The Longest Day.

(Editor’s Note: I feel the need to revise this post because I was half asleep when I first posted it and the day wasn’t even over for me. I figured that I would have internets in Rome [I didn’t] and would have been able to finish the post. Now that I’m at a place where internets are available, I have completely re-written the post now that I have clear mind. Also, most of the pictures taken here of Florence were taken by my sister prior to my arrival, but you get the idea.)

And so it was I began my journey to Europe. Our story begins, like the others invading Europe 64 years ago, on a cold and icy Thursday morning (although I’m not sure Overlord began on a Thursday). On Tuesday, our local douche-bag weather people had claimed that snow was going to be forecasted on Thursday evening, and that the high would be around forty degrees. Now, a little tangent here- when you make a weather prediction for four consecutive days, then change it up about 12 hours before the weather was supposed to occur, then you aren’t exactly “accurate”. The term that meteorologists in Kansas City use is, “most accurate”, which is kind of like blind people arguing that they have the “most vision”.

To no one’s surprise except local meteorologists and city road crews, Thursday morning greeted the city with a nice round of freezing sleet and cold temperatures. Running late enough as it is, we made our way cautiously to our vehicles and started on our merry way to the airport, passing not one, not two, not three, but SEVEN cars that had slid off the side of the road on our 20 minute trek. We did manage to safely get checked into the airport, I said my goodbyes to my wife, child (holding back a few tears) and mother and boarded my plane to Chicago.

Tangent #2- I haven’t flown on an airplane in over 15 years. Its not that I ever had an overwhelming fear of flying, but over the course of my young adult and adult life, we did the road trip thing: Minneapolis, Orlando, Grand Canyon, San Diego, all by car. It’s a great way to see the country. Since that was outside the realm of possibility for this flight, needless to say I was a little nervous about taking off in crappy weather. Last week, my lovely doctor was able to prescribe me a little something to take the edge off my anxiety, but I held off and kept it in the bag. Another thing that helped me is that there was someone on the plane I actually knew from my more formidable time working in Lawrence.

Our flight was supposed to leave around 8:20AM. We backed out, de-iced then backed right back in. Apparently one of the altimeter indicators had failed. Also we burned too much fuel waiting to de-ice. Since I figured, fuel, no ice, and a working altimeter was important to modern day air travel, I was ok with this slight delay.

9:30- Round 2. We taxi out to third place in line to take off. Whoops! Not so fast! We have to go back. Ice pellets were collecting and we have to de-ice. Again. By this time it was pushing 11:00, and I was wondering whether or not taking my little happy pills was a big mistake.

11:30- Round 3. We are de-iced and going to take off come hell or high water. As we start our run down the runway, a million disaster images pour into my head, but was calmed as I had been reminded a million times that no one wants to keep from crashing more than the pilot. We made it in the air and were off on our journey.

Local Time: 11:34am
Time in Air: 0h, 1m.
Total number of water bottles asked to be thrown away at security: 1.

The flight to Chicago is always quicker than it seems. It like you spend 15 minutes ascending, 15 minutes at altitude, then 15 minutes descending, then you land!

O’Hare is so much bigger than I remembered it being. I start to head immediately for the International Terminal, thinking that since I was flying internationally, that’s where my flight would leave. However, I thought wrong: my flight would be leaving from the very same terminal I actually arrived from KC. That was about a 40 minute waste of time. I made a few calls for work once I arrived at my gate, grabbed a quick bite of trail mix, and apple, and a soda (I think that was $7) and got ready to board my Boeing 777 to Frankfurt. I figured now was the time to take ye ole Xanax considering this flight was going to be a tad longer.

Local Time: 2:20pm
Time in Air: 0h, 50m.
Total number of water bottles asked to be thrown away at security: 3 (one empty, one unopened)

I figured I was going to be in for a long flight when the nice gentleman next to me wanted to strike up a conversation w/o having even taken off. Luckily for both of us, the middle section of the airplane was unoccupied and he moved over to give us both more room and so he could lie down and sleep. I thought if I were going to sleep, this would be my best opportunity: wrong. Apparently tall and fat guys are not meant to be able to lay across two airline seats and sleep comfortably. I couldn’t really concentrate on the first two in-flight movies (Michael Clayton and Gone Baby Gone) because of the meds I just took. I also couldn’t fall asleep because I couldn’t get comfortable and the plane kept shaking from time to time.

The point in realizing that sleep wasn’t going to happen was as we were approaching the British Isles (there was a GPS tracking map on the plane). The Game Plan was being shown, and I sat there actually liking it to the point that I was pissed when they shut it off to land. Oh, wait. That meant we were landing. In Germany! I had finally made it to Europe. Didn’t surprise me that there wasn’t much illumination from the ground considering it was the ass end of night, but Frankfurt Airport was rather bustling. Everything is in both German and English, and my first taste of Europeanism was trying to figure out which receptacle I should throw my gum wrapper in (The trash can was separated by type of item you wish to throw away.)

