Italy.

was. beautiful--

but not without some drama, to say the least (:

when we got to rome's airport, mary and i realized that both of our bags were not on the conveyor belt.  we filed a claim with the airline (along with a handful of other passengers from the same flight in the same situation).  with high hopes that it'd come perhaps on the next flight, we stayed at the airport for another 3 hours.

they didn't come.

we were told that the bags would probably come by the next day, and that they'd be forwarded to the hotel we'd be staying at.  without a choice we gave the hotel's address and headed in for the night.  one day, no biggie.

to make a long story short, our bags never came while we were in italy.
every day we had our concierge desks (3 hotels total) call alitalia (worst. airline. ever! DO NOT fly with them.) in hopes of tracking our bags.  we got mixed answers every day -- from the bags not being physically located, one out of two found with the others' status unknown, both located and told that they'd be sent to our next hotel in florence...then venice... every day we'd come back, anxious to see if our bags had come, and every day we were let down.  without a choice, on our last day, we asked that our bags be sent to the states.  even then the status of our bags were still ambiguous.  all the international calls we had to make to our insurance company, the airlines, finding wi-fi to use the internet, write emails.... so many unnecessary headaches, so much steam boiling inside of us...on this wonderful vacation that we decided to take.  thank god for the spanish steps, as we'd grab beers and hang out there at night, because being cooped up in our hotel room after hearing that our bags had not come yet again was a little heartbreaking.

not having our belongings definitely took a slight toll on us -- our pretty dresses, basic necessities, i wasn't feeling so well when we first got to amsterdam / rome and my medicines were all in my luggage.. things that you prepare for / take into consideration while packing to make things comfortable on a trip, all up in the air.  it was such an inconvenience!  my camera charger was in there too, so my camera died basically the first day (mary had her camera's charger with her, pictures to come later).

but we did our best, and didn't let it ruin our trip.
we hand washed our clothes with soap, and used the hairdryers to dry them.  bought basic necessities, and just...winged it.  we didn't buy too much abroad because we sincerely thought that our things would come the next day.
basically we saw rome, siena, florence, and venice ALL in one day (;

we didn't miss any of our planned tours, and stuck to our original schedules.  i'm pretty proud of us.  we left italy not sure if we'd get our things back at all..  we even took off friday so that we could go to the airline's supposed office to let up a storm, only to find out that the airline's address was solely a mailroom, and no such corporate office existed at that address.  we quit being on hold after being informed that the call wait would be 40+ minutes.  hung up, and got bloody mary's instead.

a part of me thinks that all of this happened for a reason -- it made me realize how possessions can be replaced, and even if some can't, there are more important things; possessions are possessions, and at the end of the day, we're still blessed in the sense that what we did have was still a lot more than what a lot of other people in the world have.

definitely was a humbling experience, and we left with still a beautiful impression of italy.  came back to the city without our belongings, but accepted that all we could do was hope, and wait.

mary just got a call today from JFK, saying that both of our bags were in their possession, and would be delivered today.

(:

what's not to love.