The Return

After two months of gallivanting around the US, the time finally came (after a delay of my Italian work visa) to head back to my real life in Rome (read: work). As always, and since airlines want to charge whenever possible, I struggled to get my bags under 50 pounds and spent nearly an hour and a lot of sweat switching items between bags. Remember when international flights came with TWO free 70 pound bags? Now you get one free 50. I was more than willing to pay for my second bag, which of course I did, but felt that since my smaller bag was under 50 and the larger one was over they would be a little lenient considering that the combined weight was 104 pounds, boy was I wrong. Generally when I go to the airport I look for the most compassionate looking person working at check-in, sadly I think I got the worst one. The woman was very cold with me from the beginning and showed no empathy, though she treated all of the customers behind me with a much more pleasant attitude. When I went to speak to the supervisor about giving me leeway with six pounds, I overheard her telling another customer that she wouldn’t charge him for his oversized luggage, she was not as kind with me. Five dollars to the first person to guess the difference between he and I!

As time was winding down and the staff and I realized my efforts were futile, the supervisor came over and began supervising my moving of items between the two pieces. Her incessant claims of trying to help me annoyed me. She could help me by waiving the USD 100 charge for six pounds but instead was watching me sweat and struggle. In the end my carry-on ended up being nearly 30 pounds in order to accommodate the overage. If the luggage ordeal weren’t frustrating enough, mostly because I knew they could waive the weight overage and just saw them do it, I had a middle seat on an eight hour flight! O_O

I got to the gate when most of the boarding had been completed and asked for a seat change, of course the flight was full and I was stuck. The gate agent was really kind and told me I could wait for the open seats of two passengers that were unlikely to make it. Tired of waiting, I just headed to my middle seat. I got on the plane and found my seat and to my dismay there weren’t televisions in the seat backs. It was then I knew I was in hell.

After five minutes an angel (read: the gate agent) approached me on the plane and handed me a piece of paper. The gentlemen at the gate gave me a window seat since the other passengers didn’t show up. This was such a small act of kindness but it truly changed my mood. I am sure here, my mother would want me to note that I asked her to pray for my seat change. I will give her that credit. Thanks to the seat change, I was able to nap properly against the window as opposed to uncomfortable alternations between the shoulders of strangers.

I sat next to a pilot who was interesting and disappointed that he now had a seat mate. We both chatted about traveling the world. I was annoyed when he told me of his experience on today’s flight, two of his bags were overweight and they didn’t charge him. :-/ and no he wasn’t a pilot for the airline that we were flying. Again, five dollars to the first person to guess the difference between me and him!

After eight hours, lots of conversation, half eaten airline food and a two hour nap, I landed in Paris for a near two hour layover. Though I was just in the airport, I was reminded again that I simply love Paris. I love the language and just the feel of the place and the men of course! As I made my way through the airport I realized how far my French comprehension has come as I understood all of the announcements and was able to conduct all interactions in French. Since I failed to buy my team a gift before leaving the states, I decided to buy some macaroons from La Duree. I didn’t even know this was the most famous of Parisian macaroon makers, but the price tag led me to assume it was. I paid 16 Euro for eight macaroons!

As I sat waiting to board the flight, I prayed that the flight was operated by anyone but Alitalia, because when flying any SkyTeam carrier, you never know what you’re going to get. Luckily enough, it was an Air France flight and the difference was palpable. You actually have kind flight attendants and civilized passengers. Once I boarded the flight to Rome and found my seat, I fell asleep before takeoff. That is what an eight hour flight coupled with a six hour time change will do to you. Once I landed in Rome, I collected my luggage and went out to find a man waiting for me with my name on a sign. We left the airport and walked out to an unusually grey Rome. I was back.