I grew up during the cold war era. Vietnam wasn't that far behind us as a nation and the history books were still being written. It would be almost two decades before the internet began it's assault on our culture. As a result, a lot of the mental images I had from historical events were basically the same dozen important pictures taken by war correspondents from National Geographic, or Newsweek reporters. One of those images was from the fall of Saigon, which shows crowds of people piling up a rickety ladder to try and get on the final helicopter before the North Vietnamese overran the city. This is the image that played in my mind the morning we were leaving from Naples.... But lets start with the hours leading up to our escape.
We woke up sometime around 2:30 AM, and met in the lobby. The first shuttle bus consisted mostly of our family and only a few others from our group. Ursula being the consummate professional that she was, met us in the lobby to see us off. It was sweet. We crammed into the small shuttle and drove briskly through the darkened streets toward Naples. It was a fairly uneventful drive, but nothing about a 3AM car ride feels memorable. Arriving at the airport, I immediately felt an inexplicable dread. Something was just "off". It felt like the previous owners of the airport had been chased away, and a bunch of townsfolk decided to just occupy random counters. Nobody seemed to know how to do ANYTHING, and everything was in some state of disrepair... At one point I found my way to the worst bathroom I'd seen on the entire trip. It was fouI and I felt like I shouldn't even be in there. The whole place felt like if the "Fyre Festival" was an airport.
Despite arriving at 4AM, it felt like we might either entirely miss, or just barely make our flight. The feeling of urgency increased with each passing moment. Sweat trickled down my back and my stomach turned in knots. Everyone was already exhausted and we had barely even begun the trip... Eventually, the only airline representative in the entire Naples region checked us in and we began the mad dash to the plane. We were given no gate info, so we were just running aimlessly through the airport, following the General (who incidentally blessed me with his sense of direction). We found our way to the "security area" which was an absolute circus. Actually, a circus would've been an improvement. There is some understanding of the natural order of things in a circus because often there is an actual "ring-leader". This was a room full of sweaty international travelers who speak several different languages being shouted at in Italian, and crushing their way through the gates as though they were at a concert, or escaping a burning building. It was insane.
At one point we adopted an "every man for himself" approach, instead of trying to move as a 9 person entity. As each group made it through, they tried to shout the gate info at the others. The humidity was oppressive, there was no circulation and the clock only seemed to tick faster as we hustled to the next obstacle, which was a holding pen where we would be let on to busses which would drive us out to the tarmac. We all managed to squeeze onto the last bus and arrived at our airplane with only moments to spare. We crammed into our seats and prayed that the plane would turn on the air conditioning, and that we would take off before the sun really started to cook this sweaty container of Neapolitan refugees.
It was a short 2 1/2 hour flight to Paris where we would then endure a 9 hour layover. At this point, I must confess to being an unreliable narrator of events. The lack of sleep, combined with general exhaustion from the weeks events made the ensuing hours feel dreamlike. I can tell you for sure that the following things happened... We passed through customs uneventfully and wandered our way to the terminal which would become our home for the day. It was clean, and had an assortment of extremely high-end boutiques, as well as a few mediocre options for food. It was still early morning when we arrived and it felt like everything was just opening up. We arranged ourselves in one general "home base" area and everyone went about their business. After some food, and rehydration I found a comfortable spot to lay down and promptly passed out like a homeless drunk right underneath the information screens.
The boys spent about 5-6 hours shopping for cologne, which was cute but exhausting. My dad bought a fancy pair of sunglasses. I eventually dragged myself off the floor and wandered around people watching. Our particular terminal seemed to be a connection for lots of flights to and from West Africa. The Senegalese, Nigerian and Ghanaian business class absolutely put us to shame in terms of their brightly colored, immaculate style. We were in Paris and I felt 100% like a fat, sweaty, ignorant American. I didn't linger on this thought for too long, but this was the voice playing in the back of my head as I browsed the upscale boutiques. The Hermes store had an actual leather horse saddle in it! Hey Hermes, my culture ISN'T a costume!!!! Seriously though, what kind of psycho buys a horse saddle at an airport in Paris!?!?!
