I'm bouncing around, acting more like a three year old on too much sugar and an overload of Dora the Explorer...I have tickets to Milan for the 11th of March and...drum roll , please... they were $558 per person from Anchorage! This is our first child-free vacation in 14 years & first time back to Italy since late 97. Normal, sensible people would be reserving hotels and researching rental car deals. Not falling into that category, I'm making myself a new hat and contemplating a second. If I weren't too old and too fat, I'd be flipping cartwheels in the snow.
Amelia
Posts: 92 | Location: Alaska | Registered: 24 November 2003
wow! good deal, Amelia! did you get your tickets from Cheaptickets.com? or travelocity? I'm starting to check into prices for my kids visits to italy and would be interested in knowing... THANX!
sounds like you're gonna have a great time in Milan!
Mine came from the travel agent in town. They had a sign on their marquee reading "RT Anchorage to Paris- $466" so I called and asked if she could find me that deal into Italy. She came up with my tickets and an extra $100 each seemed like a better idea than going into Paris and changing airports to catch a Ryanair flight. I was only finding cheap tickets on the web from the lower 48 & when I added airfare from Anchorage(which is still a 5 hour drive from home) to the departure city those 'cheap' tickets weren't anymore! The best fares I have seen from the lower 48 were through bestfares.com . She could have gotten us into Venice for an even lower price but we weren't flexible on travel dates because of my husband's work schedule.
We are renting a car in Milan and heading east. We will spend the first few days visiting friends and eating at all our favorite places around Pordenone. After that, I'm not sure what we're doing! I just know that it will involve great food, several cases of Mazzolada - some of which I'll even ship home - and lots of time alone together.
Let me know if you would like me to get you the travel agent's number.
Amelia
Posts: 92 | Location: Alaska | Registered: 24 November 2003
Congrats on the great fare Amelia. At first I thought it was for your whole family and was multiplying it by 11 (or is it 12?).
What is the routing from Anchorage? I thought I had it bad flying from Albuquerque. We fly Albuquerque - Atlanta - Rome. From the time we leave the house (1hr 15mins from the airport) to the time we arrive at the Rome hotel, it is 19 hours (leaving 8am from home, arriving 11am in Rome minus 8 hours).
quote:Originally posted by Pauline: Congrats on the great fare Amelia. At first I thought it was for your whole family and was multiplying it by 11 (or is it 12?).
Oh my you have 9+ children? Oh boy do you deserve it! Enjoy!!!
You should all hear the wailing and moaning from the kids. "But why can't we come to Italy too?" Oi! One is even negotiating - "If I can finish the whole Powerglide Italian program this month, can I come too?" I told her that when she could negotiate in Italian we would talk. We may take everybody over next fall if oil dividends are good.
When we move we'll have to multiply the fare but not by quite so many. Our oldest two aren't going to move with us, so I'll only need to buy 9 tickets..or ten if we end up being the family chosen for a little boy whose current adoption is not working out. We're definitely not moving in June.
Pauline, the routing isn't bad. Except for leaving Anchorage at 2 AM. Anchorage-Seattle-Newark-Milan. It's almost exactly 24 hours of travel. Coming home the hours are very civilized. Our flight leaves Malpensa at 10 AM and we are in Anchorage again at 11 PM the same day.
But in general, I plan to wallow in the silence and constant adult company. I will choose restaurants with no children's menu, I will plan day trips without charting the location of every bathroom in a three mile radius of our destination and at 15 minute intervals along the route. I will walk about without wet wipes or graham crackers in my purse. No one will ask me, in any language, if they are all mine or if I perhaps have considered getting a television. I will waltz into restaurants and be seated without an extra five minute wait during which the staff hastily pushes together three tables. And each morning, I will eat a chocolate brioche for breakfast with my cappucino without a moment's thought to the nutritional example I am setting. I still don't know exactly where we are going and what we are doing, but I know I'm going to have a great time in my exceedingly cute new hat!
Amelia
Posts: 92 | Location: Alaska | Registered: 24 November 2003
Amelia, Suddenly my life seems so simple! Only 2 kids. Will you post a picture of the hat when you are finished? Are you knitting it? Congratulations on a plan well-deserved!
elisabet Maine where it has been very cold with no good snow to play in
Posts: 53 | Location: maine | Registered: 23 January 2002
Elisabet - you can tell you and I are the knitters - I was going to ask her the same thing - photo of the hat please!! Steve and I both wore our knitted hats (that I made a few years back) in Rome this winter.
I really want to get back to knitting. I have not knit anything in the past two years.
Amelia - that routing is not bad coming back. We leave Rome at 10am and get to Albuquerque at 8pm. Still, I am barely functional for that Atlanta to Albuquerque flight.
As soon as Dan gets home with the digital camera, I will send a picture of the new hat but you may be dissappointed. It's not knitted. I am an amateur milliner and so it's parasisal. I'm also doing one that is a 'suitcase' hat - it's straw and folds flat to fit in a suitcase. I am a hat addict - the only part of the film "Under the Tuscan Sun" that I loved were the scenes with her hats & the line about hats making her happy. My Easter hat this year is a copy of the Titanic 'boarding hat' with an eight inch brim. Can't wait for the supplies to come. My last knitted hat was supposed to be for a baby but it came out like a cow patterned one of those bags that guys put their dreadlocks up in. Lesson: only use wool so you can shrink it!
Amelia
Posts: 92 | Location: Alaska | Registered: 24 November 2003
Topic Closed
This is our first child-free vacation in 14 years & first time back to Italy since late 97. Normal, sensible people would be reserving hotels and researching rental car deals. Not falling into that category, I'm making myself a new hat and contemplating a second. If I weren't too old and too fat, I'd be flipping cartwheels in the snow.
- and lots of time alone together. 
