Making Our Way Home

Happy Election Day – I hope everyone will get out there and vote. Thomas and I did early voting because we knew we would be traveling all day and wouldn’t get home in time to vote today.

Make Sure You Vote Too!

It was another early morning, I mean very early. We were up at 4:15am (that is Italy time), back home in Santa Fe it was 8:15pm on Monday, November 5. We were dressed and had everything packed and our bags out in the hall by 5:15am. We went down to the restaurant for breakfast at 5:30am where we had pastries, juice and coffee. By 6:00am we were all on the bus and we started our drive to Malpensa airport in Milan. We said goodbye to Christopher and most of the group and our letterboxing group made our way to our check in area. We got our boarding passes and checked in our bags then we headed for security. We had our passports and boarding passes checked and then we went through security. We only had to empty our pockets and put our carry-ons through the xray. No taking off shoes and belts, no taking out laptops and the security officers were so pleasant – such a nice experience, nothing like being treated like a criminal in my own country where we had to go through security again taking off shoes, belts and emptying pockets and putting computers in bins. I just love living in a country full of paranoia. Anyway, I digress. Getting through security in Italy was so easy and quick. We then made our way to our gate and then did a little shopping to get rid of the last €15 we had. We bought water and snacks for the flight and then had coffee

Malpensa Airport

Our flight was on time with boarding but we pulled away from the gate and we ended up being delayed about 45 minutes. Finally we took off and began our flight home. We watched Men in Black 3 and they brought us some snacks – we had cheese crackers and a sprite. Then a little later we had some lunch. It was spaghetti with chicken, salad, crackers, cheese, bread and cookies. After we finished eating and the movie was over Thomas read and I did some blogging until the computer’s battery got to low to continue. So I put the computer away and read a little until the next movie came on. That movie was Man on a Ledge. I actually really liked this movie, it had a lot of twists and turns. When the movie finished I looked at my watch and realized that we still had about two and a half hours left to the flight. Then with about an hour left they served us a small four cheese pizza and a cookie. And then I had some coffee because I was having a lot of trouble staying awake and we still had more flights to make. Thomas and I were both restless and bored and the flight just seemed to go on forever and on top of that my allergies had gotten really bad. I took some allergy meds and that helped a little. Finally we landed at JFK around 1:30pm. 

On Our Way Home

We had to go through customs and security again and this time it was a lot more of a problem than when we left Italy. Anyway, about an hour later we were at our next gate but we still had a few hours to wait for our next flight. So we went to the SoHo Bistro and we split a burger and fries. Then we returned to our gate and waited. We boarded the plane at 4:15pm but we didn’t take off until 5:00pm. I began worrying about our connection at DFW. We tried to sleep but the plane was just too damned hot and we just ended up restless for the entire flight – I guess we were just ready to be home. The flight lasted a little over three hours and we landed at 7:30pm but it took almost 20 minutes to get off the plane. Luckily our connecting gate was only seven gates away so we walked extremely fast and were almost last to board. We got settled in our seats and covered ourselves with our coats to try and keep warm. As hot as the last flight was this one was cold. But I didn’t care, we were on the last leg of our trip home and I just put my head against the back of the seat and tried to sleep. An hour and a half later we were landing in Albuquerque. We collected our bags around 8:30pm walked out and caught the shuttle to the parking area. Once in the car we didn’t stop until we arrived at the house. The dogs greeted us and we took the bags into the house. After showering I looked at the clock and it was 11:00pm in Santa Fe. So that meant we have been up for over 26 hours. Time for bed and hopefully we will wake up tomorrow feeling rested and ready to get back to our normal routine.