Megan and I woke up in Rome on Sunday August 6th, 2017 with nothing on our agenda except a flight that left at 7pm. We took our time getting ready and had a leisurely breakfast of croissants and coffee in our hotel's restaurant. We packed our backpacks which were now busting at the seams with our dirty clothes and the few souvenirs we'd picked up along the way. I ran out of underwear when we were in Italy and I had to wash a couple pairs in our bathroom sink. We did the whole 12 day trip with just what we could fit into hiking backpacks and small purses. My purse broke the day before and I left it in the garbage can of our hotel and packed up my new big red Italian purse with more souvenirs. We left our backpacks in a closet of our hotel's entrance and went out to explore a little more of Rome while we still had time. We found a cute coffee shop and I felt like I hadn't quite had enough Italian coffee. Megan and I each got two shots of espresso served in cute little mugs and Megan who is used to sugary mocha-chino-lattes was like "Gross, why is this so strong?" and I was like "It's espresso, it's supposed to be strong, silly American." We walked a little further and found a cute little street market. Fruits and vegetables were for sale as well as handmade items like scarfs, journals, and blankets. Everything was so cute but I had to remind myself that I had literally no room left in my bag so I couldn't buy anything.
Around 1pm we found a place to have our last Italian meal. I got a margarita pizza and Megan got classic spaghetti and we figured we might as well get some wine with lunch. "When in Rome!" One of the things I liked the most about Rome was how cheap the wine was. They had little boxes of wine at convenience stores that were like 87 cents. I don't know what the laws were (and I should have probably been aware of them) but we saw lots of people walking around drinking so we figured it was fine. We each got a box to sip on as we walked a little more and saw some cute shops. We found a giant book store and looked at some cool books and there was a cute little store that was like a miniature IKEA. We were a little tired and sat down on a bench to relax and Megan noticed that her wine was all over the inside of her purse. It was such a hot day that it had seeped through the sides of the box and gotten on her wallet, passport and everything in her purse. We had to take everything out and lay it out on the bench to let it dry in the sun. We looked like a couple hobos sitting there with all our stuff all over the place. A woman walked by and gave us a disgusted look and Megan jokingly said so the women couldn't actually hear "What lady, you've never spilled your purse wine?! Good for you!"
After the wine stained documents in Megan's purse dried out in the sun (thankfully there were no major damages) we were tired and ready to head to the airport. We knew we'd be super early but we had done everything in Rome we wanted to do. Plus it was a hot day and the airport air conditioning sounded lovely. We walked back to the hotel and grabbed our bags and looked up an Uber to take us to the airport. We opened up the app and were astounded to see that Ubers were at 2.5 surge pricing. The $40 price we were expecting to see was over $100. We wondered "why heck is it surge pricing at 2:30 in the afternoon?" We sat like little hobos in our hotels entry way with our giant backpacks and Megan's wine stained purse. We were so tired, hot, and ready to go home. I didn't know if the surge pricing would last all day or possibly go up even higher. We really didn't want to have to spend over $100 on a ride to the airport but we would if we had to. I vaguely remembered that it was a thing for Italians to take naps in the afternoon and I googled it and found out it's a big thing. It's called "riposo" and from about 1-3 every day in Rome a lot of businesses, churches, and museums shut down so people can have a long lunch followed by a little nap. We waited there in that dark little hallway and kept checking the Uber app and finally a little after 3pm the prices returned to normal and we called our Uber. Thankfully our flight didn't leave until 7 so we weren't in a big hurry.
As we drove to the airport I took in all the sites for the last time. I loved the beauty of this city so much. I loved that almost everywhere you turned you would see 2000 year old ruins and beautiful architecture on every street. I hope I can return someday and see more of Italy. We got to the airport a little before 4 and began the longest day of travel I have ever done. There were short check in and security lines so we made it to our gate quickly and sat to wait for almost 3 hours for our flight. I had brought a book with me and lugged it across the Atlantic Ocean and through 3 countries without opening it once until then. We had dinner in the airport (I think we had pizza again), and boarded our short flight to London.
