. a dream vacation ... as I reflect back on our Best of Italy 2010 tour. After months of planning, our departure date for Rome finally arrived Tuesday, June 22nd. Much of the joy in traveling is the anticipation and planning. What excitement realizing our dream was coming true! Our bags are packed ... we're ready to go ...Waiting at PDX for our departure flight we reflected back on our lifetime goal of going to Italy. It was a rough path getting there. We dreamed of going to celebrate our 35th anniversary in 2009 only to have those dreams dashed by my job loss. We agreed to wait a year and see if the economy improved. Eventually I was reassigned to another position and felt pretty confident that we could book this trip ... the euro was down and everything looked positive.
After talking to friends and neighbors who have been to Italy many times we decided to book a Trafalgar tour. We had considered a cruise but decided we wanted to experience more of the flavor of Italy by land. We booked our tour April 28th and not long after our Trafalgar packets/tickets arrived I once again lost my job ... this time it came unexpectedly. With only two and half weeks until departure we decided to go regardless of the circumstances. This thought kept running through my mind ... "Who goes to Italy while on unemployment!?!?!" As we look at life through the "rearview mirror," it was a good decision to continue with our plans.
We arrived at the airport at 6:45 a.m., enjoyed a light breakfast and went to our gate. Before boarding an announcement was made that there was a mechanical issue with our plane and the flight would be delayed. My heart dropped to my knees ... even an hour delay could cause us to miss our connecting flight to Rome. In those tense moments we both got on our iPhones and asked family and friends to be praying ... we were anxious to leave but also wanted safe travels.The pilot made up for the lost time and we arrived at the Philadelphia airport at 5:30p.m. This only gave us 20 minutes to RUN through the airport from C29 to our gate at A22 ... dragging carry-ons etc behind us. We made our connecting flight but due to weather-related conditions we waited in line for take-off for nearly 30 minutes. Yes, we made our flight but we had one worry ... did our luggage make it?
This day was starting to look like a National Lampoon's Vacation ... ( :
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1 comment:
I remember that morning... I was still half asleep at the airport when you guys departed :)
- Matt
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