Finally made it to Torino!

After leaving our new home in Fritzlar at 6:15pm on Thursday, taking an hour and a half train to Frankfurt and an hour bus ride we made it to the Frankfurt Hahn airport around 10:30pm Thursday night only to have to wait until 6:55am Friday morning to board our hour and fifteen minute flight to Bergamo, Italy. The wait in the airport was an experience to say the least. We thought it would be worth it to save the money and sleep in the airport, well not at this airport it wasn’t. It was cold and packed with people. We started off with a nice spot to “camp out” for the night at a table with a plug in so we could watch movies on our laptop but that area was quickly shut down after we were all set up and comfortable. So needless to say, there were no places left, no empty chairs and they had bars along most of the walls so you couldn’t even sit up against them. After about an hour of circling the airport we found our “home base” for the next 5 hours. It was the “cozy” little nook of an abandoned MasterCard booth. (See picture below) The floor was dirty and ice cold but we didn’t have much choice. We made the best of it by unpacking jackets to sit on and the Schultz travel pillow came in handy as well. (Thanks Harvey and Betty!) Once the first cafe shop opened up, we were their first customers, longing for the warm cushioned booth. So we had a butter croissant, some delicious yogurt and two HeiBe Schokolade to warm up our bodies from the inside out. Once we made it to Bergamo, it was a quick 5 minutes after we grabbed our bags that we were aboard our second bus, this time to the Milano Centrale Stazione. The traffic was crazy busy which allowed our bus driver to text on his cell the whole time! (picture below;picture of a building I took while on the bus) When we arrived at Milano Centrale Stazione we then boarded our second train which after an hour and a half let us off at our final destination, Torino. (Picture of the Swiss Alps from the train. Beautiful!) We found Zia Teresa and Zio Mimmo right away and were showered with kisses. It was SO good to see family. They were very excited to see us, it was very memorable! I am so happy to finally be in Italy, a dream come true for me (Laura). I am really looking forward to seeing the sites and then to be able to see where my grandma grew up. I wish she was here with me...maybe this summer.