Our Odyssey Home

Talk about a brutal trip home.

Much in the spirit of Homer, we began our Odyssey with no idea of what lay ahead for us, and in the end, it was a long journey home, and the truth is, we weren't sure when we'd get back to Hartland.

The trip really began on Friday, when we left Rome. We bid adieu to SuiteDreams hotel, and give it a big thumbs up for comfort, quiet, hospitality, and especially warmth. We really enjoyed staying there, the rooms were clean and hip/modern, the internet was free, the movies were available to anyone to watch, the breakfast was outstanding (the croissants blew me away), and our host, Pierfrancesco, the owner, was just an overall great guy. I'd go back there just to see him again, as I consider him now a friend.

Indeed, that's how they approach your time there, as family (I know, it all sounds so horribly cliche). They seem to literally welcome you into their home, and we felt it. Even though the hotel is located in a busy section in the center of Rome, near the Republicca train station, our room was quiet and we slept well every night there.

We left the hotel by 8:15 with a goal of catching a 9:00 train to the airport. We caught the subway for the main train station, the Termini. There is a train from the main station that leaves every half hour to the airport. Kids ride free (yeah!) and it costs 11 euros per person, a huge savings over a cab. The problem is, if we'd missed the 9:00, we were pushing our luck to get to the airport two hours before our noon flight. But we made it.

The train ride was nice, and as it headed towards the airport, it passed through these tenement-like buildings that kept reminding me of, you guessed it, New York. The resemblance was uncanny, underwear hanging from balconies, and all.

The airport was a mess, as everyone seemed to have the same idea as us, and for some reason, the Iberia Airlines desk was particularly congested. They have a small presence there, and the line was huge, but we had time to spare, so no worries.

The plane, of course, was packed. I'm guessing that this is the state of flying in this day and age, but you'd be hard pressed to find any empty seats on flights these days. It used to be that flights were routinely half to two-thirds full and you could stretch out and relax, but those days are over. Every flight I've been on in the past few years has been full. It's depressing.

We landed in Madrid and were going to spend the night before flying out on Saturday for Boston by way of Philly. We stayed one last night in the RoomMate Laura, and I have to confess, we really like that hotel. The rooms are very nice, spacious and very new, the breakfast is great (much like SuiteDreams), and the internet is free. The only problem is, it is located in the center of town, and the noise is INTOLERABLE. If it isn't traffic keeping you up, it's the late night revelers who make a point of screaming as loud as they can as they pass beneath your window.

It being Friday night, you can bet we didn't get any sleep. I was so bummed, I kept hoping for a massive flood to come and wash all the people away (just kidding... sort of), but the noise went on unabated until about 4:00 AM. We felt terrible, and we had about 24 hours of travel ahead of us.

If not for the noise, I would highly recommend Room Mate Laura, but otherwise, I can honestly say I will never stay there again. It's too much.

After breakfast, it was back onto the subway to the Madrid airport. In our haste to be good samaritans, we gave away our subway passes thinking we didn't need them anymore, only to realize that we still had to pay airport fees. Life isn't easy when you're trying to be a martyr.

The flight home seemed to me to be particularly long, even though it seems like it should be shorter since you're flying against the rotation of the earth. Ruth explained to me it was the jet stream, but even still, the flight was long. I did get to see two movies, Hulk and Get Smart, both of which I kind of liked, though we didn't want the kids to see, so we broke out the laptop and let them watch DVDs. Thank goodness for some good planning.

The service on the flight was nice, so much better than on Iberia. Something about Iberia airlines, they aren't always so nice.

Once in Philly, it was about 2:30, or 8:30 Euro time, which is what our bodies were feeling. We'd been going for a good 13 hours, and we had a ways to go still. Our connecting flight was at 6:00, and we were hoping to get into Boston by 8:00, get our luggage, and catch a 9:00 PM bus to Vermont, the last one. If we missed that one, we were going to have to spend the night in Boston, so we were a little anxious.

It turns out we had good reason, because our connecting flight was late. Instead of arriving in Philly at 5:00, it didn't get there until about 6:00. There was a really bad storm with tornado warning in Massachusetts. Kind of scary.

We didn't board the plane until about 7:00, and the flight is about an hour and a half, so if we were lucky and everything went smoothly, we had a tiny sliver of a chance to get to Boston before 9:00, get our luggage, and catch that bus. Needless to say, we were stressing, and I'd pretty much given up and had my mind set on getting a hotel in Boston. I was fried, and Audrey and Nicholas were even more so.

Well, we ended up landing in Boston around 8:15. We rushed to baggage claim and waited for our bags, keeping an eye on the clock. When the bags finally came, we tossed them onto a cart, put Audrey and Nicholas on top, and rushed to the bus stop. It turns out we had more time than we thought, and we caught the bus. I really couldn't believe it.

The bus ride home is nice because you can sit back and relax, but by the time we'd gotten on, we'd been up for over twenty hours. We still had a long bus ride, then a long drive home. And we were beat.

We made it home by midnight, tucked Audrey and Nicholas in bed, but not before giving big hugs and kisses to our cats, then crashed out hard.

Then we woke up at 5:00 AM because of jet lag. That's where we stand now. We are so tired, but it feels indescribably good to be home with a nice roaring fire in the stove. It was unusually warm last night, which was a blessing because we had to get home, but now it's getting cold, and there is snow somewhere in the forecast.

As I mentioned, it sure feels good to be home.

I'm going to make a few more entries on this blog about things I've learned and things I'll do differently the next time we travel, which will hopefully be soon, since the rewards far outweigh the challenges of travel. Then again, you don't need me to tell you that, discover it for yourself.

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