After our wonderful trip back to the states (besides the stomach flu for most of my family including Alex and a cold for both of us) we jumped right back into the European lifestyle. Alex was in Belgium for 5 days last week for work and leaves for a sales conference in Arizona on Saturday for a week. So when he was needed in Italy for two days, he asked me to join. I believe my response (through text) was yesssssssss!

We flew to Rome Tuesday morning then drove 2 hours to Pescara, Italy. Alex had a meeting nearby the following day. We walked around the beach town enjoying the beautiful 60° weather. We grabbed lunch at a restaurant where I indulged in a delicious margherita pizza and a glass of wine. Later that night once Alex was done working, we walked through the town looking for a place to eat dinner. At 7:30pm (once we were finally hungry again) we headed to dinner. We started with a bruschetta appetizer, pasta for the main dish and then Alex got a second course of Parma ham slices and a fresh buffalo mozzarella ball. Plus, we sampled two digestivos from the area. By the end, I was so full I felt a little ill.

The next morning we woke up and ate breakfast even though neither of us were very hungry. Alex left for his meeting soon after and I was left to explore the town by myself for a few hours. Eventually, Alex picked me up and we drove the two hours back to Rome. Our hotel was a little outside Rome (near the airport) so Alex and I hopped on a train and were in the center within 15 minutes. It was starting to get dark so we only got to stop at a few places; one being the colosseum and the other was the Vatican. I’ve been to Rome once before but it was amazing seeing those beautiful sights again. We ate dinner at a local restaurant vowing not to eat as much as the night before. A bottle of wine, pasta, and a dessert later we were again stuffed. We headed back to the hotel to sleep off the carbs. We had a short but really nice trip to Italy…until the flight home.

We had an early flight the next morning out of Rome headed back to Cologne. I had a feeling it wasn’t going to be a good flight from the start. It was very chaotic in the small airport to begin with. Everyone was aleady in line then they had us moved to another gate; I was lucky not to be trampled on the way there. Then when we finally boarded, the pilot tells us they’re short staffed so the bags from the flight before ours still needed to be unloaded before they could load ours. About an hour later, we eventually took off. The flight itself was fine, no issues until we were getting close to landing. The pilot comes on and explains that there is a big storm in Cologne and the airport is completely shut down and they aren’t allowed to land. Instead we will be circling the airport for two hours (it was suppose to only be a two hour flight!) and hopefully the airport will open back up. We circle for a while then the pilot tells us we will be landing in Frankfurt instead. We circle for another hour until finally landing in Frankfurt. Once we land, we oddly taxi on the runway far away from the airport buildings. When we finally stopped, the flight attendants asked us to remain seated and told us a visitor would be joining us. I thought it was someone explaining where we go and what we do to get our bags/get home. Nope, three police officers enter the plane and head straight to the back. I was too far away to hear/see anything but luckily the woman next to me was getting text updates from her husband who was close to the action. Apparently, a man smoked not one but two cigarettes in the bathroom during the flight, claiming that he didn’t see the forbidden sign. Yeah, okay…. Italians! We had to sit on the plane for 20 minutes while the officers talked with the guy. Eventually they let us off but it didn’t get much smoother from there.

Once inside the airport we were told to go talk to information. They would tell us how to get home by bus (all of the trains were cancelled due to weather so the 45 minute train ride turned into a 2 hour bus ride). I still needed my bag. Once we eventually found the right baggage claim (we had to talk to information, call a number on a phone to be let back into the correct baggage claim area, then find a woman with a tiny sign) we were told our bags would be another 45 minutes and the bus would be here in an hour. Very well organized Ryanair, way to go. We grab a bite to eat because now it’s 2:00pm (we were suppose to land in Cologne at 11am) then head back to baggage claim where now it’s still another 30 minutes then another 10 minutes then another 20 minutes. An hour later, they finally tell us that our bags are in a completely different baggage claim area. We all run over there and grab our bags. We head outside where there are no buses waiting… of course. Which would have been great because Alex and I were like the first ones out and would have had no problem getting seats. But of course, everyone else gets their bags and now it’s a mob outside. Everyone waiting for the bus. The bus comes and it’s a total free-for-all, people pushing and shoving their way onto the bus. It was full so we had to wait for the next one. This time we were smart, Alex put the bags into the bus and I quickly grabbed seats. We were finally on our way back to Cologne. We got to Cologne at 6:00pm, seven hours later than expected. What a mess.

Beach in Pescara

60° weather!

Margherita Pizza

Bruschetta

Delicious ravioli

Enjoying dinner

Digestivos

Colosseum

Colosseum

Vatican