1:45 a.m. in the Newark airport. A continuous loop of innocuous made-for-waiting rooms mini-documentaries is blaring from a huge screen overhead. We, my traveling companion and I, are stretched out, head to head on the floor along a wall at the gate of our now-cancelled flight home.

 It feels good to be prone after so many hours of standing in never-ending lines, but only for a moment or two. Then the bones in our hips and shoulders remind us we’re lying on concrete. A couple of well-placed, wadded up coats helps long enough to let us drift off to an hour or so of fitful sleep.

 We’ve been up for what feels like days.

 Our trip home started before dawn two days earlier, waiting for a train in the tiny cliff-side village where we’d ended our nearly two weeks in Italy and Switzerland. It’s started to snow, not a good sign in a country that claims to never see snow.

 We knew better. Just a few days earlier we’d trudged through three inches of the stuff on the streets of Rome, watched people using brooms to clear the front of their shops, took a photo of a three-foot tall snowman in St. Peter’s Square.

 So, at the beginning of what would end up being three days of travel, the amazing network (to our American eyes) of European trains was thrown into temporary dysfunction. Switches froze, doors were iced shut, trains were cancelled.

  “Find a train to Milan in Parma,” the ticket agent said when the train we were booked on didn’t show up. We’d never heard of Parma.

But we’ve now been to Parma, where we found the Milan train, and arrived in that huge station to hear our next train, the one back to Switzerland, being called. We stepped off on Track 20. Our train was ready to pull out on Track 2.

 We ran, pulling suitcases and carry-ons, at whatever top speed is for a couple of septuagenarians. The conductor, about to hop aboard and shut the door saw us rounding the end of the track and held the train.

 The next day should be easy, we thought, congratulating ourselves at arriving at my son’s apartment in Lausanne, Switzerland, that night. Just get to the airport, sit on a plane, get off, get on another in Newark and we’d both be back in our own homes by evening.

 Ha.

 The weather gods had other plans.

 Three and a half hours sitting in the plane on the tarmac at Geneva’s snowed-in and closed airport was going to wreak havoc with our connecting flights, or so we thought. As it turned out, when we finally landed at Newark’s sprawling airport, those flights were already cancelled due to the high winds of last Friday.

 We’ve all seen those clips on the evening news of stranded travelers wandering around crowded airports because bad weather somewhere has screwed up the system. I’ve always felt snug (and smug) sitting in my own comfortable living room, wondering why people are so crazy as to want to travel somewhere else. Look at them. Why didn’t they just stay home like me?

 Well, we had to humbly admit to each other, here we are, stuck. He needed a flight to Florida, me to Maine. Not only was nothing flying out of Newark that night, all the flights going forward were full; the earliest his airline could get him out would be Monday night. Three full days in the Newark airport. I wasn’t faring any better with mine.

 Amtrak wasn’t running that night and was booked for the next several days. We called the 13 hotels on the list United’s Customer Service people were handing out. Not one had a room available.

 Maine and Florida seemed unimaginably far away.

 We took turns exploring our options, one sitting with the luggage while the other stood in lines or rode the shuttle buses between Newark’s three terminals. Finally, we got on a morning flight to Bangor; not ideal for either one of us. My car was in Portland, and he was going to Florida, not Maine.

 So we settled down on the floor with Customer Service’s flimsy little pillows and blankets made of gauze and thought about what it must be like to do this every night, when there’s no bed, no warm home, nothing to give comfort. We thought of the beggars we’d seen in San Marcos Square in Venice, huddled up, doubled over bundles of rags; only a hand sticking out of the heap holding a cup showed there was a human being inside.

 The morning flight to Bangor took off after only a couple of short delays and even arrived on time.

 Now we’re back home in Lincolnville, thanks to a rented car, the moments when we thought we’d never see it again already fading in memory.  Our suitcases even arrived, delivered to the door after whatever adventures they went on. He’ll fly out of Portland later today to his Florida place, and I’ll collect my car at the airport.

Travel, we’ve decided, has been good for us. Forced out of our comfort zone (that place where we’re in control with the car in the driveway and gas in the tank), every move we made was being decided by someone else – train schedules, plane take offs and landings, bus routes.

 We’ve had to use our wits, struggle through language barriers, eat unfamiliar food (why are there never any donuts, he wondered), stay in inconvenient rooms (two of them at the top of five flights of stairs), always conscious of the next challenge we’d have to face.

 As people who live in Vacationland ourselves, we’ve empathized with shopkeepers and waiters, as well as the general populace, putting up with the onslaught of tourists, which for them goes on year round.

 I forgot to mention that we had a wonderful time and are already planning the next trip, assuming our respective bank balances recover.

Library

 Do you want to learn to knit? Or are you still practicing on a new piece? Then come to the Lincolnville Community Library between 4 and 6 p.m. Tuesday, March 6 for the monthly Knitting Workshop and get help with your project. Or just come with some handwork and join the conversation.