The saga of my homeward journey...

For a while, I thought that the story of getting home to my apartment in good ol' WV was never going to end.  I'm going to recite it here just because it truly was a saga!  And throughout all of it, I was only actually mad and upset one time - after that, it just began to be kind of comical.

1.  It started easily enough - I had to fly from Florence back to Barcelona and then catch my flight the following morning to Philly and then Philly to Baltimore where Heather would pick me up.  I was smart and figured out ahead of time the best way to catch the bus to the airport in Florence and that went very smoothly.  Got through the airport routine with no problems that I can recall although it was either on this flight or the one from Barcelona the next day that I beeped when I went through the security thingie and got pulled aside and investigated a little further.

2.  Got to Barcelona airport which at night was fairly deserted but managed to find people to ask about how to get to where I would find my hotel shuttle.  Called the hotel and got told it would be about half an hour till the shuttle arrived but that was fine because it took me a while to finally get to exactly the right spot.

3.  Got to the hotel around 10:15 or 10:30 p.m., having had very little to eat since about 2:00 in the afternoon in Florence.  Explored a little and discovered that they seemed to have only machines with snacks and sweets or an insanely expensive menu of heavy meals.  So I went to bed.

4.  I had to catch an early shuttle back to the airport.  I've decided I don't really like the Barcelona airport.  It seems to be all about shopping rather than ease of getting around for those who are actually trying to go somewhere.  But with many questions and much, much walking, I managed to get myself and my checked suitcase where they should be but no time for a little bite to eat.

5.  The arrival in Philadelphia was kind of harrowing from the start.  We had to go through security to get into the country and then through customs.  And both times, we were asked questions that I sure had never been asked before.  And at one point, the person even said to me "and I want you to think very carefully before you answer this..."  I found out later that security had been upgraded following the crash of a Russian airplane in Egypt, but at the time it was a little nerve-wracking.  But I got through it and then the next step was to turn in my checked suitcase because I was on a connecting flight and so they just take your luggage as you arrive into the terminal area and tell you it will be taken to the plane.

6.  Then found the first departures board I could and discovered that my flight had been cancelled!  I found an American Airlines person and asked what I should do and she said I would need to go to customer assistance which was located at the "D" gates.  So, following the signs, I made my way to the D gates and when I saw I was at Gate D1 and could not see a sign of customer assistance anywhere, I again asked an AA employee where I might find it.  "Down at Gate D16" was the response.  Having already walked who knows how far, I now had to walk way, way, down to the second to last gate in the D area.  And this is when I was well and truly mad.  Cancelled flight, luggage going who knows where or when, and miles to walk to find out how to get to Baltimore.

7.  Finally arrived at customer assistance, to a very unpersonable person who told me she could put me on standby for an 8 something (we're in night time now) and could confirm me on an 11:55 PM(!) and that was all there was.  I said "I guess I go to the gate for the 8:00 one an hour or so before and let them know I'm on standby?"  And, yes, that's what I would do.

8.  So I went there and sat and was mad and then decided I would find food so did that and had a big glass of wine along with it.  By the time I got back to where the 8:00 flight would be boarding, I was more mellow and just very tired and discouraged.  Called Heather to let her know she wouldn't be meeting me when she had thought she would and she started urging me to take the train from Philly to Baltimore.  We went back and forth a bit but it began to sound more and more appealing because at least I would be moving (I didn't have much hope of getting on the 8:00 p.m. flight).

9.  Went back to customer assistance to let her know I was thinking about taking the train and she checked things again and said "oh, I can get you on that 8:00 flight now" so I said great - do it.  She printed off the ticket and when I looked at it I pointed out that the only time shown on the ticket was 9:35.  She checked again and "oh, yes, it doesn't leave until 9:35"  So that was it for me.  I called Heather and said do it cause she had told me she could get the ticket online and e-mail it to me and I could catch a taxi to the train station and be there in time to get the 7:10 train which would get to Baltimore about 2 hours later and she'd be there waiting.  So OKAY!

10.  I walked another however far to get to where the taxis are, had a long drive to the station but got there in time to get on the train. And oh, how nice that was - quiet, much more comfortable seats, not a very full train - just really nice.  And even when we got rolling, it was quiet.

