Italy - Day 3

We're finally here! We left Provo at 4 a.m. on Sunday morning. My parents, Baylie and I caught a flight from Salt Lake to Houston at 6:35. (David was on a confirmed ticket to leave Monday and didn't have to worry about getting bumped off the flight. We left a day early since Monday's flights were full.) My parents got first class and I was alone with Baylie in economy (as a pass rider, she can't fly first until she's 7 years old). Fortunately, she slept the whole way. Movie: "Escape to Witch Mountain," cute, but I'm glad I didn't pay to see it.

Once in Houston, we got bumped off two flights before making the third. We were all in economy class, but my mom and I got to sit together. It was a good thing because Baylie was super active - good, but active. We got to Newark around 8 p.m. We were actually glad we were spending a night in Newark instead of continuing on to Italy the same day. That would have been hard on Baylie. It was nice to get a good night's sleep. Movie: "17 Again," okay, but not that great.

David joined us Monday night for our flight to Italy. He said the flight from Houston had been so full they had to compensate customers so they would wait and take a later flight, so it was good we had left the day before. My parents flew BusinessFirst (Continental's front cabin on international flights) and the rest of us were in economy. We got to sit in the bulkhead row and it had a bassinet, so once Baylie finally fell asleep we were able to lay her down. It was a nice break for my tired arms. The flight was just over 8 hours, but it didn't seem that long. I didn't actually make it through a single movie.

Once we got to Malpensa airport it was an eternal, very hot, very expensive, bus ride to the Milan central train station where we caught a train to Pavia. The train was only about 25 minutes. My parents checked into their hotel and the rest of us headed to the dorm. It's definitely a dorm with two twin beds, but it's got a little kitchen and private bathroom, so it's all good. We were going to take a quick nap, but it turned into several hours. By then we had missed dinner and ended up dining on saltines...not what I had envisioned for my first dinner in Italy. Worst of all is the swarms of mosquitos. Italian mosquitos are vicious!

But we're safe, sound, clean, cooled off and all is well. Tomorrow Baylie, my parents and I head for Munich, Germany, to see the Dachau concentration camp and then on to Salzburg, Austria. After that we're going to see the catacombs in Rome (we've already seen the other sights there) and then we head back to Pavia. Hopefully we make all our flights! That's the hardest part about flying standby.

Baylie's been a real trooper, but her clock is still on U.S. time which is proving very interesting. Best of all, she got her first stamp in her passport!