Facciamo Buon Viaggio!

Finally, the day has come to move into serious 'travel mode!'  We awoke bright and early on Sunday morning.  We did some last minute packing and clean up around the house and were ready for Fiske and Molly when they came by around 8:30.  Our 'stand by' flight left at 11:30 so we wanted to be at the airport to check in around 10:00.  The 'stand by' status was because we originally had a flight to JFK at 1:25.  After some consideration, we decided that this was cutting it a bit close (arrived at JFK at 3:00 for our 4:30 departure for Milan........so we tried to change our ticket.  For some strange reason, we could not reschedule without cancelling both our New York and Milan segments and rebooking.  We decided this was too risky, so we opted to just try stand by on the earlier flight, as there were plenty of seats left.

Then the story gets more interesting.  The trip to the airport was clear sailing.....only 30 minutes to the Delta terminal.  We said goodbye to Fiske and went right to the separate SkyMiles counter......checked our bags and got our stand by status for the flight.  We were there a bit early and were going to go to the Delta Sky Club lounge, but opted to hang out closer to the gate to talk to the gate agents as soon as they arrived to see how the 'stand by' status looked.  

The gate area was packed and it became clear that quite a few travelers did not yet have seat assignments.  Then they announced that the flight was oversold! To make a long story short, we made to the end of the boarding, and surprisingly we heard our names called.  We went up to the desk and just as he was about to print our boarding pass, two pilots show up and said they had priority to get on the plane due to flight schedules........so we did not make after all (but our bags did).

Fortunately we already had boarding passes for our original flight at 1:30, so we headed off to the Delta lounge and had lunch.  We only had to wait a little over an hour.  We then headed back out to the concourse and found another crowded waiting area.......with the agents asking for volunteers to take a later flight again!  Anyway, we made it on without any issues.

Not a bad dessert tray!

The view looking towards our landing at JFK

All these folks (we counted 57) were actually waiting in line to get into the Delta SkyClub at JFK!  Good thing we did not plan on this!

Most of these folks were headed to Milan! Yikes

Yet when we got to the jetway for boarding........we were alone!  haha, the people behind us were held up for some reason.

The flight left on time and we settled in for the trip.  The first announcement, however, was that the pilot was reporting some turbulence about 1 1/2  hours out........so they were going to service our meal earlier than usual.  The meal was good as was the wine!  Andrea had crab cakes and I had beef short ribs.  In any case, we finished early and never hit any turbulence!  We stretched out and Andrea watched a movie and I did some work and watched some Anthony Bordain episodes!  We tried to drift off into sleep, but nothing would work.  It never does for us!  Finally on our way!