11.  So at some point, after two or three stops, the conductor announces that we will be stopping "to inspect the train".  Hmmm....so we stopped, nothing happened that we could tell so I assumed they were inspecting outside.  Eventually the conductor came back on to say that they hadn't inspected yet because they had to wait for two trains to go by before it was safe.  And every time he came on, he would say "Ladies and gentlemen..." and then close with "and again, we apologize for the delay".  We all began to get a little tickled after a while waiting to hear him say it again and conversations were starting up here and there - not to complain to each other but just neighborly conversations so it was actually pleasant but we weren't moving.

12.  Finally the two trains had gone by so announcement - we're now going to inspect the train.  Wait...announcement - okay, we've inspected the right side, now we will have to move forward so we can safely inspect the left side.  Wait...announcement - okay, we've now inspected both sides and are sorry to say that we will have to wait here and either have a new engine sent to us or make a transfer to another train and that decision will be "up to the powers that be".  Wait...announcement - the powers that be decided we will transfer to another train.  Explanation of how that will work - have to wait for a couple of trains behind us to get around us and then when our transfer train gets here, we will all exit out of one door only.  Wait...Okay, the train is here (we could see that out the window) and we will now start transferring.  Form an orderly line (we were nothing if not orderly).  So, of course everyone in all the cars had to come to that one door so it was one from our side, one from their side until...announcement - (and they're really sorry by now and very appreciative of our patience), that train is now full so the rest of you will transfer onto the next train which is right behind this one.  Wait...and wait...this time they seemed to have a fair amount of trouble putting down the little metal grid type thing that goes from our door to their door - there was great banging, at one point our conductor yelled out "NO!  O LORD HAVE MERCY!!" which by then we found utterly hilarious.  But finally, once again we all lined up and we all got on the other train and it went.  Phew!

13.  I was keeping Heather informed of all of this cause, poor thing, she was sitting in the parking lot at the Baltimore station waiting for that 7:10 train.  I didn't time how long we were actually stopped but I think we got into the station probably around 11:00 p.m.  I found Heather and we decided that all of this was actually a good thing because now it was SO late that whatever flight they had put my suitcase on would have landed by now so with the airport only about a mile away, we could go get my luggage and not have to do it the next day.  So that's what we did and that went well, actually.  There were three doors, Heather chose the middle one, I ran in and right there was the luggage claim office with my suitcase sitting there and so Bob's your uncle.  We got going and arrived at her house right about midnight. Tuesday.  Which way back in Italy/Spain would be 6:00a.m. of Wednesday.  So if I'm counting correctly, I got up around 6:30 a.m. in Barcelona on Tuesday (which would be around 12:30 a.m. Tuesday in the states) and got to Heather's at midnight on Tuesday, (6:00 a.m. in Barcelona,  so about 24 hours up.  Not too bad, but wait...it's not over yet.

14.  I didn't sleep as long as I had hoped - was up in time to see the kids before they left for school.  I had thought I would stay there a day or two, but by this point, all I wanted to do was get home.  I felt really grungy and all my clothes were dirty.  I could have taken care of this at Heather's of course, but I wanted MY shower and I wanted MY laundry room and I wanted MY bed.  So I decided I was going home that day (Wednesday) and left Heather's at about 10:30.  It's a relatively easy drive - boring but all interstate and mostly all 70 mph.  I had made it into West Virginia and was probably around 30 miles or so from Morgantown when I noticed white smoke(?) mist(?) whatever in my rearview mirror.  I thought maybe it was some leftover fog and looked again in a minute or so and there was quite a bit more and it was following me.  Oh no, was I burning oil?  Looked at the gauge and it was over the "red" HOT line as far as it could go and by then smoke started coming from under the hood.

15.  I pulled off and was terrified for a bit but began to think.  I noticed a "mandatory truck stop" sign just at the top of the hill I had been climbing and I could see that there was a little building there.  I decided I would chance driving up there, using the shoulder with my hazard lights on and going very slowly.  I did that and made it into the truck parking area.  They have to test their brakes there because the hill they'll be going down is very steep.  There was no one in the building (of course) but I had put my hood up when I got there and what I hoped was that a nice trucker would come offer some words of advice at least.  And that's just what happened except that he was really nice and put about 8 bottles of water in the radiator (cause that's what it was - for an as yet undetermined reason, the radiator had spewed out its contents even though the cap was still on) and he also added some anti-freeze.  Suggested I get down the hill to the Cheat Lake exit and try and find a service station there.  I had already found a Hyundai dealer in Morgantown and talked with them.

