Planes, Trains, and Automobiles

Over the past three months, I have been traveling on planes, trains, automobiles, taxis, buses.... To be honest, it feels nice to not have to worry about traveling somewhere new for a while. But I truly thank God for public transportation... and I realize by my interaction with the people who work in public transportation that it is an under-appreciated job.

Anyway, so my trip back to America was quite eventful -- life is always an adventure in my world. ;)

Thursday morning I got to the airport in time. Said goodbye to David and Irene.
My flight was supposed to leave at 10.10am.
I was supposed to go Venice --> Frankfurt --> Toronto --> Chicago.

If you are on facebook, you know that I asked to pray for clear skies for that day. Well, it looked like this:

Yes, that is fog. Not just any fog... it was SUPER DUPER FOGGY! I had to laugh at my simple request for a clear day and the result.

My flight to Frankfurt was delayed because of the fog. 

They gave me a free bottle of water and a sandwich. 

It also gave me time to journal and figure out 3G on my kindle (something that would prove priceless on this particular journey). 

I arrived in Frankfurt around 3pm. I had to reschedule my flight since I missed the connection to Toronto. This is what greeted me in the waiting area: 

So I took a number: 

Too bad they were only on #534 when I arrived. Two and a half hours later I was told that I would be on the 8.10am direct flight to Chicago (wahoo direct flight!). 

Because it was around 6pm on Thursday, they gave me a hotel room at Park Inn in Frankfurt, Germany. I was given a free taxi ride to the hotel. There was snow on the ground (although being a Michigander, I was somewhat shocked that they stopped flights in Frankfurt -- it was not snowing when I got there...). Heard Sleigh Ride on the way to the hotel and it just made me happy! A free hotel room. Buffet dinner. 

It made me miss Irene, though. My Italian was ok, but my German is... practically non-existent. Irene has been studying German, so I'm sure if she was with me, we could have had some fun in Frankfurt. But I just stayed in the hotel. The people who worked there all knew English well, so it was not a problem there. Until I got on the elevator with an older woman and she said something to me in German. I said, "I don't know German" and she pressed for floor #5. Too bad I only knew the first three numbers in German. Bummer.

I was shuttled back to the airport early Friday morning. 

Had to wait in line to get my new ticket printed out.

I got pulled aside for countless searches en route to my gate. 

Every. Stinkin'. Checkpoint.

For real.

I think I might have freaked them out that I was emailing my dad updates via my kindle. 

Suspicious to have a young woman traveling by herself, I guess. 

Regardless, I am now back in Michigan.

I plan to eventually start a new blog since this one was for the specific purpose of chronicling my adventures this fall in Italy.