Saturday
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Saturday in a nutshell
- Go to airport
- Fly home
We woke up at 3:00 AM, after a restful 2 and 1/2 hours of nature's restorative.
The cab raced us across town out to the airport. Even at this hour of the morning, Rome is going strong. We nearly got in 14 accidents, and passed a number of bars with people spilling out on the streets. Our cabbie seemed to think that the line painted on the street was for centering the car.
I had thought the hotel guy was crazy for recommending that we get to the airport a full two and a half hours ahead of our flight. But then the beautiful young lady behind the counter started looking puzzled. It turned out that somehow we were all booked to Amsterdam, and Dad was clearly headed back to the United States, but that Dan and I were in computer hell.
We were mysteriously booked on the KLM flight from Amsterdam to Minneapolis, but not on the Northwest
flight. This was mysterious, because its the same damn airplane. Not the same type of airplane - the
exact same airplane. Two different computer systems control the booking because of the merger between
Northwest and KLM, and we existed in only one.
But it was nothing that an hour and a half of Barbara-time can't solve. She held the phone to her ear and talked her way through a labyrinth of computer people, while simultaneously helping the rest of the line solve their problems. You can see how excited Dad was, and that they had a nice, comfortable place for him to wait.
After that it was a piece of cake. Smooth flights, Dad cleared customs here in Minneapolis, and they even let us keep our cheese from Volpetti's.
What a great trip. I never thought any place could make Paris or London seem like "new" cities. In all of Rome there is such a sense of place, of being surrounded by history, that the simplest walk down the street is awe-inspiring.
The whole trip had a magical air about it. Each meal was the tastiest. Each site was the coolest. Each rainfall refreshed us. Ok, maybe not so much that last one. I loved everything about it, and could have spent another week just visiting churches, and another just sitting in cafes.
