Fly Baboo

(Part 2)

As we arrived to the plane, I quickly realized that we were on a, lets say, “Recycled plane”.   At first sight, you could begin to see my fear.  Another woman ahead of me saw my face.  I could see that we were both feeling the same way about the plane.  When we got closer and began to walk onto the plane, I noticed two pieces of duck tape.   Yes, that lovely silver tape that all men think can fix anything.  There were two-piece on the body of the plane near the wings.  I held tight to my locket that my mom gave me and prayed that one; it wasn’t where we were sitting and two, which we would land on the ground safely.

Fly Baboo

After getting on the plane and realizing that the seats were made in the 70’s with their tan vinyl sealed with tape, we sat down right next to the wings. One propeller turned on and the other one had a bit of difficulty so we had to wait a bit.  As the lovely stewardess (the same person who gave us our tickets at the entrance to the airport and the same person who took our ticket before we got on the bus to drive to the plane) began to explain what to do incase of an emergency, Matt thought that it would be the perfect time to say how lovely it will be to fly over the jagged mountains.  I then quickly noticed that the stewardess left out how to use to oxygen masks…. BECAUSE THERE WEREN’T!!!!!!!!!!!!!!   At this point, the tears began to poor down my face and they just kept going.  Matt started to burst into laughter thinking that these were fake “Jeni” tears.  They were not.  I held his had for most of the flight and didn’t stop crying until the food started to arrive.

The rest of the flight was fine and we were delighted to find a man waiting for us when we got off the plane

Water Taxi in Venice

(PART 1) After having a unique trip to Venice, Jeni and I were ready to hit the road to Cannes France. We started our day with our American Breakfast… A roll left over from dinner three weeks ago and coffee that was brewed in the same time frame… mmm, I love what this hotel considered breakfast…  then we had a water Taxi pick us up at our hotel to bring us to the airport. For those of you who know Jeni and I pretty well, you know we tend to have pretty ridiculous airport stories… and go figure Venice wouldn’t be any different.

So the water taxi drops us off about at the airport… Yeah another 100 euro taxi ride! You really have to love European taxis… Anyways, one would think if you were getting a taxi ride to the airport, you would be dropped off at your terminal… Maybe that’s just American of me. Nope, not in Venice it about a 10 minute walk from where the water taxi drops you off. Not really a big deal because it was a beautiful day and I had to work off that huge breakfast I had at the hotel.

Okay, we have now entered the airport, Jeni waited with the luggage while I went to find where one would check in for an airline called, “Fly Baboo”. I looked at the board and we have to check-in at line 24… After waiting in line for 45 minutes, we final made it to the check-in lady who quickly told us “you guys are not on this flight.” Which I responded (probably with attitude) “of course we are!”

Well as it turns out, we weren’t on that flight… we weren’t even at the correct airline… As it turns out, both Swiss airlines and Baboo airlines use a red background with white letters and from a distance (to me) they look the same…Ooops… So with my pride a little hurt, Jeni and I strolled all the way to the other end of the terminal and found Baboo airlines… Of course with another ridiculously long line…

After waiting in line we finally got to check in… Wait, just kidding! We couldn’t checkin until we paid another 50 euro for a heavy bag fee for Jeni’s bag… The bag that she claims, “Really, I don’t have that much stuff in there.” Take it from me, I have lifted her bag a few times on this trip, I don’t think my back will ever be the same.

Now, we have our tickets and are working our way through security. Jeni goes through, nothing happens. Matt goes through BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP!!! Then a lady said something in italian to me that I didn’t understand but I got the jist of it. I was going to be man handled by a large italian security man…  Prior to the security man groping me, I tried to explain that it was the big metal buckles on my shoes that set the metal detector off (oh yeah, BTW – you don’t have to take your shoes off in Venice). My explanation apparently didn’t register with this gentleman because he proceeded to pat me down and grab my package in front of a very amused Jeni…

I will let Jeni finish the story about the airplane.

We were very excited to take a train and see the countryside.  What we didn’t know was that our travel agent booked us in First class… yeah… but on the economy train line.  How lovely it was to walk into the terminal and immediately hold tight to all of our belongings.  It was like we had walked into the worst part of Baltimore in the middle of the night or for the Philly locals, it makes the R5 train look like the Ritz of trains.  We couldn’t understand any of the signs and were getting hungry so Matt thought it would be wise to feed Jeni… She’s much happier with a full belly…. So Matt had Jeni stand outside of McDonalds with ALL of the bags while he waited in line to buy food. During this time, Jeni panicked and guarded everything. Once Matt arrived, Jeni relaxed and they both started to eat.  Within 3 minutes, a man tried to pick pocket Matt (he didn’t even noticed until Jeni said something) and then we had a Gypsy beg for food, flash her bra, and hand me her baby…. I guess she wanted to swap her baby for my nine-piece nugget… Then after saying no repeatedly she thought she would try to grab our bag.