16.  I pretty much was able to coast down the hill to the exit and the exit itself is also very steep so I could coast down most of that.  Saw an Exxon sign and thought "good - maybe I'll find a mechanic" but no, it was two gas pumps and a mini-mart.  So at that point I knew I would have to call the roadside assistance thing that I have with my insurance and get towed to the Hyundai dealer. And that's when I started talking to whatever "force" it was that was throwing all these problems at me.  I made it absolutely clear that I didn't care if I had to leave the car there for a day or two or twenty, I WAS GOING HOME!!!!   Got to the dealer and they were able pretty quickly to diagnose it - my car is old (13 years and about 132,000 miles) and the top cover that Hyundai put on the radiator deteriorates if the car gets a lot of use and age, and that is what had happened with mine.  They could fix it but it would have to be Thursday or Friday, depending on when they got the new radiator.  That was fine with me - just point me to a rental car place because I'M GOING HOME TODAY!!!!

17.  Got an Enterprise rental car (and learned that contrary to their commercials, they DON'T deliver) and made it to my apartment at 9:30 p.m.

18.  Got a call Thursday afternoon that my car was ready so Friday drove back up to Morgantown, got my car, and drove back home to Huntington and that took most of the day.

19.  So, now I am truly home - have talked with various friends, had my Sunday morning at Starbucks with the crossword puzzle, had lunch with Jamie on Thursday, did lots of unpacking, laundry, going through 3 weeks of mail, etc., and just wanted to write this all out so if I have troubles on another trip and am thinking "woe is me" I can read through this and probably find that the current troubles are not so bad after all.  And to be fair, this is the first time I've had a canceled flight, a whatever-the-problem was train, or a broken down car on any of my retirement trips.  So, basically, I've been a very fortunate traveler.

Monday - Arrevederci to Firenze!

so it goes Before I head into my last report of the trip, I forgot to tell you another accomplishment on my list of things to do while in Italy.  I’ve read about and even seen a cooking show or two that made a dish using wild boar.   It’s kind of a big deal in Italy - the hunt, the cooking, the eating - and so I thought that was something I should have some day.  Well, when I was in Fiesole and getting peckish, I started looking for a restaurant.  Around the piazza where the bus had dropped us off, there was a row of them all with tables outside and all having that “welcome tourists” look - I looked at the menus and I’m sure it would have been good enough eats, but I decided to venture up the street a little.  I came to a restaurant that didn’t look all touristy and what made me decide to eat there was the handwritten sign in the window that said “no spaghetti!” “no pizza”!!  I thought okay, this is local.  I don’t think they even had a menu outside which is unusual but in I went, looked at the menu and there was penne with wild boar sauce.  I tried to ask the waitress about boar meat - was it strongly flavored (thinking of our venison and game meats) but I couldn’t think of any good words.  She called the chef out and I asked him the same thing - is the mean strongly flavored?  He gave me such a nice smile and said “the mean, it is beautiful”.  So that was it for me.  I ordered it, being a little worried that it might be a real tough meat to chew but…Got a big basket of various breads, and a glass of red wine.  And it was delicious - fork tender and just the right amount of meat.  So, write it down - I’ve had boar meat!

So, on to Monday.  I had done all the packing I could on Sunday night but at some point Sunday had thought of a neat idea for my three kiddies who are so patient and helpful with their old Mama.  And so I worried around about how I would get it home if I bought it cause my suitcases were crammed pretty full.  Decided I would go to the post office as soon as they opened, see if they had boxes like we do in ours, and then go shopping.  But I woke up early, started worrying over it some more and figured I would go shopping first - the place I wanted to pick things up opened early in the morning.  So I did that and by then had decided that I would also go to the street corner guy who sells really cheap suitcases and buy the smallest one he had so I did that and voila - the neat idea for the kids and a way to get it home.
That all took awhile and so I had a leisurely, late-ish breakfast and then strolled down to the Duomo to see how it was doing.  It was doing beautifully and there was a lot going on because Pope Francis (or Papa Francesco as he’s called there) was going to arrive at the Duomo Tuesday for a convening of something.  Many broadcasting trucks, a raised platform for photographers of probably newspapers, many police cars, hanging banners, 5 ambulances all ready and waiting, and I even saw two vehicles marked “carabaneri anti-sabotage”.  Took a few pictures of that…

And then I wandered some more and just took as many pictures of the Duomo as I wanted to without thinking “gee, do you really need more?” cause yes, I do.  I love it.   Here are some…

Strange as it may seem, I think this is one of my favorite photos I've taken of the Duomo.  Actually all three of these are new views for me I think unless I'm forgetting earlier trips and I'm happy with all of them, but especially this one.