I made my way to the common eating area, where I approached the McCafe and the nice lady asked me something in German. I responded by “I’m sorry” and she IMMEDIATELY switched to an equally courteous English dialect. My response to “may I help you was”, “I’m sorry, I’m from a country that really doesn’t value the need to study the language of other countries”. She laughed but still wanted my freaking order. I rolled an Orange Juice and a candy bar = €5,95.

Another pass through security, I sat at my supposed Terminal gate waiting to board, when the announcement came over the intercom that my flight was going to be delayed by a few minutes because it had not arrived yet. “Interesting”, I thought to myself. There was a nice looking, spacious Lufthansa aircraft sitting at the gate right in front of me. Ok. A few minutes later, that plane was leave the gate (without anyone boarding it), and the call came out that my flight was beginning to start boarding. However we had to get on a bus.

Midway into our little bus taxi out to our airplane, I started to wonder whether or not the last leg of my trip was a bus ride to Florence, as we rode to the very far reaches of the airport. We passed many large Lufthansa aircraft only to come across the “Charlie Brown Tree” paper aircraft that would take me on my final leg. I found irony in flying in a passenger aircraft in Germany that probably dropped bombs on Germany during WWII, but there was really no turning back from here. I sat in my cramped window seat, just waiting for the wing to fly apart from the aircraft as we took off.

Local Time: 8:34am (Friday, February 22)
Time in Air: 9h, 25m
Total number of water bottles asked to be thrown away at security: 4

The highlights of the flight include: Not dying, seeing the Alps, and the cheese that was part of our in flight snack.

Knowing that we were beginning to descend, I was wondering where we were actually going to land. The terrain is very mountainous, and there didn’t seem to be an appropriate spot to land an aircraft. However, the mountains cleared, and there was Florence. We landed around 10:00am local time; one of those deals where you kindly step off the airplane onto the runway and walk into the gate. By miracle, my bags that checked in Kansas City made it ALL THE WAY to Florence (thanks, United and Lufthansa). I managed to gather all my shit together and prepared myself for the rigors of Italian customs. I didn’t even manage to get my Passport out of my holder when the guy in the “Nothing to Declare” line waived my through. Rigorous, indeed. No time to really take things in, I had to catch a cab to the place where my sister designated we meet; in front of the Duomo.

When Mr. Italian cabbie drops me off, I’m kind of just there: 4 bags, myself, in the middle of a foreign country with no way to get a hold of anyone. Then I see Katie, carrying an equally large amount of luggage. Luckily, her school office is right around the corner and we are able to offload a bunch of things there (with the proviso that maybe it will be safe) and we run to see the sights quickly in Florence. Highlights include the Duomo itself, and the Academia where the Statue of David is viewable.


When you see David, you expect someone who is of comparable size to a human being. Well, unless the typical human being is about 16 feet tall, he’s not comparable. David is HUGE; and very impressive. You kind of can’t say much of anything when looking up at him because you have to admire Michelangelo’s masterpiece. (This picture wasn't taken by me, but its what he looks like).

Considering I hadn’t eaten anything of substance in almost a day, we decided to sample the local cuisine: Pizza. However, the pizza place we went to was quite fantastic: sausage and cheese with a little olive oil. There, I did notice one thing about Italy: sit-down places, one does not tip. Mr. Pink would have been proud.

We went back to Katie’s school to find our luggage un-molested. That was the good news. The bad news is we had to lug that crap all the way to the train station, which was a little bit of a chore. (note to self: back light next time). We were able to make it onto the Eurostar to Rome, in a cramped car trying to invent ways to stow 7 pieces of luggage between the two of us and myself becoming a little gamey, B.O. wise, (luckily, I had reapplied a little deodorant in Frankfurt).

Local Time: 2:15pm
Time in Air: 10h, 10m.
Time in Train: 0h, 1m.
Total number of water bottles asked to be thrown away on the train: 0

I was expecting to see some great sights on the train ride from Florence to Rome, but instead, I saw a lot of this:









Yep, slept pretty much the whole way there. Awesome. I’m sure the belleisima sitting next to my sweaty, drueling ass really appreciated that.


We finally arrived in Rome, and a nice cab ride to our hotel. We may be staying what is the equivalent of a cardboard box, but I’ll admit it has a pretty good view. Our room overlooks a square where there are numerous restaurants, the Pantheon, and a McDonalds. It also means that late at night there are dudes playing guitars and Indian people trying to sell you cheap worthless trinkets.





It was there that my head finally met pillow for the first time in over 24 hours. It was as long a day as it gets, and in some way, even longer.

Local Time: 5:05pm
Time in Kansas City: 9:05am
Time spent awake: ~27 h, 0m.
Total Time Spent in Transit (estimate) 11h, 45m.
Full meals Eaten: 1 on airline, 1 in Florence.
Bottled Waters purchased: 4
Bottled Watters consumed: 2.5
Money spent on snacks: ~$11.00; € 9,95
Approx. weight of all travel bags (checked and carry on): ~75 lbs.