May 31, the flight home

May 31 was our reentry into life in these United States. I am very happy to be home. Somewhere on http://www.expatsinitaly.com/ someone wrote that 3 years is the decisive barrier...if you can make it past 3 years, you will stay for a long long time. If you don't make it to 3 years, then you were meant to just be on a very very long vacation.

We liked living in Italy for a lot of reasons, but we didn't love living in Italy for a variety of other reasons. We left behind wonderful friends, and it will be very sad not to have them in our lives on a daily basis.

Our daughter picked us up at Newark International after 7 PM EDT. It was a very long day, beginning at 7 AM CET, when we awoke, got dressed and ready for the day, zipped up suitcases and then went out for cafe and brioche at our favorite coffee bar, Tubino. We did our giro (walk around the Centro) one more time, and came back to the apartment in time to be picked up by our great friends the Willemsens, Agnes and Alexander, with eldest son Guillaume as our driver, and second son Julien coming to say goodbye. Youngest son Florian was sound asleep after a late late night at his job, so I sent him a hug and a kiss.

It took from 11:00 AM to 12:10 PM to check in, due to computer problems at Lufthansa. Then we had to immediately start the trek through security, ending up among the last to board the plane. On to Munich where we had a 45 minute window to get to our flight, again being among the last to board (the last to board was a couple from Princeton NJ who had arrived at Pisa Airport to take their flight to Munich to find the airport completely closed down for an Italian military airshow...don't go there!).

We sat in the last row, with Annie and Emily in their carriers under the seats. They never said a word; Annie looked scared so after the meal service was over, she slept under a blanket on my lap until my legs couldn't stand it anymore, about 3 hours. Annie never ate but Emily, an old pro at travelling by now, chowed down on her Science Diet moist nuggets.

The plane was full. Fortunately I always order a Low Sodium meal (to avoid water blowup) so I got my bland food, and Angel got a tray with a roll, a wilted salad and a little dessert and a promise that after Business Class was served, they would see if there was anything left for him. He eventually got a hot entree of dry fish, creamed veggies and something else. Uck.

At Newark, our first three pieces of luggage (4 suitcases, one bike box and one wheel box total) showed up almost right away, and then the system imploded for 45 minutes. The carousel started up again, we got our last three pieces and wheeled our two trolleys, carrying our cats, and went out to meet Sandra.

Home never looked so good.