The difficult final leg

The final leg of the journey had been painful.  We arrived at the airport in Bari and everything seemed fine.  All of this started to change when we went to the car rental agency.  The car they had for us was slightly smaller than what we were expecting.  It was still a mid sized car, so we thought it would be fine. There was nothing larger in any event, so it would have to do.  Next we struggled with our luggage to the car park.  After several bag falls and trolley jams, we arrived at the car.  Here was where the true pain started.  Everything seemed fine until my attempts to load our luggage into the car.

It didn't fit.

I felt a wave of panic.  What was I going to do.  We didn't have "that" much luggage.  We had two large bags, a couple of hand carry bags and a baby bag.  What made it all difficult was the baby seat we had to include as part of the rental and the stroller.  Together, it still didn't seem that much, but it was just slightly too much from every attempt I tried to load the car.  Every change I attempted resulted in the same outcome, being off by only inches.

It was at this point, that baby decided that he had completely had enough.  It had been tough and tiring traveling for him.  He had been an incredible traveler up until this point, but now it was all too much.  The scream crying started in earnest.  I stood in front of the car, my brain melting as I tried to think through how to deal with the situation all as baby Pickle screamed.  I couldn't abandon anything?  I couldn't carry anything on my lap as I drove.  I was at a complete loss.  I stood aside for a moment as Veronica tried to soothe the inconsolable baby.  I wanted to help her more, but I desperately needed to find a solution to our luggage problem.  I only had one idea left.  I stepped back to the car and pushed the passenger seat forward as far as I could.  It seemed too big, but I tried to slide the folded up stroller between the backseat and the passenger seat and by the thinnest of margins it managed with some pushing to slide in.  It was a solution.  It wasn't a great solution.  But it was good enough.  I quickly loaded in everything else as best and as quickly as I could.  This probably wasn't the best approach, but it would do for now.  I got Veronica into the car and then we started off towards our final stop of Monopoli.  The trip was still a 40 minute drive, and the poor baby cried loudly for most of that time.

When we arrived in Monopoli, my heart sank again as the parking on street after street seemed completely full.  Baby Pickle had fallen asleep, exhausted from the crying and the stress of this car trip.  We had all the luggage to take out and carry up to the hotel, so I decided to get as close as possible and to try to stop temporarily to unload everything, move it up to the hotel and then go and find a parking spot.  As I approached what I thought was the hotel, our luck turned in our favour.  The side of the street right next to the hotel was miraculously empty of cars.  There would be no need to drive around searching for a space and instead we were able to move everything upstairs with relative ease.  Once upstairs, we all collapsed for a moment.  The exhaustion of the trip hitting us.  Baby Pickle was up and happy again.  Wandering around the room, exploring all the new surroundings.  We all showered and cleaned ourselves up.  The stress of the trip was now gone and replaced with an excitement for the start of our holiday.  It was late, but we were hungry and there was nothing stopping us from going out to explore the town.  

We prepared a bag for baby Pickle and we set off with the stroller towards the old town.  After only a short walk, I was already happy.  Monopoli was a lively town.  It had all the warmth and happiness you would hope for in an Italian town.  There were smiles everywhere, the restaurants were full and children were running around.  We found a nice looking restaurant.  The staff were kind and ushered us in without concern about how late it was.  They found us a secluded area away from the some of the other diners so we could dine in peace with the baby.  With the food promptly brought to us and lovely wine being recommended by the waiter, all the difficulties of the last few hours melted away.