vie a la table

Holy crap… Kris and i had the most insane last 32 hours of our lives!!

I wrote my post about our last day and we were hanging around the train station waiting for it to arrive so we could finally head home.

The time came and our train didn’t show up…  I went to go check the board more closely and kris pulled out our tickets just to be sure.  As i was walking away she yelled, “wait!”  The ticket didn’t say Firenze Santa Maria Novela (the main train station in florence); instead, our tickets read, ‘Firenze campo di marte.’  We were at the wrong station, and our train was leaving in 20 minutes.  Kristen started to freak out and a million thoughts of how we can get there in time ran through my head.  Can we take a train to get there in the next few minutes (it’s only a 6 min. train ride to the next station)… none were available; could we get to the metro and over to that station in time… no freakin’ way; our only other option was a taxi.  We ran out the main station entrance to the taxi stop and the line was all the way down the block.  This was when i started to freak out.

We thought about asking people if we could take the next taxi, but we didn’t know the language well enough to explain the situation.  We saw a lone cab that looked like it was off duty and ran to ask the driver if he could take us.  He freaked out about us asking him while he was busy and that he was going to get a fine by the police or something (all of this in italian, of course).  We tried to explain ourselves and he started yelling and pointing down to the main street where a roundabout was.  We nodded in agreement and quickly (i mean, freakishly quickly) we ran down to the drag to see if a cab would drive by that we could catch.  At this point, our train is supposed to leave the other station in 12 minutes or so.

We saw a car with the taxi sign on top and waved our arms, he quickly pulled over and he immediately sensed our haste.  He threw our bags into the car and we told him of our ordeal.  He said it is usually a 15 minute drive and that it would be 17 euros.  I said, “if you can get us there in time i’ll give you 30!”  He zoomed away faster than any other cab i’ve ever been in!  We zipped between cars and swerved out into oncoming traffic.  Part of me was freaked out that i was going to die, and the other part of me was excited because he was sure he could get us there on time.  He barked directions to us for when we got to the station… where to go, what to look for; he was a HUGE help!  We screeched to a stop and jumped out of the car and down the stairs to sift through the binarios (tracks).  We arrived 4 minutes early and it turned out our train was delayed 10 minutes.  WHEW!  We got to the right track and saw all the other people waiting for the same train.  We set our bags down and we began to catch our breath (kris basically had a combination break down and hyperventilation attack)… we had made it.

The overnight train ride was a little bit odd.  We shared a car with an african american couple from france who didn’t speak english, a french guy (about my age) who spoke english, and a very strange french african american lady who wore a little music player around her neck that just sort of played all the time (thankfully not while we were sleeping).  She made a lot of phone calls… even when it was overly apparent that she had no service on the train; she also did this strange snort thing when she was trying to clear sinuses… it sounded like she was causing fatal damage up there.  Aside from that, we slept well and awoke to a beautiful, sunny, french countryside.

We were excited about returning home until…

Our train was late… an entire hour late!  This was bad news for us since we had to travel to the airport from the train station.  We started to panic again.  We knew it was going to take about an hour to get to the station using the metro, we also knew that there was no train to the airport (from where we were).  Our only other option… again… was a taxi.  We ran outside and guess what we found… another giant line to get a cab.  Not only that, but i didn’t have enough cash to get us all the way to the airport.  Kris hopped into the giant line and i asked information where the nearest bank was.  They pointed in a vague direction (as does everyone in europe) so i ran down the steps to see what i could find.  Twenty minutes later, i came back with no luck.  Kris had moved up in line and we decided that our best bet was to ask the driver to drive to an ATM, then to the airport.. YEESH!!

I think he thought we were a little odd, but he came through.  It was straight to the bank, then to the airport.  We arrived to the airport 40 minutes before our flight was to take off and went to check in.  We knew we were late but figured we still had enough time to get there.  We were asking agents where we could check in for our flight and they all seemed a bit confused, until one lady told us that checkin had closed and we had missed our flight!!

“We’re never going to get home,” we thought.  We went to the information desk to see what we could do.  The lady was very kind and understanding that it wasn’t our fault that the train was late.  $400.00 later we had a later flight home. (We didn’t really have much of a choice on the fee…I guess they’re not as generous about swapping flight times). The lady directed us to the check in counter, and a few hundred hoops later, we were on our way to the gate. The kiosks were practically impossible to use (even when in english), then we waited forever to get our bags checked, then we walked through customs, then through security, then walked a long time, then took a bus that took us to the plane (but felt like we had traveled out of the country). With the entire process of all that, we made our gate right as it was boarding! We realized then that there was no way we’d be able to even make it through the airport process if we had made it “on time” for our initial flight. The paris airport was so complex…definitely not like the usa, where you can catch your flight with a few minutes before take off.

Our plane was huge and the line to board was unending. Knowing we were at our gates with tickets in hand, we relaxed for what felt like the first time in the last day or so and waited till we were the last ones on. Unfortunately we were stuck with two seats on opposite ends of the plane, but with a bit of manuevering, i was able to convince a few people to move around a bit for kris and i to sit together (and also got a thankful family of three together as well).

To say the least, we were relieved to actually be sitting on a plane getting out of europe. Maybe a few hours later than anticipated, but we were on our way home, after all that! We savored the free wine, warm meals, and the movie to make the flight a bit more enjoyable. 8 and a half hours later we landed in our new connecting city (atlanta…thank heavens for american soil!), went through more customs and boarded our last 30 minute flight to hop over to nashville.

With an arrival at 8pm, we were exhausted, as we had been awake for a long day. But SO happy to be home, see our girly girl and sleep in our bed!

thanks for enjoying our travels with us along every step, and thank you for keeping our safety in your prayers.

Filed under:
europe, fun, wil by kris