Hello! I am just back from a glorious vacation, and let me tell you, I am going to post ALL ABOUT IT. This will take a while.

Also, there are lots of pictures. Lots and lots of pictures. Mostly not taken by me, because I am always too busy looking at stuff to take pictures of it. Thankfully, my most excellent sister is a shutterbug.

The trip started off early, up at 4:40 am for a flight from Houston to Charlotte. Here is Yggdrasil from the Houston airport:

I really rather like that the World Tree is at the airport. That morning, it was full of very sleepy people.

(Another thing I love about the airport: the Rosetta Stone vending machine.)

That flight was fine. I didn’t let myself sleep, in preparation for an international, overnight flight. I landed in Charlotte, and my sister picked me up.

We then took the Standard Sister Roundabout Theatre, including a pop into a watch shop for a battery during the exact 3 minutes during which it poured down rain. We got to my mother’s house just in time to speed-chew a sandwich while my mother jumped up and down that we needed to leave.

Back to the airport! Two hours before an international flight, and we made it through security in approx. 9.4 seconds. Which left time for this:

I had a melon mojito – quite nice.

Then onto our cramped, tubular home for the next 12 hours. I sat next to Mr. Elbow. Mr. Elbow was very nice, but extremely elbowy. The teenagers behind us were vociferous AND pestiferous.

As an extra-special bonus, we sat on the runway for an hour and a half. I hope my sister will weigh in and remind me WHY we did so.

After a long night’s flight, including The King’s Speech with all the curse words bleeped out, a truly horrible dinner roll, and running commentary from the voci/pestiferous children, we missed our flight to Venice by 5 minutes.

<insert ARGH>

I will be honest here and say that I do not love the Frankfurt airport. It is too big, hideous, and impossible to find a straight path from one place for another. But the last time I was there, in 2007, the smoking pens were open to the air. Now they put the smokers inside plexiglass observation cubes.

My mother made a LOT of phone calls to Norwegian Cruise Lines. Mr. Ed was filled with gloom. Ms. Julie encouraged us to keep trying to make our way to our destination.

We had a meal at this spot:

I think it helped. Also, I have a policy to trying apple sodas when possible. Preferably when said sodas have liquor in them.

So we flew to Munich, and I wish I had a picture, because it’s a lovely airport, with floor-to-ceiling windows (and so few horrible lights), minimal announcements, and NO annoying background music. A very restful place.

Then our flight to Venice was delayed by 45 minutes. We started to get rather gloomy. My mother made a lot more phone calls.

We boarded an Air Dolomiti flight. The seats were wide and comfortable. The flight attendants wore sharp blue suits. The wine was free and came in actual glasses. !!

We landed in Venice. We jumped up and down next to the luggage carousel. We ran out to the pickup area to find a tiny lady, Italian Hotness, and a serious young man on the phone.

“Will we make it?” I asked the young man. He said yes.

We walked – when we wanted to be running – to a minivan, where Italian Hotness drove like a crazy person. We got to the port. We got out of the minivan. We got back in the minivan. We drove through a gate. We almost side-swiped a forklift. We ran over a cardboard box. We screeched to a halt next to an 18-inch-long gangplank about 3 cm above the waterline. We yelled sentimental things at the hot driver.

We ran up the gangplank. We threw our bags through the x-ray machine.

It was 4:59.

The ship left the dock at 5:02.

We were on it.