I took this last one to give some idea of the size of the building.  That's a normal, tallish man walking there and that's just the start of the Duomo behind him.  It is such a presence!

and here’s a disappointing  picture that I actually asked someone to take of me.  I’m standing in front of a statue of Brunelleschi (the genius who designed and built the duomo) which I had never noticed before - too busy looking the other way at the cathedral, bell tower and baptistery I guess.  They were taking pictures of each other and I offered to take one of them together which I often do and usually the people ask do I want one of me.  I don’t know if they understood me but they waved their hands no, no so I got bold and indicated I’d like them to take one of me in front of the statue.  Just in case they understood anything I was saying, I said it was because I love Brunelleschi.  So the woman took it and I guess they must think that the important thing is to get from head to toe of the person in the picture whether that cuts off some of the thing they’re standing beside, in front of, or whatever cause one picture she took already had a tiny bit of his head missing and was SO crooked, that I opted for the second one that had a tiny bit of space above his head to allow me to correct the crooked a tiny bit.  So here is crooked me standing by crooked Brunelleschi,  I’ve also posted a picture I took of the statue by itself and to me the expression on his face is just perfect - sort of like “I did that and it’s just the way I envisioned it!” And I checked - stood right in front of him and looked up and he is looking right at the dome.

And then as I left the area, just a few more … and arrivederci Duomo once again.

If anything else of any interest happened on Monday, I can't remember what it was.  I had to get to the airport by around 6:15 or so for my flight to Barcelona and managed to do that like I was a professional traveler (not the norm for this trip).  I scoped it all out beforehand - where the bus stop was, the best way to get to it, what time it ran, etc.  Got my flight with no problem and had to wait a bit in Barcelona for the shuttle to the hotel (plus figure out where the heck the stop was), got there and it was an okay room (certainly larger than what I'd had in Florence, but nothing to eat somehow and I was hungry.  But c'est la vie as they say in France where I wasn't.  Got up in plenty of time to get the shuttle to the Barcelona airport for my flight to Philadelphia, got through the hell of getting off the plane, walking a mile to customs, getting through customs (always kind of nerve-wracking - one feels like one might get "caught"), then getting my checked suitcase, and handing it over shortly after because I was on a connecting flight, and then finding out that my connecting flight had been cancelled.

Which brings me to the present which is sitting in a restaurant at the airport in Philly having had a fair amount of wine and a chicken quesadilla nowhere near as good as Applebee's and wondering if I'll be lucky and get the 8:30 flight to Baltimore or unlucky and get the 10-something flight.  This has been my first real bad luck with air travel and it is not pleasant.  However, the wine has helped and really, there's nothing I can do about any of it.

So, welcome home to me and I look forward to being back in my own "nest".

Sunday - A very nice day

As you can see from the first picture, it certainly was a beautiful day and quite chilly in the shade.  I couldn't help wondering what it would have been like to have a day like this in Fiesole.  Before I came on this trip, I thought up a few things I hadn't done yet in Florence (there really aren't very many at least that I know of).  One was visit the Uffizi which now I have and another was to visit more of the Pitti Palace complex.  I visited the Boboli Gardens which are behind the palace and were started by the early Medicis and I visited what I think is called the Treasury and it had all sorts of wonderful treasures - ivories, paintings, statues, ancient artifacts, on and on - the Medicis were compulsive collectors apparently cause they sure had a lot of "stuff".  That's where I got caught taking a picture back before you were allowed to.  And oh, is it nice now being allowed to take them as long as it's without flash. Which by the way, I saw a woman do in one of the rooms she, her husband and I were in.  And I very politely said "no flash" and she said "I know".  It was all I could do not to go tattle on her.  But I did say something about it being a privilege to take pictures and I hoped we wouldn't lose it.

