Big travel day!

Wow, what a travel day. Brother Josh is awesome(!!) and drove us all to the airport with what felt like 500 items. Check-in and security through MSP Terminal 2 was unbelievably fast and easy. I'd say we were through in about 15 mins total? It was amazing. The main downside of Terminal 2 is that there are VERY few dining options. There were 2 sit-down restaurants and Caribou open; that was it. We decided on a sports bar and had a burger and quesadilla; they were okay, just expensive. After we ate, we had them play in the kids' area to burn some energy and got their pj's on. 

The flights were... interesting. We left at 7:30pm, which is the kids' bedtime. We thought this would be awesome. We were wrong. Icelandair kept the lights on for about the first 2 hours and did "in-flight service" for first class. We have no clue how it took so long, as they don't give out food or any drinks for free other than water and coffee, but somehow it did. Griffin and Everest fell asleep pretty quickly after we left, but then woke up dazed/confused/wide awake because the lights were still on. Everest eventually fell asleep on Jer after lot and lots of wiggling around, but Griffin was awake for about 4 of the 6-hour flight to Reykjavik. He really only wanted to be with me (Lacey), so we had lots of quality time haha. At least there was very little crying, just a lot of entertaining. 

When we landed in Iceland, we took a bus to the gate and Everest thought that was SO fun. His mantra all day was "plane, bus, train, boat!"  We found a fun playground area for Everest where he found a friend to play with. Griffin napped on Jer essentially the whole layover. The other issue was that our stroller was checked all the way through (including the whole time in Iceland) so we had to lug all of our carry-ons  and the tired kids for the whole 2-hour layover. 

Then we had a 4-hour flight to Milan. It was pretty uneventful, as both of them slept most of the way! Once we got to Milan, we grabbed our bags (which took FOREVER). Italy is notoriously slow at these things. We then had about 1.5hrs to burn before catching the train to Venice. We grabbed McDonald's quickly (a known quantity), started eating, and realized we needed to leave ASAP for the train. We sat in a 4-person configuration with a table on the train, and that was amazing! Everest relaxed and watched some shows, and Griffin slept for a bit. 

Once we got to Venice, we piled into an Uber for about 5 minutes to the Airbnb. The Airbnb host, Renzo, welcomed us, which was nice! We did feel the pressure to get there by the 9pm cutoff, though. Once he gave us the run-through, our bags essentially exploded as we set up for bedtime and the next morning haha. Overall, everyone did a great job up to this point, and we're just happy to be in Venice! 

Ciao, 

Lacey