If you’ve read through the archives, you would know that I’ve started a tradition where my husband and I blow off familial obligations and traipse somewhere other than Ohio for the Thanksgiving time-frame. I call it Thanksgiving Abroad. Last year, we went to Asia – Singapore, Thailand, and Malaysia. The year before that was London.
I don’t really have any rules around how we select the destinations, other than it has to be cheaper than what a plane ticket to Ohio in the height of Thanksgiving travel would cost us. And it would surprise no one to learn that the airfare is ridiculously high that time of year; so that opens up pretty much the entire world. Previous years’ adventures came about from airfare sales; but this year the pickings were a bit slimmer since my hubby claimed he didn’t have enough time off work to think about Australia and it seemed like every airfare sale in the last eight months was for Down Under. (Which was a damn shame because aside from being the ancestral home of my crush Chris Hemsworth, Australia is one of the destinations I really want to experience while I’m able to be physically active and not dottering around in retirement with a walking cane and a fanny pack…)
Anyway, so I was convinced that we were actually going to stay home this year and you know that did not make this vagabond happy. But in early October, there popped up a decent fare from Austin to Italy. Now, I’ve been to Italy before during my golden days of backpacking around Europe. But I was also really poor then and didn’t spend any money that wasn’t directed towards the lower end of Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs – namely food and shelter. And Italy is packed to the gills with art and history that was out of my budget back then. So while the hubby was all salivating over the prospect of incredible food and wine, I realized that I could now afford tickets to the museums I had regretfully passed up. So I ended up booking the airfare.
But then my hubby asked if he could take on the responsibility for booking the accommodations and setting the itinerary while we were on the ground. First of all, that is one of my favorite things about traveling – the pre-work that guarantees an amazing experience. Secondly, my hubby does not have a stellar track record in previous attempts at this. I mean, I ended up having to impose on my going-through-a-bitter-divorce-cousin to sleep on her ancient pull-out sofa one night during a California road trip because someone (ahem, not me) thought we could just wing hotel rooms near Disneyland during the Easter break.
But I acquiesced. And then the situation with my kitty went downhill so fast that I really didn’t have the headspace to devote much time to even thinking about Italy. And then suddenly, we were like a week and a half away from leaving and I was supremely grateful he was the one responsible for the planning (not that he was done at that point, oh no, but it wasn’t hanging over my head like the Sword of Damocles). If we were traveling to Italy in the high season, we likely would have had to sleep in the rental car; but fortunately for us, November is low season and that is good news to procrastinators.
We took off from Austin on Sunday afternoon. Our first leg was the 30-minute flight to Houston where inevitably my arriving gate is the further point possible from my connecting gate. That results in what I refer to as the Houston Half-Marathon and the resulting sweaty, red-faced, and wheezing mess that is Nicole sitting next to you on the plane is because United Airlines scheduling department seems to harbor a deep resentment against me. I actually left my husband standing in line waiting for a sandwich because the app was saying that the flight was in final boarding stages and I was not about to have to actually sprint to catch the outbound flight. I was serenely sitting in my seat when he raced onto the plane clutching his lunch.
From Houston, we flew to Munich. Part of me wanted to sleep but the other part of me got so sucked into Bad Times at the El Royale that there was no way I was going to doze off. Aside from the fact that Chris Hemsworth’s chest has a starring role in the movie, the story line left me muttering “WTF is happening?” every ten seconds. Even after the movie was over, I still had the residue of the plot in my head and there was no way I was sleeping after that. I ended up watching Grease and Rocky Horror Picture Show before reading a book. Before I knew it, the lights came on for what United Airlines calls a “breakfast snack”. It sure as hell is not breakfast and that’s coming from someone who doesn’t even eat breakfast. You think I would remember how appallingly little food United serves in long-haul.
We arrived late into Munich which meant that we had absolutely no time to waste getting off the plane to get through passport control and over to our connecting flight to Florence. I had never been to the Munich airport before and while it looked nice, I only saw it as a blur as we rushed to the opposite end of the facility. I didn’t even have time to stop and grab a pretzel to augment the “breakfast snack”, so I was overtired and hangry by the time we got to the gate for our connection on Air Dolomiti. We had to be bused to the plane and as we boarded the Embraer 195, I was hoping that they would at least give us the option to buy something to eat.
Well, let me say right now that Air Dolomiti knocked it out of the park for me. Despite it being part of Lufthansa, the seats were actually comfortable and they served free, decent red wine in proper glassware in economy. I was looking around like I was being punked. Plus, they handed out snacks of these bread-like circles and a sliver of aged parmesan cheese. My stomach is growling thinking of it now. Flying over the snow-capped Alps and drinking wine and eating my snack, I gained a new favorite short-haul airline.
The Florence airport is tiny but the approach in provided glimpses of the city and particularly, the massive Duomo. The wheels touched down and the plane backtracked along the runway to park at our remote gate. Our Thanksgiving Abroad Italian Style was about to get underway! First stop – Florence
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