Finally it was time to get on the train.  We knew that we were sitting in first class, so we “thought” that it would be similar to a plane.  How wrong we were.  First a man tried to take Matt’s ticket out of his hand but Jeni got mouthy and he left.  When trying to get onto the train, random men tried to “help” you with the bags and again Jeni had to get mouthy to make them go away.

Ahhhh… we were finally resting in our seats with our bags stowed away.  Many strange gypsies started getting on the train and begging to Jeni. If it weren’t for the nice Italian lady yelling at them, all of our money would have been gone to socks and Saint cards.  When we were both relaxed and the gypsies were gone.  An Italian man started yelling “attention” to us and was pointing at our luggage.  Well… someone was trying to steal our luggage. Great, how lovely.  We ended up having to take turns sitting in the back of the train so one of us could guard our stuff (With all of the other Americans, of course) and the other one clutched to the laptop bag sitting in our seat.

As for the lovely countryside view…. We really got to know how the insides of mountains and hills look like. Let me describe it to you… It’s Dark… That’s it… Just Dark! However in one particular break in the darkness we did see some pretty sunflowers! Amazing. The darkness has fully broken and we are now in Venice, home of the Gondola and the 10-minute 70-euro water taxi ride.

part of the line for the Vatican.

Too start a trip to Rome off on the right foot Jeni and I thought visiting the Vatican would be lovely. Despite being around 37 Celsius (about 97 F) at 9am, getting lost, and not having breakfast/coffee (cough cough Jeni…), the Vatican was absolutely breath taking.

The line sucked but I don’t think there was anyway around that, other than the locals who said they would walk you right up to the front. “2 hour wait from hear, come with me No Security, No Wait and it’s Free”. No a bad pitch right? I’ve learned a few things quickly in Rome, everyone says it’s free but nothing is… I guess that’s true for life… Anyways, so we chose to wait in the ridiculously long line, however I’m not going to lie at this point it was about 100 degrees, I’m wearing long pants and sweating like no other and a “Free skip to the front of the line” sounded pretty good.

After our 30 minute wait (not 2 hours), we did almost hit a snag that sent us to the back of the line. Jeni was wearing a dress the hung to mid-knee and the two guard that inspected our attire one said we can go and the other said for us to stop. So of course we went the American route heard the answer we wanted to here and continued walking in. I guess the guards didn’t think it was that much of an issue, since they didn’t chase after us…. I guess the rule is women must have there shoulder and knees covered. For future reference mid knee cuts it close.

In the name of the raise your hands beep beep beep, end of the line

Oh Yeah, why has no one mentioned that the Vatican has more security than all airports in the US and the white house combined. I mean, a head up would have been nice… I wasn’t packing heat or any thing but seriously when is the last time you had to go through a metal detector to get into Church!?!?!?

I can’t even begin to put it into words how beautiful the Vatican was but contrary to popular belief, I didn’t burst into flames and the holy father didn’t come running out screaming “the power of christ compels you!”

All I can say is you have to add this to the list of places to visit before you bow out. It’s truly remarkable and words can’t do it justice.

Saint Jeni, Amen (dress was lower for security)

Saint Hubert, Amen

Air Fance

Oh lord, where do I begin…. being incredibly ill for first day (awesome was to start your honeymoon)… Getting lost in Rome… Maybe the flight over… Yeah. lets start with the flight.

So we have a car drop us off at Dulles Airport, we check in and I ask the lady “Are there any seat available for an upgrade?” and the lady says you are already in business class do you want to upgrade to first for a fee? and I replied no, I thought we were in economy that’s why I wanted to upgrade. So we get out tickets, and a few hours later we are waiting in line to get on the plane only to find out that yes, our tickets were not business class, they were economy… After arguing with the Air France people at the gate for 15 minutes, I learned that Yes the check in Lady made a mistake, (2) apparently Air France can’t chance your ticket at the gate and (3) if I wanted to go to Rome with my wife, I should shut up and get on the plane.

Now we land in Paris for our layover. Within 30 minutes of being in Paris I learned a few things, (1) no one in the paris airport nows where anything is, (2) the stereotype the french are assholes was reaffirmed and (3) Europeans need to learn what a stick of deodorant is.

So stupid me had high hopes for this flight (I must have still been on the honeymoon/wedding/no sleep high). Our seats on this flight were located two rows in front of 2 children, and direct next to a man who (1) didn’t know what a shower was and (2) had no problem invading my space. You would think watch a plane sitting on the running way was the most interesting thing he had ever seen. Unbelievable. Once we took off the two little muffins sitting 2 rows behind us decided to see if they could scream louder than the engines for the enter flight. Awesome Right!

Anyways, we landed safely and we are having an awesome time in Rome. Adventures in Rome to be continued…

The Big Moment

We would like to thank everyone for helping make our wedding yesterday so special!

Love,

Matt and Jeni