Italy: Getting There

Everyone I've seen today has asked me how my vacation was. There's simply nothing I can say to adequately describe even a day of my dream-like vacation with Nikki. I figure I should at least try though. So, here's an attempt...

Last Friday, I scrambled to get packed and clean my house so that I would make my plane in time and have the benefit of returning to a refreshingly clean house when I returned. I said a heartfelt goodbye to my little soul cat and hauled my pristine new backpack, full of life's little necessities, out to Nikki's car. We ran a few errands and headed to her apartment to say goodbye to her cats and then hopped in a cab to the airport. Neither of us like flying. The reality of being airborne just scares the pants off us both. So, you could feel the anxiety building for the both of us on our journey to the airport. Especially since we were both getting nauseous due to the cabbie's lack of grace upon the winding streets of Boston.

We got the the airport, checked in and waited patiently for our flight to JFK to board. Then, there was an announcement that our plane was still not here and our flight was delayed 45 mins. I went up to the desk and asked what we should do since our connection from JFK left shortly after our planned arrival there. The airline staffer bumped us up to the front of the plane so we would be able to get off the plane as soon as possible. Sounded good to me. Everything went smoothly until we landed in New York and had to sit on the runway for another 45 minutes. We fervidly checked our next flight's status on Nikki's iPhone and saw that our flight to Milan was already boarding! Eek! As soon as our plane pulled up to the gate and let us off, we bolted towards the monitors showing us the status of our flight to Milan. "Closed", it said. We ran towards the gate anyways, huffing and puffing the whole way. When we finally got to our gate, we saw that there were still some airline staff there. We asked what we should do. Luckily, a third passenger in our same situation rolled up behind us. Not sure that mattered, but it felt like it would be harder for them to turn down 3 people instead of 2. One of the women told us it was our lucky day. The plane was still at the gate even though it was closed, and we had already been booked on tomorrow's flight given that we hadn't shown up in time, but she made it happen. Luck was on our side... maybe it was because Nikki booked us in row 34? Who knows. All I can say is that it was the happiest moment for all 3 of us stranded bodies when she let us on the plane. Our trip was actually happening. We were going to Italy.