Home for Christmas

Hello,

Yes, we're stateside! It didn't look very positive for a while, but we finally ended up in Omaha last night at 10:15 PM, only 24 hours later than we were supposed to arrive. On Friday, Florence saw it's first snow since something like 1985, 4 or 5 inches: tons of fun for the Italians, but terrible for their public transportation. The Florence airport was closed Friday, most of Saturday, and then Sunday again. Luckily, we were scheduled to fly out Saturday at 12:30 PM to Munich, Germany. This turned out to be the only flight leaving Florence all weekend, and Munich turned out to be the only major airport functioning in Europe. However, our troubles began when our flight out was delayed by five hours. We got checked in, very slowly, and they were so frustrated that they didn't bother charging us our over-weight luggage or extra checked luggage fee. We boarded the plane around 5:30, and then waited 2 and a half hours while the plane de-iced and while the visibility increased. Finally, just when we thought they were going to take us off the plane, the pilot announced that it was finally safe to take off. We got into Munich at 10:30, and the Lufthansa service desk gave us all free water, sandwiches, chocolate, and fruit. We slept in the airport that night, woke up at 4:30 AM as soon as one of the check-in desks opened and got on the wait list for the last flight out of Munich to Chicago that afternoon. Then they even booked us on the plane from Chicago to Omaha. All very helpful. More free food, and more friendly reassuring service. (Lufthansa took very good care of us - Europe's passenger rights are different than the US so they are obligated to do a little more to help keep you comfortable. They even offered hotel and cafe vouchers.) Then they told us that there were a couple earlier flights to the States, and that we should talk to United about getting put on that wait list.

That's when Sunday's chaos began. We were placed on the wait list for the 11:30 plane to Washington, D.C.; the man behind the United re-bookings counter, we're pretty sure, was named Jorg, and he told us that the Munich's airport's top priority for the day was to get everyone out and overseas. We waited for that flight, and there wasn't room. "St. Jorg," as we came to call him, told us to remain calm, stay with him, and he would try to get us on the next flight out, 12:30 to Chicago. Again, no luck. St. Jorg told us that our next best bet was one of the five international flights left, at 3:30, and that we should get on one of those wait lists. We knew we were already on the wait list for the 3:30 flight to Chicago, but we had lost a lot of hope about getting on that plane anymore. We arrived at the gate just on time, and we were told to sit and wait until our name was called. Boarding began en masse, and the list of accepted passengers from the wait list starting scrolling; our name wasn't there. Our names weren't even on the wait list. I ran over to the counter to ask if we could get on the wait list again. Instead, she printed us boarding passes. Kait and I wept from relief our whole walk onto the plane. We even got to sit next to each other, thanks to a friendly fellow passenger trading seats. We made our connection to Omaha, got picked up by Matt (brother-in-law) at the airport. We still don't have our luggage, but we are home and comfortable and recovering from all the stress and jet lag.

Thank you so much for your prayers, your concern, and all of your words of comfort and assurance. Such a blessing.
Merry Christmas,
Cody and Kait