Italy: The Journey Home

Italy Time
9:00 am - wake up, pack, eat breakfast
9:40 am - check out of hotel
10:17 am - catch waterbus to airport
11:17 am - arrive at the terminal and go through security (in Venice airport)
12:50 pm - board the plane heading for JFK
1:30 pm - leave Venice


Eastern Standard Time (6 hours behind Venice)
4:30 pm - arrive at JFK
5:45 pm - go through security, get food, found out flight is delayed until midnight
6:20 pm - found out flight is 'on time'
6:22 pm - walk to gate 351
6:30 pm - walk to gate 349
6:50 pm - walk to gate 353
7:25 pm - still waiting for a plane? (purchase a salad, proceed to mix it by shaking, and spill it everywhere) 
7:40 pm - flight delayed 'only' until 10pm now
8:45 pm - chat with other people waiting
10:00 pm - flight delayed until 10:05pm
10:05 pm - of course no word or movement, and desk attendants have been gone at least 30 minutes at this point and the phone is ringing nonstop (a good 20 of those 30 minutes) until (FINALLY) a pilot standing nearby answers the phone and everyone cheers
10:07 pm - attendants return to desk
10:15 pm - last flight attendant arrives
10:20 pm - find out the flight is overbooked and they offer money to take a flight on Sunday (this is Friday night), the price goes decently high, and Tim and I are tempted to take it, except we're exhausted and just want to get home/at least to Chicago so it is easier to get home.  (Of course to find out later we probably should have just taken the money, stayed in a hotel and rented a car to drive back because we would have actually made some money and saved ourselves time. Oh well.) 
10:45 pm  - board plane
10:50 pm - try to fall asleep
10:52 pm - baby cries
11:15 pm - can't leave tarmac until 1am because so many planes are trying to leave

12:15 am (Saturday morning, and 6:15 Italy time, so have been awake almost a full day at this point)
                - still haven't even moved to travel to the landing strip, and sleeping is proving difficult
12:30 am - start moving in line to take off
1:30ish am - FINALLY take off


Central Time (yet another hour behind EST, so 7 hours behind Italy time)
2:15 am - arrive in Chicago
2:30 am - order an Uber, Uber driver goes to wrong level of the airport, we try to walk toward him and by the time we get there he has already left
2:35 am - order another Uber
3:10 am (25 hours after waking up) - get to Schuster's place, kiss the ground, and promptly pass out in probably the most comfortable and quiet bed.

Our original plan once we got to Chicago was to take another greyhound ride back to Dayton.  Obviously we missed it, and since we didn't want to pay $40 more per ticket per person to have them refunded, we bit the bullet, lost a bit of money and just rented a car to get back to Dayton.  So we finally arrive about 6:30 pm safe and sound and very thankful to be home.

Already I can't wait for another overseas adventure :) The good greatly outweighed the frustrations, and the food and sights are more than worth it. 

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