So, anyway, I'm standing in line below.  It didn't last too long - maybe about 20 minutes and I love to people watch so I didn't get bored.

 Every pigeon picks its own block to sit on - they don't seem to squabble over it.  Seeing so many of them made me wonder if there were always pigeons all over the building way back in the 1600's.

 And way over the rooftops is the lantern of the Duomo.

 Here I'm about half way up another huge staircase to the first floor.  They sure had high ceilings - there were four staircases to reach the first floor!  And I was looking at one of the rooms wondering how high the ceilings were and I truly believe they could be at least 20' high.

This is in one of the first rooms - more of a big hallway actually.  These are carvings of the various Medicis and comprise the door moldings.  There are four on each panel and there are four panels so that's a lot of Medicis.

 I am really impressed by the Palatine Gallery.  In each room there is a stand with an explanation of the room and why it's called by the name it's called by.  Then there are heavy cardboard book-sized pamphlets you can look at that identify each painting, statue, table, whatever happens to be in the room.  They also explain the story of the ceiling frescoes.  It's wonderful!  Except in this case, I was marching along with my little map (which they also provide) matching up names that very quickly didn't seem to match.  But my map was in English and the names were in Italian and I thought maybe that was why.  Finally, I couldn't make anything match my map so I asked a docent "where am I"?  I showed him on the map where I thought I might be and he said no, all the rooms in that area are closed off right now.  And if he was right, that means rooms 5 through 15 and 19-22 (not sure which) were not open.  No wonder things weren't matching up!

And I think I figured out one thing about the Palatine Gallery.  The Pitti Palace (including all these rooms I visited today and many, many more - it's a huge building) was built by the earlier Medicis as their residence, as the map discreetly calls it.  It remained theirs until they finally lost power to the Habsburg-Lorraine dynasty and then they lost it to the Savoys (I think - I bought a book when I was done and am going to try and make my way through it to learn more about it all).  Anyway, the ceilings are all pretty much as old as the building.  Whichever Medici commissioned the building had the ceilings painted with allegorical frescoes that all spoke of the power and glory of the Medicis.  Then when the Hapsburg-Lorraine family moved in, they decided to make this wing of the palace into a gallery of art and it became the museum it is today.  So I don't think these walls were always covered with all these paintings.  The little brochure says that a majority of the artwork is from the collections of the Medicis but that the gallery was created in the late 1700's-early 1800's and the Medicis were gone by then.

 Amazingly enough, this was called the green room. :)

Another beautiful ceiling.  I was really a good tourist - on a few things I took little notes in my phone.  This ceiling depicts Prometheus stealing the sacred flame from Apollo while Minerva(?) protects him.

 My note on this says "in collection since 1638" and I think they said it was the oldest painting in the collection.

 And of all things, this is Napoleon's bathroom!

 I liked the light in this room and it was a lovely room too.

One of the rooms was originally tiled with Majolica tiles and they have since all been replaced with replicas (and very well done they are because they look worn).  But this one picture in tile is still in place and is original to the room.

 And seeing this picture now makes me realize that this one and the one before the tile picture are two sides of the same room.  I took this picture to show more of the floor.

 I think this is the ceiling of the gallery at the top of a "monumental staircase".  The color isn't right - it was a beautiful dark, rich brown.  And the following two pictures are views from one of the windows in the gallery.  And the third picture below is one of the windows in the gallery.  The wall color wasn't this dark gray - I had to darken the picture to get the glass to show - but it was a lovely pale grey.

Off the gallery is a room called the Tazza Room because of a huge bowl carved out of poryphory from Egypt that sits there looking a little strange cause it's so big.  The guide didn't say anything about it being a fountain or having water in it - just that tazza is the word for a footed bowl.  The next two pictures were also in the tazza room and are some of the tiles from the floor that was restored.

 There was this very large terrace outside the tazza room and this very nice view too.

 Incidentally most of the rooms had one or several tables i them and they were all inlaid or mosaic or whatever other methods were used to make beautiful tables.

 This ceiling depicts Jupiter telling all the various gods and goddesses not to meddle in the Trojan War.  One of the sexy goddesses is trying to distract him cause she hates the Trojans.

Such a little painting among all the giants.

