...Rome (via Prestwick)

Saturday 6/11

Today was a traveling day, but all roads led eventually to Rome.  We drove from Motherwell to Prestwick, where previous generations of Scottish families boarded fights to emigrate to the US and Canada.  Today Prestwick is the hub for Ryan Air, with dirt-cheap tickets to European destinations, but a million ways to get extra money from its patrons (as earlier blog alluded to). If you don’t print your own boarding pass, for example, they charge 40 pounds to print one for you.  But the most amazing thing is that the boarding pass is simply that – a pass to allow you board the plane.  There is no seat allocation!! 

So…  you can imagine it I am sure. Once you have navigated through security, and sit in what can only be described as a giant bar (the departure lounge), a line begins to form at the pass-through to the gate LONG before the flight is called.  You only get to the gate via a long corridor, and from there you pass directly onto the plane – first come, first served as far as seats are concerned!!

Now there is a way to circumvent the mayhem, and this is something some of you will want to store for future reference.  Make sure you are traveling with an old boy who needs wheelchair assistance.

With this hidden weapon, you are “collected” almost before the line forms, are escorted through all the official “barriers”, arriving at the actual gate (beyond the doors that can only be opened by someone with a smart key), where you wait until everyone else has boarded the flight, BUT… your carry-on luggage has already been taken on for you and stowed away before the mass hordes maraud onto the plane, AND you have assigned seats.  YEAH!

More about the journey from the airport in Rome to the apartment later. Now there's a story. For now,  It’s almost midnight and Jim has just gotten back “home” with pizza and a bottle of Chianti.  Cheers!