Italy Trip: Almost Snowbound

It's about time I got around to documenting our epic trip to Italy and the Mediterranean! I went with Brigham and my mom, and it was the first time any of us had traveled abroad. Our trip consisted of a few days in Italy followed by a seven day Mediterranean cruise, ending with one last day in Rome. We had a tour company while in Italy, and then we were on our own to plan what we wanted to do on each of our cruise stops since we didn't want pay for the cruise excursions when we could do it for a fraction of the cost on our own. The research was left to me and it became a serious full-time job trying to figure out WHERE we wanted to go and WHAT we wanted to do and HOW we were going to accomplish it all. I ended up putting together a binder of over 60 pages of information full of maps, bus schedules, places to eat, sites to see, and extensive day-by-day itineraries.

The week before we were to leave things started to fall apart. First, Kendrick hurt his leg and we thought it was possibly fractured and we were going to have to try to juggle medical appointments before we left. He was splinted and unable to walk. This meant we were leaving the burden of our immobile three-year-old with babysitters for two weeks.

Then I dropped my phone and shattered the LCD screen under the glass, which causes a dark pigment to leak out and blackout the entire screen. So my phone worked great, I just was incapable of using it. We were rushing around trying to get replacements or trying to fix the LCD. Adding to the struggle, we were in the middle of a huge snowstorm which was delaying all shipments. Shipments of new phones or new phone parts weren't going to come in time to get me a new phone before we left. And since I am the primary photographer and my primary method of photography is with my phone, I needed a working one stat.

And finally, two days before we were to leave, my mom's dogs pulled her down on the ice on a walk and she hurt her shoulder. She went to the ER for x-rays and tests and was told that she would be ok, but to wear a sling and take it easy. However, Mom was skeptical because her shoulder was very painful and she knew something was off. If she had known how bad the damage actually was, she very well would have stayed home so maybe it was a blessing she didn't know it was dislocated and fractured with a bone fragment floating around. Instead, Mom hoped it was going to get better and unknowingly traversed continents and countries with only basic pain meds to cope with a shattered shoulder. She was a trooper and I can't believe how much she did with all the pain and discomfort.

On top of those three predicaments, we were in the midst of the largest snowstorm Maple Valley had seen in a loooong time. We went through one bought, but a larger storm was approaching and as we watched flight after flight get canceled we started to feel nervous we would be able to get out of Maple Valley and catch our connecting flight in LAX. Day after day, we scrolled hour by hour weather predictions for Monday morning and studied flight patterns and airport sites, calling the airlines multiple times. We called and texted, bit our fingernails down to nubbins in worry, analyzed storm patterns and cancelation trends, cursed every snowflake that fell as it began to pile up around us. As we watched the weather change for Monday, we decided we'd better change our flight. We lucked out and a lady in our ward worked for the same airline we were flying and was able to change our flight for us. It was a lifesaver! I don't know that we would have made it out on our original flight.

So a day early, with Kendrick's leg miraculously better, a new phone in hand, and Mom's broken shoulder in tow, we watched snowflakes falling through our airplane windows while we waited on the runway for them to de-ice our plane and held our breath that we would make it out. A sigh of relief as our plane left the ground and a couple of hours later we were in Los Angeles ready to check in to our hotel for the night.

Monday morning we had time to kill before we needed to head back to the airport so we decided to walk to El Segundo Beach.

We walked past fresh lemon trees and soaked up the sunshine and green grass, taking pictures to use to brag with all the family stuck in the snow.

We enjoyed the sunshine and waves for a small while before we had to head back.

Grabbing our bags at the hotel, we headed back to LAX to prepare for our first long flight to Munich, Germany. Over ten hours of flying through the night.

Here we are, all fresh-faced and anticipatory.

That flight was SOOOOOO long. We tried sleeping and melatonin and movies and tylenol pm and holistic jet lag medicine, but my mom's shoulder kept her up and both of us are not apt to sleeping well in cars or airplanes so we probably got a few hours of sleep between us all. Plus the flight attendants chanting, "Coffee, cooofeee. Tea, black teeEAA," weren't conducive to an ideal sleeping environment.

We saw what little of Germany we could from the airport windows on our layover before we were back on another airplane to complete the last leg to Italy. We did enjoy the delightful German sandwiches served as a snack on the hour and a half flight.

Italy was approaching dusk as we landed. We were now nine hours ahead of our usual time and very tired despite it being morning time back in Washington.

After retrieving our luggage, we scrambled around trying to find our hotel shuttle while navigating the foreign Italian language all around us. Eventually, we managed to get to the right spot and rode to our hotel and collapsed in our beds. Despite our exhaustion, we couldn't sleep! Jet lag and a painful shoulder kept us up despite desperately wanting to rest up for our first day in Italy. We never ever wanted to fly again. Our minds raced: we were in Italy!