Italy Day 20: Heading Home

Sunday, October 13

Travel from FLR to RDM

Highlight: Rolling in our front door

Lowlight: Not a thing

I slept really poorly last night, finally falling asleep at about 2 and awaking at 7. I spent a lot of the awake time trying to find out if the trams would be on strike in sympathy with the trains, though there seemed to be no connection between the two companies. After all my time in France where going on strike is the national sport, I should have factored a strike or two into our Italian equation. I did not. After waking, I laid around wasting time until 8:30 when we both got up, gathered our things, double checked the apartment, and headed down the steep stairs for the ground floor.

On Board in Paris, Heading Home to Seattle

Once I schlepped the suitcases down the tricky and steep steps, I went back upstairs to fetch the trash and recycling. While Ann waited on the sidewalk with our suitcases, I took the empty pizza boxes, water bottles, and trash to the dumpsters on the next block, the opposite direction of our way to the train station.

It's really annoying to drag suitcases along bumpy sidewalks and cobblestone streets, but we managed OK especially since we were traveling light with one small roller case each, unlike a lot of the tourists that we saw huffing and puffing and dragging massive suitcases over the rough terrain.

As we rounded the corner to the tram platform just outside Santa Maria Novella, we could see a crowd of people on the platform, a very good sign in the face of the railroad strike. We did not have time to contemplate it much, because as we were nearing the platform, a tram labeled Peretola was pulling in and we hustled across the street and down the platform to just get inside the tram doors as they were shutting. We did not even have time to buy tickets. They’re available on the train at credit card-operated machines, so we hopped on sans tickets. Of course, nobody checks tickets: it’s all on the honor system.

After all the worry about a potential hassle in getting to the airport, at 9:30 we found ourselves through security in Firenze, seated with coffee, waiting for our gate to be posted at 11:00. During our stay in the cafe seating, we had a nice chat with a couple from the Edinburgh area returning home after a long weekend in Tuscany. 

Once at the gate, it was a bit of Italian bedlam as usual, a game of hurry up and wait in gate area far too small for the number of passengers on the plane. I remembered at this airport that we would have to board a shuttle bus to ferry us to the plane. Naturally, as we were boarding, Air France made us gate check our bags, so we sent them on to Seattle. 

After a long wait to board, we sat on the shuttle bus for many minutes waiting on the 15-second, 100-meter ride to the plane. Why can we not walk across the tarmac as we do in Redmond? After boarding the plane, we had to wait on a second busload of passengers from the terminal. This plane was a nice new A319, a welcome change from the ancient A318 crate we flew in on. This flight was at least half Americans headed home.

For beverages, I was hoping that Air France might do a better job of coffee than American domestic airlines, but no. The coffee proved a perfect imitation of hot water, dark brown hot water. The flight attendant was a bit puzzled by my order of "du café noir," asking, "du sucre?" He kind of shook his head in resignation when I said, "juste comme ça," meaning just as he had poured it. What can I say? Some of us do not want sugar in our coffee.

The flight proceeded apace and we suffered minimal turbulence over the Alps, arriving at Charles de Gaulle on time. Not surprised by having to go through security again as we were on arriving in Paris and having a trivial time going through immigration on a flight to America with American passports, we found ourselves quickly through immigration and off the shuttle bus at our terminal. This terminal was much more modern, much brighter, and much cleaner than the one we were in three weeks ago.

We found a Spanish-themed bar at which to kill an hour before boarding for our outbound flight. We had fun joking with the staff at this bar and sipped on a bottle of Verdejo, quite delicious, to prep for the 11-hour flight to Seattle and, truth be told, to use the rest of our Euro cash. Similar to what we saw in Italy, people in Paris were dressed for winter, never mind the mild temperatures outside.

Killing Time with Delicious Verdejo at Charles de Gaulle

Boarding was a non-issue and our flight was uneventful. I watched three movies during the trip home and didn't even think about sleeping. We had more turbulence over Alps than into Sea-Tac. If I was a bit harsh about the Italians offloading our luggage in Firenze, I apologize. They were speedy compared to Seattle where we waited seemingly forever for our luggage, so that we could go through immigration and get to the terminal for our flight to Bend.

The CBP agent was a terribly young guy who was quite chatty. He had just relocated to Seattle from Tucson and was curious about Bend. Our passports stamped, we caught the train to our terminal and found a bar with the idea to get a real beer, a PNW IPA, while we were waiting.

At SEA, a Real Beer at Long Last!

At 20:00, we took off in the dark for the 37-minute flight in the middle of which the cabin crew hustled to do beverage service. Seriously, why do beverage service on a flight that is over just after it starts? Our luggage claimed in Seattle and stored in the overhead bins on the way to Redmond, we stepped off the plane, walked to the terminal, and found our driver waiting for us as soon as we exited the secure area. We were home at 21:30, basically a full day after we left our apartment in Italy this morning.