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There are definitely times when I think I have lost some elasticity to bend and stretch with life’s curve balls…..Recent example: getting from Holland to Italy.. Although I am backtracking chronologically,(I am now calmly enjoying island life), this tale needs to be told…

I had to get up at 4:30am so that I could right the wrong I had made with my travel plans….I realized last night that the train to Brussels Airport did NOT leave from Maastricht Airport as I had told my self all week….but from the central train station. (Note to self: Read your itinerary much more carefully and frequently)…It was late enough when I realized this, that there was no way to rearrange dropping the car off in town…(and could I have made myself understood anyway?)…So this morning I had to drive out to the airport, filling up on the way (another story, another embarrassment, another time)…only to find the airport totally empty….nada….nothing open, nobody there….Mild feelings of panic at this point, knowing that I needed to be back in town at the train station to catch the 8:20 train to Brussels airport. I eventually put the car keys in the Hertz key box because I couldn’t figure out how to use the Europcar one; left an apologetic note, and pulled my luggage over to a nearby hotel to ask them to call me a cab…The taxi took 25 minutes to arrive; that wait was unsettling as I was a tad’ on edge ‘ by this time…(I should add that ‘a tad on edge ‘was a comparatively pleasant feeling compared with the ‘complete terror’ I was feeling by 11 am-ish.) Nice taxi driver into town, but lousy price for the twenty minute drive: 35 euro….

At the train station I was ahead of schedule for the one and only time all day…I waited at the track and the train appeared eventually, although it didn’t look like the sleek turbo-express one that I had seen online…No time to enquire; off we went in the old rickety train…I saw a guy reading an English book, and so I asked him if this was indeed the fast train to Brussels…He  ‘LOL’-ed…no… this was the milk run. Oh, and did I know that this trip required 2 separate transfers; one at Lieges and one at central Brussels…My check-in suitcase presently weighs a robust 27.5kg and changing trains meant changing tracks, which involved lugging said suitcase down 5 million steps and then up again onto a different platform…Normally (I’m told) the trains are very precise, which is necessary because the time allowed for getting into the next train on the different platform is 10 to 12 minutes! Well, our train to Lieges halted in the middle of nowhere for 12 minutes…..Connection missed… Now suffering from uncomfortable palpitations….

Finally found out (with the help of the guy from the Maastricht train who was also heading to the airport) on which platform, and at what time, the next connection was…While we were waiting on the ’correct’ platform…it (the platform number) changed… with no explanation …twice ….Full blown panic attack…Thankfully, our train did eventually turn up on the third platform, though it was late arriving and leaving…Realization setting in….am about to miss yet another connection, this one from Brussels to the airport…Praying for bad weather so flight is delayed…The next train delivered us at the airport at 11:30; my flight was leaving at noon…Now in tears and visibly shaking…..Got to the check-in knowing demon-suitcase was several kg over the limit. Even as the seconds ticked, they re-routed me to another desk to pay up. The only good part was that they didn’t check my also- overweight-carryon…Brussels Airline demands lower luggage weights than any of the other carriers I am travelling, bless them….

I took off to the gate, which I figure was near the other end of Belgium; it couldn’t have been farther away from the entrance . I was the last person to embark… Hadn’t had the clarity to take any ‘airplane-ativan’ (I have a significant fear of flying)…so swallowed one as we taxied to the runway…Obviously useless for take off; the scariest time for me… It was a turbulent 2 hr 15 min flight, but I managed to land the plane with exquisite telepathic control. Next had to get to the ‘Porto’ to catch my ferry connection. Scooted about asking at various bus places which one went that way; waited impatiently, but quietly, in line. The bus did come and it did get me there with exactly 27 mins left before sailing.

A ‘slight’ problem arose because I hadn’t actually been able to print the ticket from my online ticket purchase…I became quite unpopular in the line-up: fumbling with my bags trying to get at my laptop and turn it on; grovelling to the crowd behind me in fractured-Italian; all to show the guy that I had indeed bought my ticket…The boarding pass was issued and I tugged the bags over to the ferry at Dock #3. The ride is about 30 minutes, and I slept for 29 of them…Just pooched….Arrived at the lovely little port of Procida, under hot and sunny skies.…I had a map with directions for getting to my room at the Tirreno Hotel and had decided against a taxi, because the damn map made it look like a brief walk….In truth, it was over 2 km and every step of it uphill.…I repeatedly stopped, sitting on my suitcase, to have a swig from my water bottle,  (all in an effort to look normal while I remembered how to breathe again) as cars, scooters, taxis and buses flew by me. I also managed the odd gulp of air each time I plastered myself against the high side wall (in the hope of saving myself from a direct hit)….At the Tirreno reception I finally gave myself a quiet little pat on the back; clever me…I’d done it…

Silly me…nearly, but not quite…The owner, with whom I had conversed a bit online while booking the room, was so glad I had made it, that he insisted on taking me on a tour of the extensive lemon-tree gardens and up many more steps to see the two separate sundecks, each on a different roof. Even in my diminished state, I had to admit these offered outstanding panoramic views.

Then the room key was mine…..A stressful day … The wheels on my big suitcase had entirely lost their rubber somewhere on the uphill cobble climb….so ‘pulling’ is out and ‘dragging’ is in…But for the next five days that suitcase stays in the closet, without food, in the hope that it will lose some weight.

These are a few images from the Floriade (The World Horticultural Fair in Velno, Netherlands).  I explored several countrys’ pavilions and their ‘green’ creations, on my last day in Maastricht.