drama, drama, drama...

Drama, drama, drama... that's all the last handful of blogs have been! Well, here's one to send the drama out the door... from here on out we're putting the 'kuputs' on the drama!

It all... well, didn't really begin as it had been happening for most of the month of April... but the latest set of hiccups started last Sunday on our way back to Geneva from Rome -- Rome was interesting with lots of historical fascination, but it was also rainy and seemed to have a bit of an attitude everywhere we went. With that said, you'll have little problem believing me when I say we were pretty ready to get back to Geneva and chill for one last day at my apartment. Haha. Such dreamers we are. Despite our very best efforts to get to the airport... more like the actual airplane... the handful of obstacles along the way hardly slowed us down.

• Obstacle #1: Tram doesn't run Sundays until 6:40am. So, that's when we started our voyage to the airport. We thought it would be alright...
• Obstacle #2: Car parked ON TRAM LINE. We couldn't figure out why we weren't moving. Then all the cars around our tram were HONKING like it was their job. Eventually, (while we're sweating thinking we'll miss our train to the airport) people started exiting the tram-car. We decided we weren't going to waste any more of our precious time sitting on the tram-car. We walked the rest of the way to the train station. Once at the train station we RAN to the 'Leonardo Express' table and paid a few euros more than we had a few days earlier.
• Obstacle #3: Leonardo Express was less express than the previous time we'd been on it, adding a crucial 5 minutes to our voyage from B&B to airplane!
• Obstacle #4: Once we got to the airport we ran around searching for Terminal 2 - every time we followed the arrows we ended up at dead ends! FINALLY we made it to the Easy Jet counter at Terminal 2 where we encountered...
• Obstacle #5: Italians with a lack of urgency. I know, the never ending American/Italian differences. Americans can hardly sit through lunch while Italians make a day of it. We made it to the line in time to check into our Easy Jet flight from Rome to Milan. However, we couldn't make it to the counter in time. We had to buy yet another second ticket. Utter defeat.

All that being said, I'm sure you can guess that we spent our last Monday in Europe at the Rome airport. We decided since it had been raining the whole time we were exploring Rome we might as well get some Italian sun while the opportunity presented itself. Haha. I'm sure we were a sight to see. We walked outside where people were dropping off their loved ones for flights, perched ourselves on the pavement and made ourselves at home. There was a point where I had my eyes closed and I just had to tell myself, "Will the numbness away from your bottom and drown out the sound of the cars with waves - dang girl, you're on the beach!" It worked for a moment. :)

While we were at said airport with ample time on our hands we had some lovely fresh squeezed red orange juice.

We made this flight and ended up taking and hour bus ride from the Milan airport to the Milan train station. Dad kept mentioning how we might be spending the night in Milan. My response was always, "Just as long as we make it to Credit Agricole tomorrow to close out my bank account." To our surprise, there was one last train of the day from Milan to Geneva. [Praise the Lord!] We got on this train with maybe 7 minutes to spare. Whew.

It would have been a breathtaking train ride during the day. From northern Italy up through the Alps into the valley around Geneva. We finally made it back to my apartment just past midnight, not quite pumpkins!