The End: We Come Home

A certain faithful reader of this blog has requested – twice! – for an ending of our travel tale.  Silly me, English teacher that I am, for neglecting the denouement.  I apologize, and here ‘tis –

After rising at 3:30 a.m. in Florence on Sunday morning, June 12, we piled into a shuttle for the tiny airport just minutes away and stood in line for KLM Airlines.  Thankfully we were flying with the Dutch and not the French, as Air France pilots just happened to start their strike on that day.  However, the Dutch weren’t as accommodating as we presumed they would be, forcing us to check all of our luggage.  Yep, all of it — our “Rick Steves” bags with shoes and dirty laundry, even our itty-bitty European-style suitcases which met all of the requirements for every airplane in the sky.  Anna tried her best to argue, citing the stolen suitcase incident of 2012, but to no avail.  Sheesh.

So we checked everything except our purses and skipped lightly through security and out to our gate.  Granted it was kinda nice to be unencumbered with luggage…but still:  our souvenirs were in those bags!  And the best of our travel wardrobes!  And my camera and computer!

Off we flew for a little over two hours to Amsterdam, where we had a four-hour layover.  During our wait we found (don’t judge) Starbucks, where the perky, smiling barista asked me, in her Britishly-accented English, “I don’t know what a ‘breve latte’ is.  Would you like to explain it to me?”  Apparently, steamed cream is weird, so nevermindI’lltakeaplainlatte,thanks! was it for me.  We also used up the last of our Euros on chocolate and discussed, in ignorant whispers, how Amsterdam was a city in the Netherlands but what is Holland?  (Figured it out, folks.)

One perk of getting up so early is being sleepy on an airplane, which we were.  Nanfitos had the two seats by the window, while we and the Mealeys shared the middle row.  Sleeping wasn’t so much sleeping as it was passing out and coming to, and thus proceeded the next nine hours.  Movies were nice, so was the food.  Listening to the flight attendants switch languages on a dime was also entertaining:  Dutch-English-Dutch-English.

Arriving in Vancouver, BC, at 2 p.m. local time after leaving Amsterdam at 1:55 p.m. the same day (time zones are weird), we were overjoyed to retrieve all of our luggage.  Woo hoo!  Dave and Jane had reserved a mini-van for our drive home, and so after a 2-hour flight and a 9-hour flight, with a 2-hour wait and then a 4-hour layover, we now faced a 4-hour drive home.

The Northwest is gorgeous.  It is also green, clean, and the roads are wide and have shoulders!  We hadn’t seen shoulders for over two weeks.  People speak English here, all the time.  Streets are mostly straight and clearly marked.  The Blue Dot had no issues whatsoever.  McDonalds is still McDonalds, but we got some big Macs and fries for the drive and to stay awake, which was impossible for all except the driver…thanks, Dave.

All in all, the trip was epic, and home is a great place to come back to.  People ask us, “what was your favorite part?”  I enjoyed every day, even the travel days, but our time at the Ein Gev Resort on Galilee was a highlight, as was Jerusalem.  Rome and Naples are big cities filled with thousands of tourists all wanting to see the same things as we wanted to see, so while being there was enjoyable, moving on to the next place was, too.  Also, Tuscany! Tuscany can’t be beat for scenery, and if our rental villa in Lilliano were two hours away instead of 25, we’d go there every year and take all of our kids and grandkids and all of you, too.

Here’s one last pic, of us in Monterroso al Mare, the last of the Cinque Terre towns and the one where we had hoped to swim in the Med.  Lest you think the trip was all sunny and pleasant —

Thanks for keeping tabs on us, dear readers. My initial reason for blogging was for the Baumgaertel, Mealey and Nanfito families and friends to know we were alive and well, but it also became a log of our adventures; and believe it or not, I sort of miss the excuse to keep you all updated every evening.  Summer ahead has little excitement, except for a kitchen remodel, but who knows?  I might be back.