My Brother-in-law & Other Stories
By Johnny P. Novera

We lost our luggage, we lost our guide!

Fiumicino Airport, Rome—Twice we came back to the  rack area where we are  supposed to claim our bags, until the revolving rack stopped as it carried  no more luggage.  Because we changed plane in Singapore to Rome, it could be that our bags were not transferred?  However, we have  no one  to ask who speaks English.   

After 45 minutes  or so looking for help, we came back to the luggage rack and there at the center of the area are our bags waiting to be claimed! We do know why they were not there before.  Perhaps somebody took  them by mistake and has  just returned them. No way to find out, but we were happy we found  our luggage.  

Loading  our bags on the pushcarts, now we wondered where is  the representative of the  travel company who was to welcome us?  Maybe, he or she must be gone because we were delayed looking for our missing bags.  Again, we scoured  the big terminal building for the travel representative  who is supposed to meet us.  We even went out to the parking lots in front of the airport  to look at the large buses parked there, to see if our travel bus is there.

As we stepped out of the airport building to the parking area, we met a Filipino who offered  to bring us to our hotel.    He said he has a car and he can take  us to tour the city afterwards. When he gave us his card, it says that he is a travel guide.  We would have come with him but, luckily, the travel representative  arrived at this point and found us.  She brought us to the eastern side of the lobby where  other members of the tour group are assembled.    Shortly afterwards, we were on board the travel bus towards  downtown Rome, passing a smoothly-paved asphalt highway to the city.  “Ciao!” The travel guide greeted us on the microphone.