You have HOW MANY bags?

April 7, 2007

Just to be up front about this, we never travel light. Ever.

Carol, Ed, BJ and I were arriving in Rome a day ahead of the players and coaching staff and Carol had already called ahead to let our host, Maria Christina, know that even though there were only four of us, there would be many, many, many big bags. We needed a short bus or a luggage truck.

"Yes, yes, no problem!"

Well, since we had a total of 34 checked bags (thankfully two never arrived that day, including the oversized training table), in addition to our large carry ons, there was a BIG problem. They sent a driver to pick us up in a large nine-passenger van. It was big and boxy, but not nearly big enough for our bags. No matter how hard we tried, they just weren't going in .

It became even more comic when some of the skycaps' people came to watch. We dubbed one guy the supervisor because he stood behind the bags smoking and pointing. We've all had to load bags into small spaces – we have issues with an entire team and buses on a regular basis – and attempted to assist in the loading. Nope, they were like three-year-olds and wanted to do it all by themselves.

Nothing was being stacked, everything went in all willy-nilly and therefore even less would fit in the van.

However, the driver called one of his friends with another ban of the same size and after another half hour or so of shoving, packing, repacking, etc., we finally had all the bags in the vans and, miraculously, still had room to fit the four of us ... barely.

As an after note, when the bulk of players and coaches showed up on Saturday, most of them were loaded onto a bus. However, we still had four who were coming later so BJ and I hung out at the airport and waited. This being Easter weekend, you can only imagine how busy the Rome airport was and more bags were lost. There was a driver sent for three of the players (the fourth person had missed his connection thanks to delays out of COS – shocker – and wasn't on the pick up list), but he was driving a sedan, one with a normal trunk. Thankfully (although not for them) some of the bags didn't arrive otherwise we'd be taking a cab full of bags back to the hotel in addition to the car.