My fever broke at the perfect time, right before The Star Wars Symphony Orchestra and our two week trip to Italy and France. Chris and I left my house in London (Chris carrying the backpack-4-two) and went on our way to the tube and then Easy Bus which took us to the airport (located in the London boonies).
We checked our backpack at the Ryanair desk and went to exchange currency and find something to eat. Unfortunately for Chris the Canadian Dollar to Euro exchange rate sucks. We had a few minutes to eat before we had to go past security check so we stuffed our faces with Burger King (bad idea).
We passed security and ended up in this huge "mall" of some sort. We checked the board for our flight but it wasn't even listed...uh oh. Our boarding pass said it would close the gate at a particular time and we had about 5 minutes to find our boarding gate. This place looked like a mall! Stores everywhere, no flight customer service to talk to. We had no idea where to go. We began wandering the place with me beginning to lose my temper. We walked toward one boarding gate, nope that wasn't ours. I started jogging through this mall looking for some indication of where our boarding gate might be all the while yelling at Chris that we better not miss this flight or I would lose it (like one of those couples from The Amazing Race). In Chris' confused voice, "Why are you yelling at me?" Chris noticed a few Italian destination flights at one particular location - so we sprinted there. We found a customer service desk where a lady urgently told us what gate to go to for our flight to Rome. We made it to the line sweating and panting...yes there was a line, they didn't close the gate like they warned they would on the boarding pass, we made it.
With passports checked we walked out to the tarmac and boarded the plane. Being the last few passengers on board we managed to only get seats next to each other separated by an aisle and no window seat. The flight was alright, nothing like Air Canada that's for sure. Funny thing is, since flying with Ryanair is so cheap the stewards' stand in the aisle every 10 minutes or so trying to sell something (scratch tickets, perfume, food, etc)!
After about an hour and a half the pilot was planning to land in Ciampino airport but there were severe thunderstorms (causing turbulence, resulting in me hoping that Burger King would stay in my stomach). The pilot attempted to land again but the weather was unbearable - not to mention the turbulance and the circuling around the airport! Images of "Lost" kept popping into my head. We got diverted to Fiumicino airport instead and managed a train to our hostel in Rome, getting there at 1 in the morning! Atleast we arrived safely!
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