At breakfast Thursday morning the girls grinned wickedly and said, “We had a good time last night”. The translation of this is something we did not dig into too deeply, but the “slumber party room” must have had a good time before finally going to sleep the previous night. They were a bit giddy at breakfast, naming the hard roll on their plate, Tuffy, and carving a smiley face on it before eating it. Also, there was an apple we had purchased and semi-forgotten about. It had ended up in Kara’s daypack and had been sadly mistreated and was severely bruised. They asked what to do with it. When I told them to discard it, they asked if they could just chunk it out of their third-floor window toward the canal. We nixed that idea.
Then I reminded them that since we would be going through security at the airport, they needed to pour out the water in their water bottles before leaving for the airport. Again, the idea of pouring the water directly out of the window onto the sidewalk or canal below the window was suggested (amid giggles). Once more we recommended disposal at a site inside their room. There must be something about an open window with no screen on it that tempts fairly reasonable girls to want to throw something out of it. (We heard rumors about one of them spitting out the window, but we have chosen not to believe it!)
We had to walk across a portion of Venice to the bus station to get our transportation to the airport. Since we had a little extra time, we did some shopping along the way. Kara tried on one of the masks that are seen everywhere in Venice. If any of our readers have seen the movie “The Thief Lord”, you may recognize this mask.
As we boarded the bus, Emily said, “I can’t believe the week is over already!” Neither can we, Emily.
We had lunch at the lovely, modern airport, and selected food items from many that were available. The girls wanted to eat more Italian pasta before leaving, but they were not sure they would like what was offered, so they ordered one serving (which was very generous) and a bowl of fruit, and all three dug in with forks at the same time.
We boarded the plane at 2 PM, and we reminded the girls that they should begin thinking it was 8 AM, to try to get their minds around the time-change we would be experiencing. The airplane we were on for over eight hours was great. Each seat had a small TV screen on the back of the seat in front of it. We could select from a variety of movies, TV shows, or games to play during the flight. It helped pass the time, an made the flight seem shorter. The girls sat in three seats in the row directly in front of Olen and me. From time to time during the flight we communicated with them between the seats.
We flew over the Alps, but could not enjoy seeing them since we were seated in the middle section of the plane. We flew over France and south of England and Ireland before heading across the Atlantic Ocean. Dinner on the plane was…guess what…pizza and gelato, but hardly the quality we had been enjoying while in Italy.
We changed planes at JFK in New York. As we went through Passport Control we followed signs to go to the next checkpoint, but the signs directed us to baggage claim. We stopped and asked an official where we should go if we had no bags to claim.
“First you get luggage here.”
“We don’t have any.”
“Everything you have checked will be here.”
“We didn’t check any luggage.”
“All bags must be picked up from here.”
“All we have is what we have here on our backs.”
“No checked bags at all?”
“Correct. No checked bags.”
He called a superior to come over, and we repeated the information. This man smiled and pointed toward his left, “The light family! Fantastic! Walk that way.”
We thanked him and left ahead of the others who were waiting on their luggage.
At one point this afternoon Lacey Beth said her throat felt a little scratchy. Emily shrugged and said, “Just wait. By 9:00 tomorrow morning it will be your mother’s problem.” Such cousinly sympathy.
The flight from JFK to Atlanta went quickly and we arrived ahead of time. Since our flight from Atlanta to Huntsville did not leave until Friday morning, we had reservations at a motel close to the airport that provided shuttle service between the motel and the airport. We had reserved a room with two double beds and a rollaway, and all planned to sleep in the same room since we would be there only a few hours. Kara chose the rollaway, so Emily and Lacey Beth chose one bed, and Olen and I took the other.
We had been up for so many hours by the time we arrived at the motel. It made for a very long day. It was 11 PM EDT, but about 5 AM at the time we were on when we got up that morning, and we were absolutely giddy. We went directly to the motel room and literally fell in the beds…clothes and all. Olen went into the bathroom to brush his teeth, and when he came out 2-3 minutes later, the lights were all off, the rest of us were in the beds, and not a sound could be heard. The next day Kara admitted that she was so sleepy she forgot to take her shoes off, and she woke up during the night with her feet feeling tight, and then she took them off.
We were up and going again at 5:30 with breakfast at the hotel, shuttle to the airport and 27-minute flight to Huntsville. All three girls arrived wearing Pisa tee shirts they had bought on the trip.
And so it ends with a whirlwind of memories. For years we will laugh at our having to stop walking from time to time for someone to repair “flat tires” (untied shoestrings)…people saying “spaghetti sauce” (Prego) to us when we thanked them for helping us…Kara’s messy lemonade…watching Italian cartoons on TV…and those crazy photos we made holding up the Leaning Tower of Pisa. We’ll remember all of the “new friends” we met each day, including the couple from Georgia who knew we were from the southern US by overhearing our accents. We will remember how Grandpa always got “temporarily misplaced” but never lost. How can we forget the pigeons in Saint Mark’s Square, or the gondola ride, or the Appian Way?
We learned to adjust to each other’s peculiar personality traits, like Lacey Beth, who has the enviable ability to sleep on any mode of transportation…and Kara, whose stomach doesn’t adjust well with the motion on a bus or metro, but is not bothered at all on a boat, plane or train. And Emily, the group’s “mother superior”, who displays her additional year of maturity by feeling responsible for the other two girls. Of course Olen and I have absolutely no peculiar personality traits that the girls had to adjust to!
Seriously, this was a dream week for Olen and me. It was an opportunity to share special memories with three wonderful young ladies. They were delightful travel companions, always smiling and always ready to engage in the next experience we had planned. The girls never complained about all of the walking we had to do, even though we walked no less than 5-6 miles each day, and two of the days we walked over ten miles during the day. They learned to manage their backpacks with ease, and even enjoyed the secure feeling of having all of their belongings in their personal possession. They kept up with their own passports, transportation cards, and boarding passes better than many adults. We hope and pray that they will take the lessons learned and the memories they made this week with them all of their lives. We know that we definitely will.
To Emily and Lacey Beth and Kara: Thank you for the memories.
To the parents: Thank you for allowing us to have this special time with your delightful daughters.
And to our God: Thank You for a safe trip and for the wonderful memories we made.
amen
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