The Adventure Begins: 
Day 0:
Tuesday September 22rd, 2015

The plane ride:
We flew with Lufthansa from Vancouver to Frankfurt, then Frankfurt to Rome.
It was our first experience with this airline and for the most part, it was excellent. The staff were very helpful and attentive, the food palatable and despite the website assuring us that there would be alcoholic beverages for purchase, the wine was free. And after the scramble to get everything finished at work and home, making sure the dog and both daughters and my mother would be fine for the month of our absence, I needed that wine.

The seats appeared extra roomy at first glance.  I could actually cross my legs, unlike our flight on Air Transit to London last summer, due to the cut away bottom portion of the seat. However, be warned.

Do not cross your legs.

The person in front of me decided to push their seat back an hour into the flight. No warning, so slow move backwards, the seat crashed into my knees and almost crushed me. Gasping, I detangled my now bruised legs and slid further back into my seat.

Apparently I have a rather steep learning curve because I promptly forgot the pain of the moment and proceeded to cross my legs and have them crushed on three more occasions.

So much for roomy seats.

We were about thirty minutes late leaving, waiting for our last passenger who finally ran on board, panic oozing from every pore.

'Silly person,' I thought, 'who would take a chance like that.'

Never be smug.

We arrived in Frankfurt on schedule. Do pilots speed? We had 1 hour and 45 minutes to make our connection. Lots of time, right?

Wrong.

The line up at customs, the line up at the passport check, the line up to get out, the 20 minute frantic run through the airport to, of course, the very last gate took one hour and thirty five plus minutes. We were the last people on the plane.

That is an experience I do not wish to repeat. Ever.

Sorry panicked man on our morning flight. I did not understand.

At this point I had no idea what time of day it was, morning I think. Probably not a good idea to have a glass of wine for breakfast, so I refrained. But let it be recorded here, I wanted that wine.

Our flight to Rome was 1 hour and 45 minutes. Our luggage took 1 hour and 10 minutes to arrive at the baggage terminal. I was beginning to think it had flown on a separate flight.

Thank goodness all finally bags arrived and we were met by Pat and Peter who had arrived an hour earlier from Halifax.

Next Post: 
Rome: Day One or Two, or something