally we were off to New York.
I had called Delta to let them know that we would not be flying out of Portland, but would be checking in at JFK. They were so nice. That would be no problem. They would transfer me to someone who could take care of that for me and let me know if I would get some type of credit or if there would be a fee. A fee? For not getting on the first leg of the flight? What? The gentleman that I was transferred to listened to my story about the snow and New York and Italy and told me yes, there was a fee involved.....but that he would do some checking to see if there had been any weather alerts issued for Portland and to hold on. After a long hold, he came back on the line to tell me I was in luck and the fee would be waived because there were weather alerts issued for that airport. Whew.
Dick must have seemed a little bit panicky at work cause his HR ladies came to his rescue. They booked us two rooms near the airport in NY and printed out the directions to the hotel from Boston and to the airport from the hotel. They are the greatest.
We were able to experience the rush hour traffic of Boston on our way south! I will be honest....I have seen worse in Atlanta. But we were all excited and it didn't seem to matter in the least. When we saw a sign for Cracker Barrel, we knew where we were eating dinner. Maine doesn't have Cracker Barrels. And we love us some Cracker Barrel breakfast. So we ate and headed to the hotel. Of course I had way too much stuff to take because I had thrown all kinds of stuff in a bag that morning. I had already packed my suitcase and it was ready to go. But these things I threw in was just stuff I was afraid I would be sorry I hadn't packed. So I did some repacking and left a bag full of things in the truck at the airport.
The next morning, we arrived at the airport and searched for a place to park. And that place ended up being the parking place as far as you can get from the terminal. No kidding. Thankfully, there was a train for us to ride. We jumped out of the truck, got our suitcases and were just about blown away by the wind. We made our way to the train. We checked in and went through security. Starving, we decided to eat at Chili's. Okay, that killed an hour......only 3 to go. We walked through some of the stores and made our way to our gate. On the way there, we passed a Dunkin Donuts and from then on all I could think about was those donuts in the case. I was immediately possessed. We all went and got a drink or magazine or gum or something to kill the time. Finally, Gran Gran said she had been possessed by the Dunkin Donuts too so we headed to get us a treat. It was delicious. We should have gotten 2 each. Our first gate was changed, so we moved and unfortunately, so did most of the people at the airport! Everyone was on our flight. It was packed. Julianne and Gran Gran sat in the two seats in front of us. I felt like a sardine!
So, this was the beginning of our trip. It got a little crazy fast. But thankfully, we were able to leave on time for Italy. And we were really excited. Stay tuned for Part Two!
2 comments:
Oh, yeh, I forgot to tell you that almost all trips to Italy start with a weather alert. When we went to Italy, we flew from Jacksonville, on a direct flight to New York and then on to Venice. Due to weather, we were late leaving Jacksonville and then we spent the next three or so hours flying around the weather, then holding over New York waiting to see if they would let us land. Then sitting on the tarmack waiting for gate. All the while, we were begging our Delta flight attendants to call ahead and get the plane to Venice to wait for us. Fortunately the weather caused our Venice plane to be late leaving NY. When we finally got off of our Jacksonville plane, I took off my shoes and sprinted to the Venice plane which was only two gates away. The plane was packed, and all of the passengers that had been sitting there waiting for the connecting passengers to get to the plane were far from being amused.
We were over two hours late leaving for Italy, and it took me hours to settle down and enjoy the experience of 9 hours in the air.
But Italy is worth the weather alerts, planes packed like sardines and 100 yard sprints through airports. I would even go without luggage if I could get up and leave right now. As a matter of fact, the trip is much easier without the luggage.
I'm so glad you made it to NY to catch the plane.
Nancy in Florida
.....I only hope that our direct flight to Amsterdam in May has a bit less stress - as I am stressed enough about the cost of the Euro - although I could possibly lose 15 pounds while there, if I can't afford to eat.....hmmm....food for thought.....no pun intended!
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