Looks like the Husband was having fun, no? After realizing that I had written down the wrong time for our flight to Rome from Munich and that the train ride from Munich to the airport would not be quick, we were rushing and stressing to get to the airport on time Running through the airport (a la Home Alone), we arrived at the Alitalia check-in counter to zero lines.  The flight had been cancelled! And not cancelled that day – cancelled weeks ago and no one told us!

Alitalia is code shared with Air France and KLM and one of their agents rebooked us on the next flight six hours later.  We received a food voucher and headed on our way to hunker down for a few hours.

Luckily, we were in Germany and there was beer, pretzels and sausages   And we brought travel board games!

After a few hours hanging out, we decided to walk around the airport and headed out to the Christmas Market (even the airport has a Christmas Market!).  We found this ginormous Foosball table! How big are the teams that play on this!?!?!

About two hours prior to our rescheduled flight we headed back to the check-in counters and found out we couldn’t check in before a certain time.  We got in line behind a handful of Italians, Americans, and other Europeans waiting for check-in to start.  As it got closer and closer, more people joined the line.  When it finally seemed like we should have checked in already, they announced that this flight was CANCELLED! For no apparent reason.

This was when chaos (in my mind) began.  Apparently, Italians don’t believe in lines so a mass exodus to the customer service desks emerged.  It turned into 3 semi-lines but there were clear individuals butting in and out of lines trying to get in front of others.  There were no Alitalia reps there and only the lovely Air France and KLM customer service individuals.  They worked their hardest to get through all of the people.

After about an hour or so, we got to the front of our line and got rescheduled on a Brussels Air flight to Brussels and then to Rome.  The rep walked with us to Brussels Air to ensure that our tickets were booked and that our luggage was checked.  Both of the individuals we worked with here were amazing!  We had to hurry though as the flight was boarding.  We went through security, used our food voucher as quickly as possible (we weren’t allowed to use them in the pre-security section ), and jumped on the plane to Brussels.

Brussels Air was great!  We highly recommend them if you find an opportunity to take them.  We spent about a half hour in the Brussels airport before boarding our flight to Rome.  This flight had many Italians and after spending so much time in Germany and Austria, where order is key, it was a bit difficult to adjust to the less ordered environment.

After another relatively quick flight, we arrived in Rome.  And then we waited. And waited, And waited.  Until our luggage finally came.  Luckily, the Husband’s brother was patiently waiting and we were finally in Rome to start our holiday with his family.  If only we hadn’t spent nearly 12 hours in airports and on planes to fly what should have been about two hours.  But at least we were there!