Too excited to sleep, I woke up bright and early on Thursday morning at 5 a.m. (despite sleeping close to 12 midnight the night before) to do some last minute packing. I went through my list that I had prepared the day earlier to make sure I didn't leave any important stuff out. Penny woke up a while later and joined me in the packing after washing herself up. We were all set to go when Velouria woke up, insisting that she go to the airport with us.
So off we went! Praise the Lord a cabbie was just moving off as we reached the carpark, saving me the trouble of running out to the main road to hail one. We reached the airport slightly behind schedule, but still managed to get the seats we wanted at the check in counter. The flight wasn't full so we had the luxury of switching seats later. A quick breakfast, a short prayer with Velouria and several hugs and kisses later, we made our way into the departure area eager to get onto the plane. It was going to be a 13 hour flight, with a 2 hour transit in Munich before hopping onto another 2 hour flight to Naples. We couldn't wait to shut our eyes as we didn't get much sleep the night before - we wanted to be fully rejuvenated to take on Naples!
The plane took off as scheduled. As soon as the plane levelled, the snacks and drinks came out. We finished it quickly and proceeded to find some empty seats around us to get some shut eye. It wasn't long before lunch was served. Penny was too tired to eat so I gobbled down my beef and potatoes and went back to sleep. I awoke a while later with the first in flight movie, The Nanny Diaries, already screening. Penny was already up watching the movie so I got my headset connected and joined her.
With nothing much left to do after the movie ended, we both went back to sleep. I awoke again a few hours later with the second in-flight movie, Get Smart, already screening. I jumped back into my seat to put my headset on. Towards the end, Penny woke up and joined me as well. We were both hungry by the time the movie ended, so we headed towards the back of the plane where there was a mini buffet going on. Nothing fancy, but wonder of wonders, they had Nissin Cup Noodles! We cooked a cup each, grabbed a couple of sandwiches and some juice, and headed back to our seats to wolf everything down.
It was back to snoozeland after our little snack. But we couldn't sleep much and we awoke a while later as dinner came. We didn't have much space in our stomach left so se just nibbled a bit here and there. The last in flight movie, Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull, filled up the time between our dinner and the end of the flight.
Before we knew it, we touched down in Munich! After we got off the plane, we gave a quick call home (it was 10:25 p.m. Singapore time) just to hear Velouria's voice and proceeded to mill around the airport. The airport was structured in such a way that we had to go past immigration to catch our connecting flight to Naples at the departure hall one floor down, so we thought we might as well go out and breathe some German air. And boy was it cold! It sort of caught us unprepared so we made it snappy, retreating into the building again before we froze our fingers off! We headed into the departure hall again to do some shopping (we found, to our greatest delight, Vel's frog stuff toy that she'd lost - Penny bought it from Frankfurt a couple of years back and we suspect our maid Estella packed it with her when she left for home). We also had some time to stop by a food court for some juice, a cup of yoghurt and a sausage - costing us a frigging €13! 
After what seemed like eternity, our flight to Naples was ready for boarding. The crew served us a little snack of a sandwich and chocolate - we couldn't stomach the sandwich as the bread was rock hard and the ham too salty for our palates, but decided to keep the chocolate for later consumption. We landed slightly ahead of time and - praise the Lord - didn't wait long for our baggage. There was no immigration to clear, so it was straight to the arrival hall to look out for a guy holding a sign with my name on it. He found us in a jiffy (we must have stuck out like sore thumbs) and whisked us away into his vehicle.
As the limo made its way into the city, the reality started to sink in - we were in Italy! The streets were pretty dead for that time of the night (about 9pm) though we did see a few pizzerias still open and countless Vespas zipping by. We reached the hotel within 15 minutes and checked into our room. We emptied our toiletries from our bag, proceeded to take our shower and prepare for bed.Needless to say, we were dead beat after being on the move for almost 20 hours. But we couldn't wait to hit the streets in the morning after having our breakfast bright and early at 7:30 a.m.
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