And so the adventure begins...

We were supposed to arrive in Milan this morning but our flight out of Portland came into Newark late (something about a faulty engine?). We ended up sitting on the plane for nearly two hours before finally taking off, and that, combined with circling a weather system outside of Chicago meant that we arrived at our gate in Newark 11 minutes after our plane to Milan departed. Who knew Italian planes left on time?


We ran to the gate anyway but it had been locked down and deserted. We ended up standing in line at customer service for 2 hours (after sitting on the plane for 7 and having woken up shortly before 3 am). The Chiro was notamused. When we finally made it to the customer "service" center, the agent was busy talking to a coworker about a hot red haired woman, and was in no hurry to helps us sort our journey out. He finally looked up at us to indicate that we should approach the desk when a non English-speaking girl cut in the front of the line and in her broken words tried to get the guy to help redirect her to Las Vegas (for a flight that she'd miss even if she had been on a plane right at that second). She apparently didn't understand about waiting in line like the rest of us (was she Italian? They don't seem to do lines very well there...) The agent told her he'd help her if she stood in line, and she seemed like she was about to burst into tears, but he was unfazed and turned back to helping us find a new flight out (for the following day).


The Chiro and I agreed that a flight the next day was for the best (after 13 hours of travelling, neither of us had it in us to sit still for another 8 hours on the plane). C. Tried to convince me that whether we were in Italy or Jersey, we were on vacation, but somehow it didn't feel like a holiday to me.

Everything ended up working out though, as we got to stay with my cousins in Newark. We got to shower (with the toiletry kits I asked Continental to give us since they wouldn't release our bags). We ate some dinner, watched some tv and feel into a deep stretched out sleep.

As I write this, we're at the airport using our meal voucher tickets (again... I had to ASK for these, or they never would have parted with them). Gearing up for the second leg of travel. Instead of having a night to rest in Milan and get accustomed to the time difference, we're going to head directly to Cinque Terre via train and swim, sleep and relax!