 Another incredible ceiling - this one even more so because of the enormous amount of stuff around it.  It just explodes with decoration.  In this picture alone, I count 6 white figures and two little gold ones.  And all the gilded moldings...unbelievable.  Oh, and I just found my note saying this was the Grand Duke's throne room.  After we left that room we went through I think three more just about as fabulous rooms that were waiting rooms in descending order for people needing to meet with him - nobles down to "general public".

 This is part of one of the tables I mentioned above.  I liked it because it had a sort of cardinal looking bird in it plus which it was beautiful. :)

 I took the close up to show how many of the individual pieces were outlined with hairlines of gold.

 I took this mainly to try and show as many of the doorways as I could - I think I count six.

 This would be the room of the niches and is obviously having some work done.

 This is another throne room that a docent explained to me was more of a private one than the other which was for all those nobles and the general public.  I don't quite understand that but that doesn't matter.

 This is the original silk wall covering and it is showing some signs of age.

 I took a picture of this guy cause he looks like actor Tim Curry, at least to me he did as soon as I saw him.

 This beautiful chandelier is the only chandelier still around that was commissioned by Cosimo Medici II created in 1697!!  It is carved out of wood which could be a little dangerous with candles.

 And this is a little chapel area in a room that started out with the Medicis using it for a game called trucco which the guide said was similar to billiards.

A stove to keep things warm.

 A painting that I find kind of hilarious and maybe I'm just not seeing it right.  But to me it looks all out of proportion.  For one thing the room looks positively enormous and I think it's because the people in it are so little.  The three sitting in front of the canvas (which is much bigger than them) are especially small.  And way back in what looks like it would take a little walk to get there sit the little people at the table.  Just somehow doesn't work,  IMHO.

 This was I don't know what for the Medicis, and was a drawing room for the Hapsburgj-Lorraines and was the Queens bedchamber for the Savoys.

 And there's the bed to prove it.

 Here's the Arno, lovely as ever - hadn't seen it until today.

 And it just seems wrong to see this incredible building and not take a picture or two of it.

 And miracle of miracles - I decided to see if I could get anywhere near the Ghiberti bronze doors that Michelangelo or DaVinci called the "gates of paradise" and there were a bunch of people but I was able to get between some of them and at least shoot a few panels and such through the iron gate in front of them.

 Then I moved back out of the group and realized they were a tour group and decided I would wait and see.  In a couple of minutes they all moved, I had my camera raised and ready, and voila!!  I got the entire doors with no one or any part of anyone in front of them!  Four times I've been to Florence and that's the first time I was able to do it.

Forgot to mention that before I got to the Duomo piazza, I had a sandwich and glass of wine at what I call the "hole in the wall place".  It's on a tiny little side street and there is literally about a 3-4 foot opening in the wall of a building with a counter on a base going across it.  You stand there and order and from somewhere they get the incredible rolls and in my case, the incredible porchetta, slap it together, pour your wine and you wander off to stand somewhere and eat it.  The porchetta was absolutely delicious today and the wine was good too.  Not bad for 5.50E.

Came back to the hotel and started editing pictures.  At 5:00 I had a "date" to meet Loretta and Luciano, the couple who owned a hotel I stayed in in 2010 and have not retired and with whom Chris and I met up with last year.  It was nice to see them - we seemed to have plenty to talk about and I urged them to come to the states one of these days.  They even have friends who live in New York and urge them to come for a visit, but they haven't done it yet.  They suggested going to the Mercato Centrale because they've changed it since last year.  They've now fashioned the second story of the market into mostly a lot of different eating places all in one big space.  There are a few vendors selling things like pasta - dried and fresh and bottled sauces and such but mostly it's stuff to eat there. So that was interesting to see - had no idea that had been done.  I was planning to go there tomorrow anyway and I may just have to go upstairs and have a little something when I do.

Tomorrow is when I fly back to Barcelona but the plane doesn't leave until 8:00 p.m.  I'll probably get a 6:00 bus to the airport and get there around 6:30 or so.  I pretty much packed to tonight but if I get some of the liquid stuff I'd like to get tomorrow at the market, I may have to repack some because I'd need to have it cushioned.  We shall see.

For now, I have rambled on so long I'm worn out and I imagine anyone reading this is too.

Buona notte!