We landed in London a little before 9pm their time but it felt like it was so late. When we booked our flight, the options flying home from Rome to Seattle were not the greatest. There were no direct flights available and none with short layovers. We had to be in the London airport for over 12 hours. If I could do it again I would have booked us a hotel to sleep but I didn't because I didn't want to have to go out of customs and security and back. It turns out we had to do that anyway because the terminal we landed in closed for the night at 10. So we left security and tried to go back through in the terminal we were flying out of but it didn't open until 6am. I looked up hotels on my phone but everything at that point was pretty expensive and not that close to the airport. We spent the entire night in uncomfortable chairs outside of security. I managed to get about 4 hours a sleep, but woke up like every 10 minutes in a panic to make sure I still had my purse with my passport inside it and my backpack. Megan stayed up the entire night reading my book and keeping watch. At one point a police officer came up to her and asked what we were doing and she had to show him her boarding pass to prove that we were flying somewhere eventually and not just hobos off the street. Finally at 6am I awoke to see signs of the security gate opening and even though we still had over 3 hours until our flight we went through security in hopes that we could find a more comfortable spot to relax while we waited. We bought a snack and looked for chairs but all the chairs had the divider arms on them and we really wanted to lay down for a second. We found this little alleyway between some restaurants and laid down on the floor again like a couple hobos. (I've mentioned feeling like hobos like 4 times in this blog, but on these long travel days when you're kind of in limbo it does feel like you're a little homeless) This time I let Megan get a couple hours of sleep while I kept watch. I was too nervous to fall asleep and miss our flight. At 8:30 we went to our gate. It was running a little late but at about 10am we finally got on. It was such a relief to finally be on our flight home I almost forgot that we had to be on that plane for over 9 hours. Thankfully our British Airlines flight was so comfortable after sleeping in airport chairs and the floor all night we both fell asleep right away. We woke up when lunch was served (I love airplane food) and had our last glass of wine of the trip. We were exhausted, hadn't showered in over 24 hours, and ready to be home but we enjoyed each others company and had a good time those last few hours of our trip. Our flight attendant looked like Charlie from Lost and since I was thinking about becoming a flight attendant I asked him some questions about being a flight attendant and how long he had to stay in Seattle. He thought we were flirting with him and flirted back. We about died laughing about that, especially since we literally looked like death. We watched a movie together, I read my book for a little while and then finally at about 11:30am Pacific time we landed in Seattle!
We went through customs and parted ways. Megan had Josh waiting for her outside of security. I had one last short flight to take to get home to Spokane. I was flying standby for that flight and when I opened up the app the check on how many open seats my flight had (last I checked it had plenty) I saw that it was cancelled. All the flights to Spokane for the rest of the day were booked solid until 10pm and I almost burst into tears. I was so ready to get home. I was exhausted, and I missed my family. I looked at flights on other airlines, and they all looked full too. I looked into renting a car, $800. I asked my Facebook friends if anyone happened to be driving from Seattle to Spokane that day. I thought about hitchhiking. There was a Delta flight leaving in 20 minutes that had a frown face next to it (meaning it was not a good option for standby travelers) but I decided to head to that gate to see if there was any possibility of an open seat. Of course it was on the opposite end of the airport from where I was so I did the classic running through the airport scene with my giant backpack in my disheveled state. Even if I made it on time and there was an open seat I wasn't even sure if I could get on it since I wasn't on the standby list for the flight and it was too late for me to get on it on my phone. I ran up to the gate as they were just finishing boarding and the gate agent was calling standby passengers. "Hi, I'm an airline employee and I was wondering if there's any room on this flight. I haven't listed for it yet, and I'm not sure if it's too late, but I just want to get home." As I said the words with tears in my eyes I knew it was probably impossible and I sounded like a psycho but thank the heavens this gate agent was the sweetest woman I have ever met. "We have one seat left, show me your airline badge and we'll get you taken care of". I literally started crying. That woman was probably seconds away from closing the flight when I got there and she didn't have to let me on because it meant a little more work for her. But she added me to the standby list, and gave me the last seat and I am forever grateful. I got on that flight and found my seat (it was even first class) and took my last flight of our long journey. Being able to get home to my family at a reasonable time was the icing on the cake of our amazing trip to Europe. Being able to go to London, Paris, and Rome with my sissy was literally a dream come true. We had been talking about it since we were little and I am so glad that we finally got to make it happen. Hey Megan! Remember that time we ate a lot of soup? :-)
