Italy our Big Vacation (Day 1)

     It was about 7 years ago that we took a vacation to Italy with our good friends John & Cindy.  We had traveled on many domestic vacations and had great times so we knew our international trip would be a blast, which it was without question.  My wife (Mimi) was our own personal travel agent and we always had great accommodations at a reasonable cost which was true in this case as well. 

     We were all very excited about our trip especially John & Cindy because of their Italian background.  John and I even tried to learn Italian prior to leaving and we felt pretty confident we could handle rudimentary conversations in Italian.  John & Cindy also bought new, big (almost the size of a steamer trunk) and very distinctive but attractive luggage so it could be easily recognized when sliding down the luggage chute at the airport. They must have packed the entire contents of their closets.

     As with all of my stories I will tell you about the oddities of our trip because anyone that has been to Italy can tell you about the beautiful scenery, great food, wine and wonderful memories. 

     Well we arrived at the airport and boarded our flight to New York to catch our connecting flight.  Not wanting to have an extended time waiting at Kennedy International we had booked the connecting flight with only an hour lay over.  Our flight out of St. Louis was delayed due to weather or late passenger boarding (thoughtless twits), I don’t remember exactly. As soon as we arrived at Kennedy International we headed over to Alitalia for or connecting flight.  As we were approaching the counter to check in the attendant called to us saying  “Ladendecker & Michalka we’ve been waiting for you”, I thought “really aren’t we special”.  We soon found out we weren’t special at all, just late (Ok maybe I was too harsh on the late passengers in STL). We hurried through the to get boarding passes and ran to our gate and boarded, “Whew, we made it, all is good”.  

     At least that’s what we thought, not so much, the flight was fine no issues at all and we safely landed in Rome on time.  After we de-planed (why did they create a new word for getting off the plane?, when you travel in a car and arrive at your destination do you de-car?).  Anyway we headed over to the baggage claim area anxiously waiting for the distinctive designer style  luggage, Well as you probably already figured out the luggage did not show up, while we made our connection the luggage went somewhere else or maybe nowhere at all.  We then went over to report our loss and we were told that the baggage would be sent to us immediately upon arrival, great no problem but we landed in Rome and we were taking a bus to Siena right from the airport, would that be a problem, not at all says the guy at the airport baggage claim office.  He then reached under the counter and removed 4 small bags about the size of a shoeshine kit (this may be foreign to some young people) which we would were told contained the essentials.  “So, you mean I packed those two huge suitcases and this is all I really needed.”  Each bag contained toothpaste, toothbrush (bristles you could use to clean the barbeque grate), deodorant, soap, razor, comb and a T-shirt so we were all set for a 12-day vacation with our bag of essentials.  We had brought small carry-on bags but they contained non-essentials, no clothing at all, big mistake.

     We then left the airport looking for the bus station to get transportation to Siena, which turned out to be more complicated than we thought since our Italian was not nearly as good as we thought.  Thankfully many people spoke English so we bought tickets and boarded the bus to Siena with ease taking our bag of essentials.  As I remember we had to board a 2^nd bus/tram to get to Siena then a cab to get to the Hotel Arcobaleno.  Once arriving at the hotel and checking out the premises we took a stroll around Siena looking for some clothing stores that where we could buy a few items to supplement our expansive wardrobe.  It was hard to find clothing that didn’t fit like an undersized glove; the Italians like their clothing tight.

     Later in the day, we decided to catch a cab to take us to a well-deserved dinner.  So we went to our room to freshen up, we had a T-shirt from our kit of essentials and a few other things we purchased but decided we would save them for later, at this point it wasn’t yet essential that we change.  We had a recommendation from the hotel for a nice restaurant but we arrived a little early so we sat in the piazza relaxing a pondering our 1^st day in Italy.