Home James and don’t spare the horses! (Not sure who said this but I like it)

I set the alarm for 4:30am as I had booked a 5:00am taxi. Guess what the alarm didn’t go off and I miraculously awoke at 4:55am. A mad dash to get washed dressed and out in time for the cab, luckily I had organized myself the night before so I was up and out in 7 minutes, not bad for old man at this time of the morning after about 3 hours sleep.

I arrived at the airport at 5:20 for a 7:30 flight, for some reason the girl at the check in could not check me in. She tried to explain in a mix of Italian and English that it is something to do with an English passport, going from Italy to Chicago through Spain is too much for the system and I had to wait for a supervisor. What is the world coming to I asked myself, anyway one and a half hours later I was still not checked in and the plane was leaving in just over thirty minutes, I wasn’t too worried because there were still several people besides me that had not checked in.

I eventually got sorted with 15 minutes to spare, so I rushed to the gate where the bus was waiting to take me to the plane. It was the same as on the way out, a small plane but quite plush. We taxied out and took off over the mountains, it was a beautiful morning with the sunrise lighting up the Alps as though they had been set alight. As we flew into the clouds my thoughts turned to…….. Oh god could my cases have possibly made the plane if I had only just made it? Oh well nothing I can do now, I will find out soon enough when I arrive at Ohare, (actually about 11 hours later).

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I arrived in Madrid on time and would you believe it there was about two inches of snow on the ground! It doesn’t snow in Madrid, even the air hostess said wow I have never seen anything like it. As you could imagine they don’t have the equipment to cope with such things and we waded our way through slushy tarmac to get to the terminal.

I had about an hour and half between planes so I indulged in another café con leche just as I had on the way out, you cant beat it!

Well no problems with the flight and yes you’ve guessed it, I arrived in Chicago only to find my cases are somewhere in Europe! I joined the line with about 40 other people who were in the same boat.

Well Beverley picked me up at the airport and we went off and had a lovely dinner in our favorite restaurant which happens to be Italian.

 

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