On Monday our flight wasn't until 1:30pm so we didn't have to leave to early we were able to sleep in a little bit. Once we got going though we decided to get to the airport a little early and grab a bit to eat since our flight times were right around lunch. We got there in plenty of time to go to Chili's and eat and hang out for just a little bit.
Then we boarded our first flight from Minneapolis to Chicago. Once we got to Chicago we had about an hour layover. So we got off the plane and looked at the monitors to see what gate we were at. Well the monitor had all the information for our flight and telling us it was on time. The only thing it didn't tell us was what gate we were going out of. Luckily a delta worker was standing behind us and overheard us talking about what we needed to do. He came up and asked us where we were headed and when we told him to Italy he informed us that we had to go out of security get on the tram and go to another terminal. So we set off on the journey to Terminal 5.
Once we got there we had to get new boarding passes, we were switching from Delta to Air France, and go back through security. I wanted a little snack for the flight and there was a store right outside of security but I decided to wait till we made it through security. However when we made it through security there was only vending machines and a small little vender selling a few things. So we grabbed a little something there and waited for our flight from Chicago to Paris.
The flight wasn't bad, much better than coming back to the states, I was able to sleep most of the way. Once we landed in Paris we only had an hour to make our connection, we didn't think it was going to be bad until the plane stopped out in the middle of now where and we had to take a bus to the terminal. The bus ride was not the best thing in the world, we were all standing and the bus driver liked to slam on the breaks and make super sharp turns.
We made our connection for our last flight from Paris to Naples. I slept most of the flight so it wasn't too bad. Once we landed in Naples we were a little late but not too bad. We made it down to baggage claim and waited with everyone else for our checked luggage. I had been worried the whole day that our stuff wasn't going to make it and my worries came true. We waited for about 30 minutes or so and it never came around the conveyor belt. At this point I was sick to my stomach because in our luggage was Christmas presents from my family, all our clothes, then 2 of the bags had our brand new ski boots and all our ski clothes in them and the last bag had our new skis in it.
We went to the lost baggage area and set up a claim for our missing 5 bags. We had to describe all of them and they gave us some numbers to call if they didn't show up for a few days. She also told us that they should be on the flight from Paris the next day and if they were the airport would give us a call.
The next day we waited for a phone call from the airport and by 1:30 we hadn't heard from them so John gave them a call. They said they hadn't seen them yet but they would know a little more in a couple of hours. At 3:00 we got a call saying our luggage was at the airport, the guy on the phone only spoke Italian so there was some difficulty understanding him, John finally understood where we needed to pick our bags up from so we headed to the airport. Once we got there they informed us that only 3 of our bags had made it. John had to go with a representative and get them through customs. We were excited to know that the 3 most important bags had made it. The bags were our 2 big suitcases with presents and clothes then the other bag was our ski bag. The guy told John that the other 2 bags should be in the next day at the same time.
At 3:00 the next day we got another call saying our luggage had made it. So we headed back to the airport and when we got there only one other bag had made it. We were hoping it was my boot bag because it had all our ski clothes in it also. When John was able to go get the bag he came up with my boot bag. We were relieved to know that the only thing we were missing now was John's boots and a couple other little things. We were also told again that it should be here the next day same time.
Well the next day at 3:00 we got another phone call from the airport and our last bag had finally made it. We went and picked it up both happy that they were all back with us and nothing had been damaged.
So needless to say it was a stressful couple of days after we got back hoping all our stuff would make it.
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