Travel Lessons: Patience and Flexibility

My wife and I left Monday for our 10-day trip to Italy.  I hope to occasionally post updates and pics from our trip while we're away.  These entries will be both a way for us to share our experience with family and friends, and also to become a journal that I can look back on this vacation and relive the experiences again.

In my quiet times, I've been praying that God would work to build up the Fruit of the Spirit to a greater extent within me.  I want to be more loving, joyful, peaceful, patient, kind, good, faithful, gentle, and self controlled.  On this trip, God has started answering that prayer.  I am convinced that God created travel experiences so that we could build virtues - especially the virtue of patience.  

Our travel from Toledo to Florence contained three flight segments.  1) Detroit to Philadelphia, 2) Philadelphia to Frankfurt, Germany, 3) Frankfurt to Florence.  Detroit flight was scheduled to leave at 1:30 p.m.  We finally did leave after 4:30 p.m.  Of course, the 3 hour delay caused us to miss our connection  from Philly to Frankfurt.  Thankfully, the Detroit staff for US Air were very helpful and proactive for us.  At check-in, the agent told us our flight was delayed due to weather and that she was creating a back-up itinerary for us in case the delay caused problems.

The Liberty Bell is in Philly

We arrived in Philly and had the back-up in place.  Our new flight left Philly at 8:30 p.m. and still got us to Frankfurt with an hour layover before taking the originally scheduled flight into Florence.  As we walked down the concourse to find something for dinner, I saw that a flight leaving for Rome was soon leaving.  I stopped at the counter to ask whether or not we could possibly get on that flight, he told me I would need to go to "Special Services" and make arrangements.  However, I would have to hurry because they were ready to take off within 15 minutes.

This airport bell is Lego Bricks

We walked towards Special Services and discovered there were a lot of special people needing service.  The line was easily 50+ people long.  I looked at my wife and said, we'd never make it.  So we didn't even try.  Bad decision.

At 8:25 p.m., we still lacked a plane at the gate.  We were told it was being serviced in the hanger and should arrive in about 5 minutes.  30 minutes later, the plane came to the gate, but we were not boarding because they still needed to service the plane.  That should take about 10 minutes.  Almost an hour later, we finally began boarding.  The pilot came on and told us we would leave the gate as soon as all passengers were seated.  20 minutes later, the pilot told us that we had two passengers on the manifest who had not boarded the plane.  Security rules required that their luggage be pulled from the plane, so we were waiting until that happened.  It should take five minutes, he said.  30 minutes later, he told us they were still looking for the luggage, but it should only be another five before we can go.

I've decided that US Air must be on GST - God Standard Time - because I was definitely feeling the "for God, a day is as a thousand years and a thousand years as a day" with the five minutes becoming hours!

Finally, shortly before midnight, our plane lifted off for Frankfurt. Obviously, we had burned the hour window to catch our flight to Florence, so we knew we'd have to make new arrangements once we got to Frankfurt.  We arrived Frankfurt at 12:45 p.m. local time Tuesday (6:45 a.m. Toledo time).  The next available flight to Florence didn't leave until 4 p.m. (or 1600 as they use in Europe).  So we had another 3-hour delay before reaching our final destination.

Hooray for Lufthansa!  They left on time!!  We arrived in Florence at 5:45 (1745).  We were supposed to have arrived at 9:00 a.m.  So travel delays cost us half a day for our activities in Florence. One activity that we missed was getting into the Accademia.  In a moment of extreme optimism, I booked our tour ahead of time but put it on the same day that we were scheduled to arrive.  Those tickets are non-refundable and cannot be exchanged.  You miss your time, you miss your chance.  So I hope to be able to buy new tickets to see the Accademia before we leave.  It's most famous for being the home of Michelangelo's masterpiece, "David", and other sculptures.

Tuscan countryside from the air

 We arrived at our apartment in Florence and were warmly welcomed by my in-laws.  They had dinner ready, and it was FABULOUS!  I am sure I will write many times about the food here, so I won't go into details in this post.  It's already too long as it is...

View on the ground from Florence Airport