In coming months, I expect that memories of the trip home will fade and what will remain are the happy ones of strolling car-less streets in ancient Dubrovnik, buying a memento in Rhodes of our several sunny days in Greece, and discovering the glorious Galleria Doria Pamphilj in our last day in Rome.
The trip home began well enough. Our taxi to the airport was on time, but then we joined the first of several airport queues that seemed to stretch for miles before we went through the first of three—or was it four?—security checks, one complete with pat-down. Then the first of our three flights was delayed again and then again by what we eventually learned was an airline traffic problem somewhere in the world. We barely made our connection in Amsterdam for the longest leg of the trip—almost ten hours to Atlanta. There a cheerie PA announcement said, “Welcome to Atlanta. All baggage must be checked here before continuing your flight.” We waited at the baggage carrousel and finally left without our bags to rush through now-empty check-in lines from one end of the Atlanta airport to the other. Fortunately, our last flight was delayed, so we did catch it for an extremely bumpy ride to Tucson, arriving too late to ask our neighbor to meet us. After filing our lost-luggage claim (which was still in Amsterdam!), we found only freezing optimists waiting at an empty taxi stand, so instead, we took the slower stage coach home, arriving finally to a bone-chilling house (it was 29 degrees outside) at 11:45 local time, a mere 26 ½ hours after the taxi in Rome picked us up.
