An Amazing Race Finish

Exhausted as we were this morning, we felt a slight tug at our heartstrings as the taxi driver took us to the airport. Before that though, I tried in vain to get my mom one last cannolli, but it was too early for any of the bakeries to have them yet. I did, however, stop into the corner supermarket and pick up travel packages of Kleenex. Kleenex you may ask? Well, yes - the brand that we've come to know and love here is just a tad different in Europe. Thicker and with a little embroidered edge, they won Rosemarie's heart and she fell in love with them. (They came in handy all week as we had to constantly wipe the sweat from some orifice on our bodies.) When she runs out of them, I guess I'll have to go back there and pick some up.

Despite being told to not tip the cab driver, I was about to unload the remaining Euros to the cute little chauffeur, but he took off as soon as I gave him the required fare. Early, as usual, we got to the counter and discovered that Lufthansa wanted to book us on a new flight out of Munich that would get us into Boston two hours earlier.

As if an omen of the events to come, the ticket agent had computer problems printing our boarding passes and we passed the time marveling at the thinness of the girl next to her who seemed to almost get swallowed up by the amount of hair on her head. Finally getting her computer to work, our agent printed our passes and checked in all our bags. I was tired and sweaty and had little patience to deal with any of our luggage, so I checked every piece.

Waiting for our flight to Munich, there was an adorable fat faced German baby in the crowd. Babies love me and it smiled, but it was an evil creature waiting to erupt the second it got on the regional jet. Sitting on the plane, I noticed all the luggage being removed and as the time ticked away, we discovered that there was one suitcase without a passenger, so the ground crew removed everything to look for and eject the rogue valise. Our connection was getting tighter and tighter and as the plane finally took off, the fat faced baby unleashed his rage. For one solid hour, his lungs expelled enough air to power us all the way to the United States.

With my mother getting more anxious about our flight, we finally landed at 3:15, the boarding time of our Boston flight. We boarded the shuttle bus to the main terminal and walking the endless connection hallways came upon the roadblock that is passport control. Avoiding what looked like a tour group that we've seen throughout Italy, we switched lines and made it through, only to see that we needed Gate H43 and we were in G, with H ahead and up the staircase.

I looked back at my mother and thanked God there were moving sidewalks to help us get through the terminals. As beautiful as the Munich airport is, there was no time to enjoy it and we moved as quickly as we could to our plane. Rosemarie was slowing down, the over 100 miles we had walked in Italy making their presence felt.

"Pretend, Phil is at the pit stop and we're in first place," I said trying to keep her mind off the tight connection and on one of our favorite reality shows. She waved me forward so I could at least stop the plane from leaving. One more passport control later and a computer glitch at the gate we were there - or so we thought.

"More stairs?" my mother's tired voice echoed behind me.

Indeed, once through the gate, the plane waited below us and through the long jet way. But we were indeed there, the doors of flight 424 were still open and we walked onto the air conditioned jet. The back of the plane was empty enough that we moved our seats to an entire row. My mom fell asleep almost instantly - and from that, I knew she was tired. She never sleeps on planes. Hours later, we touched down in Boston. We were home. My father greeted us at the door to their house and I think I saw a hint of happiness on his face.

Tomorrow, we will sleep and I'll transfer all the pictures to my mom's digital photo album. Knowing my mom, she'll sit in front of the changing pictures and keep herself entertained for hours. For everyone who came along on this summer vacation, thanks for joining us. I wish you all could have perspired and ate as much as we did for ten days. And I wish you all a trip like this to remember for the rest of your life.