Heading Back to Venice!

Sorry, I have no pictures, but I think the story will entertain you pleanty.

So we gabbed a couple of taxi cabs, and at Jenny's direction, we headed to the airport. Jenny had been the one telling us all about the flight info, so we never bothered to question her. She had told us that the airport was only 15 minuted away. Jenny, Melissa, Heather, and I all had hopped in the same cab.

We were holding onto dear life as our cab driver flew through Rome, squeezing into tight spaces and cutting people off, and reading a novel at red lights.... when suddenly I had a bad feeling, and it wasn't that our cab driver was going to kill us, no, it was that we were not going the right way.

I seemed the drive was taking more than 15 minutes, and our cabby was driving like a mad man. I questioned Jenny about her certainty about where we were going, and she didn't seem so sure herself anymore. I luckly had not put my bag in the trunk, so I dug inside and found our flight information. There are 2 airports in Rome, the one we were heading to, and the one we were supposed to be heading to... CRAP! AGAIN!

Panicing I tried to get the cab drivers attention. We had to be at the airport 20 minutes before our flight, and we had less than an hour to be to make it. The cab driving was on his phone and kept waving me off as I tried to show him our flight information, so I handed the paper up to Melissa in the front seat and asked her to make him stop. Finally he looked at the paper, and about had a cow! He started to yell, "You told me Fermagio!" "I know!" I said through gritted teeth, "It's our mistake, but we need to be at that airport, ASAP!"

As the cab driver got us turned around (justbefore we got to the wrong airport) and called everyone he knew to comlain to the in Italian about the 4 dumb American girls who told him the wrong airport (we understood bits and pieces) we hurried to find a working phone to text the girls in the other cab to make sure they knew we had been going to the wrong airport. Luckly, Jenny had a text from Carlee from 10 minutes earlier that said "Wrong airport!" Now we knew they were on course, all we could do was listen to our ranting cab driver and pray hard that we would make it on time.

TO BE CONTINUED...

J/K don't panic.

So to our dismay, we hit a mad patch of traffic as we head back the other way. The four of us were quiet as the dead, as merely exchanged glances of anxiety and raised eyebrows over our overly upset cab driver, and his GPS he had pulled from the glove box.

The final count down was on as our cab took a sudden right off the freeway onto fairly deserted exit. Heather began to feel frustrated and wanted to question the driver, but I told her we should stay quiet and try to trust him. As I said a silent prayer and clentched my teeth, I keep my eye glued to the clock on my phone for the finaly 2 minutes till they won't let us check in.

With Only seconds to spare, the cab squeals to a halt in front of the tiny airport and we shove sufficiant funds into the drivers hands, grab our bags and run inside. Once inside we follow signs to Ryanair, but there is no one around to help. Finally we grab someone walking by and he happily rushes us to the counter at the other end of the otherwise vacant half of the building. Jenny and I had check in online before we left home, so they let us right in, Heather had checked in, but had not printed her boarding pass, and Melissa hadn't checked in at all... so the 2 of them were told they could not go through, and th next flight would be tomorrow.

Not wanting to miss the flight and have to buy more tickets ourselves, Jenny and I were forced to abondon our friends and run to the gate to meet the rest of our group. After explaining what happened to the rest of the girls, a man next to us began trying to help by telling us to tell them to go to the train station, and they could be back to Venice tonight, since we needed to be on our cruise ship early the next day. As all the chatter was going on, I just kept watching the doorway and hoping to see them walk through. Five minutes later, my hopes were meet with excitment as I turned and saw the 2 missing friends walk through the door. Rome Belssing #4! Seconds later the line began to move as the plane was filled and we left for Venice.

It turned out that Jenny was confused, because her parents were also going to be on our cruise (by coinsidence) and she had book their flight for them just before we left home, and they had flown to the other Rome airport in a layover. Melissa and Heather had made it through with the help of a less stingy employee of the airport. The first had refused to help due to their lateness, but they found another lady that happily assisted in checking them in, and then security let them cut line to get to the gate in time.

Shortly after the plane took off we hit a great deal of turbulance, and I tunred to Carlee and asked, "Wouldn't it be ironic if the plane crashed? 2 of us ould have almost been saved." She laughed nervously, but I think she knew I had a point. We landed in Venice and hour later, and all was well.