Well, after all that agonies of counting the days, the hours and scratching off one by one the “must do things” on my long list, Ruggero and I are coming home to Italy, finally.
If anyone ever has the habit of cleaning the house and empty the kitchen and the refrigerator before your long travel, I am sure you know what I am talking about. Now multiply that to at least five times the work and the stress, and you know how I felt the night before my flight. Even as I had anticipated and had prepared days in advance, I found myself packing my suitcase way over midnight and got some important documents and paper works printing up until 4AM in the morning.
I got five hours of sleep though, thanked to the nicely arranged flight schedule.

So, by noon, we arrived at the international Los Angeles airport. Only after kissing goodbye to my son and walking into the checking counter, we truly knew then and felt it’s the beginning of our journey home.
It was a straight flight from Los Angeles to Frankfurt Germany. Almost eleven hours up in the sky and then about two hours from Frankfurt to Rome had our heads turned up side down. Not just the long and boring sittings on the plane, but also the long walks from terminal to terminal and the dealing with custom and checking points drained the rest of our energy. That is not to mention of looking at the cold and not very friendly faces of the custom officers when they stamped our passports. Oh, and by the way, just to let you know, you are on your own when you are at this airport trying to find the gates for your connecting flight or claiming your baggages. English does not exist around here. Everything and everywhere are in Germany, just go figure and use your instinct.
But, we and many other travelers found our way to our flight in the end. So it was a happy ending and I have to say the service was excellent and the food on the flight was very decent too (unlike the food we had last year with American Airline and Delta)

As soon, we saw the neon sigh “Italissimo” ( meaning “Very Italian”), we were so happy and relieved that we are home. Our dear good friends Dario and Miriam took us to their lovely and welcoming home in Fregene. Miriam had prepared a fantastic Minestrone (in a creamy version) and Spaghetti Vongole with some fresh veggies that were cut from their garden this morning (just what we needed after the last two stormy days) Wine, laughter and nonstop conversations of course, which lasted till midnight.
Yes, I am glad we are home and very happy here in Italy. And this is just the beginning of our blessings.