Italy

Italy ’98

SFO -> EWR

EWR -> MXP

MXP -> VCE

VCE -> Cortina

Cortina d'Ampezzo

Hotel Royal

breakfast

stadia

around town

Carnival

Mangia!

Tavernetta

Faloria

Refugio d' Faloria

Freccia Nel Cielo

Lagazuoi

Monte Cristallo

Socrepes

Socrepes skiing

Venezia

1630 Eastern Time (ET) - Rose and I are reunited as we deplane at EWR. Dad meets us at the gate, as does Adam's parents. We wander out of Continental domestic arrivals and proceed to the Continental/Alitalia international departures. Our group is a babble of conversations, each of us trying to relate something while listening to all the other exchanges. It's a long walk, assisted several times by 'slidewalks' (horizontal escalators) and interrupted at other times by electric carts announced by bicycle bells.

The departure agent finished straightening out the mess made by our travel agent. She also ensured that we're sitting next to each other for the next two legs of our journey. Now I'm relaxed and ready to socialize.

We move into the food court and pick a table directly across from our gate. We beg and borrow enough chairs to seat our crew. Gifts are tossed onto the table, muscles are stretched, and hugs are exchanged. It's only now that I notice the large brown paper bag Dad has in tow.

The contents smell wonderful. It's food from Karahi, an absolutely fantastic Indian restaurant in the Village. Each time I'm in Manhattan - whether on a business trip or for pleasure - I make sure to dine there at least once. Dad was visiting a friend in the city and drove right by Karahi on the way to the Holland Tunnel. A quick stop and the food is still here, enticing, but I'm trying to save it until we're airborne again.

Too soon our family get-together is over. Our two hours in EWR are done. We walk to the gate, arrange to meet here at the trip's end, hug, and board. We're on the way to MXP.

1830 ET - We've boarded a DC-10 for MXP. It's a much nicer trip than the last leg: we're together, there's more leg-room, and we have Chicken Makhanwala, Sag Paneer, Keema Nan, and basmati rice. Oh, and two sweet Lassi. Now that's in-flight cuisine.

It's an uneventful trip. Most of the group sits together amidships; Fel and Adam sit as far aft as possible. I see them as I walk to the head. They're soundly asleep. (I think they got our seats by accident. We booked two weeks later than they did.) We talk, we read, we sleep. Unfortunately we're shown the same pre-movie video, the same half-hour comedy, the same news. Someone should really get a clue.

The movie is 'Mr Bean'. I loved Rowan Atkinson in 'The Black Adder' series, but this almost mute least-common-denominator for-internation consumption comedy is just watered-down yuks. I'm not impressed. I fall asleep.

0748 Central European Time (CET) - We've started our descent. The laptop must be stowed. We land, stand up, and march out the door. Instead of a jetway leading to the terminal we're the tarmac. I look back at our plane while I wait for everyone else.

We jump on the bus and are driven a few hundred feet to the gate.

We're waved through the arrivals control, showing only our plane tickets. Before we know it we're in MXP. Walking upstairs toward our departure gate we encounter the Museum Shop, a little shop staffed with charming folks. They're selling pottery from architectural digs, tee-shirts, and the first Munano glass we've seen on the trip. I'm looking forward to seeing a Murano glass factory in Venice. A for-profit genealogy search service is advertised with a suit of knight's armor.

Walking past shops and a café (you'll see a panorama on the next page) I stumble across two computers mounted in plastic pillars. Two women - employees - are explaining how the web works to a customer. He drops several more coins into the timing box and they continue. I see there's a serious barrier between him and the pages at which he's looking, so I show them Alta Vista's language translation service, currently in beta. Suddenly they're seeing the web in Italian, and they're excited. My work here is done.

We get to the departure gate, and our group perches against the plate glass windows to sit out the next hour. I ask Fel for a loan of thousand lire, as she and Adam had the foresight to exchange money. She digs and digs, but all she finds is that her wallet-pouch has fallen from her backpack and is nowhere to be found. Money, credit cards, passport. Everything but plane tickets.

Liz goes with Fel to the arrival control area. A very nice customs official calls the plane and has the cleaning staff double check under and around Fel's seat. When that fails, and with the clock ticking until our next flight, a very nice police officer leads us on a trot into the bureaucratic bowels of MXP, where Fel completes a form that'll serve as papers for the time being, it's photocopied three times, signed, stamped, and returned to us. Then we're lead back at a faster trot to the terminal proper. Then we run.

We make it back to the departure gate. (I can't believe this is the second time I've sprinted through an airport terminal already. I feel like O. J. Simpson in the seventies, filming that rental car commercial.) They're holding the plane for us.