The hours dragged on, and eventually Christie and I decided it was a reasonable time for a cocktail... I marveled at the sushi counter, which sported one of those tracks where dishes are fed around and you pick what you want. Horse saddles, cologne, and sushi... This place had it ALL! Despite the fact that we were close to boarding, I figured I'd try a little bit of this. It looked fine, and after all we were in Paris. How bad could it ---- Oh god. Oh it's bad. It sucked. It was like gas-station level sushi. What have I done? I'm about to get on a trans-Atlantic flight and I eat airport sushi? Well, "c'est la vie" ! I found myself in a huge hurry all of the sudden because apparently we were REALLY boarding. I ran to the gate and though I can't recall the details of whatever was happening, in my notes it reads: "Dad mad at Rose and us. We cut the line and Rose got an extra security check. Family fight!!!" Whatever that was just seems like the result of us all being together nonstop for 9 days, and processing the trauma of Naples. Au revoir Paris!
The return trip seemed far less hospitable for some reason. There was no bottomless vodka. We found ourselves trying very hard to make friends with our flight attendant, and drank double servings of champagne whenever she passed. At one point I noticed that the woman a row ahead of me and across the aisle had an exposed, bandaged foot. It was disgusting. Her floor was also littered with bloody bandages. The picture below is the least disgusting of those I took. I suddenly felt way better about my personal hygiene, but utterly contemptuous and disgusted by her.
The plane was cold, and sickness among our group had taken hold. Whereas my sister is usually the one providing medical supplies on our journeys, this time it was Christie who became "Dr. Quinn Medicine Woman". She had all manner of powders and pills and was dispersing them all around our group. At some point Rosie received word that Aphrodite, our adopted companion on the tour group, had gotten stuck in Naples. What a nightmare? We would hear from her via Rosie throughout the flight and felt bad for her. I would not wish that on my worst enemy. I was suddenly infinitely thankful to be shivering and staring at a strangers bloody foot while drinking cheap champagne.
That's Rose under the blanket.
We landed in Detroit after about 9 hours and dragged ourselves through the customs area. It wasn't busy. We were all tired and hungry, but the Boyne City Vadnais still had a solid 4 hour drive ahead. This was probably the hardest and most dangerous drive of my life and my biggest regret is that I didn't just get a hotel. We had been in motion since 2:30 AM the previous day. Time gets really weird when I try to figure out what day it even was now. Sure, I took a few naps here and there, but didn't have any significant amount of restorative sleep since the day we got to Sorrento.
We said our goodbyes and loaded into the car at dusk. We grabbed some fast food and waters for the big push North. The weather was clear, thankfully. But after a couple of hours I began to feel the tug of human biology. Road hypnosis was creeping in. We were past the point of no return around West Branch when it really got bad. I was doing everything I could to stay awake. We stopped for red bull, and espresso and anything caffeinated. I would stop several more times just to get the blood moving in my body. Christie stayed up with me the whole time and I firmly believe that is the only reason we aren't represented by a series of roadside crosses on I-75 today. We passed through the stage of delirium, passed the stage of slap-happy silliness. We went through fear and regret but never anger. We were in a hallucinatory state of acceptance around Grayling when I decided that I had to blast aggressive metal with the windows open. This was medicinal metal and every passing second was a bargain with God himself. We HAD to make it. Our puppies were counting on us...
Eventually by some miracle we pulled safely into the driveway. It was well past midnight and I had no concept of what day or night it was. Time had stretched itself immeasurably thin on this return trip. I would be lying if I said that I had an ounce of reflection about anything at all at this point. My neurons were dull and stomped on. I had no more adrenaline. I was cooked. We crawled into bed and let ourselves drift into the darkness. We were home...
The next morning we got our dogs back. It was sunny, and I have no notes. I think it took another couple of days for our brains to turn back on. And it took about 6 months for me to engage with the voluminous notes and hundreds of photos I took. This was an amazing trip and we all look back on this week with fond memories. I realize also that there are 9 versions of this trip because I really just told this from my perspective and my notes. But as each member of the tour group reads this, you might remember something I forgot, or didn't experience at all. I would encourage all of you to leave comments on any of these passages with your own memories! Ciao!
There will be a post-script coming eventually... We'll revisit some stuff about Ursula, Guiseppe, Aphrodite, and some of the other characters and elements which would've derailed the narrative flow of the previous passages.
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