Over the Alps

Wednesday, 20 May 2009

Day 1 (written at 6:45am from Malpensa airport, Italy)

Waiting for the bus in Waltham (I just bought Seth that green mug *with a handle!* to replace that horrible mug he has been carrying around for years)

We just arrived at the quiet Malpensa airport, about 50km outside Milan. I am just waiting with the bags at an airport café for Seth to have his run; I hope he is able to find his way out of the airport grounds and into some decent roads.

Everything has gone surprisingly well so far—besides not sleeping much on the way over, the flights were very pleasant. Cruising over the Alps just before landing was especially fascinating and I will have to remember to have my camera ready when we fly out at the end of the trip. In addition, there weren’t even customs of any sorts when we arrived in Italy, and we were able to keep our leftover stir-fry from the other night as well as some fruit and raw vegetables; we won’t have to worry about going hungry on our bus to Milan Central Station or on the train to Venice.

Now that we are here, I feel a bit intimidated about even leaving the airport, a traveler-friendly place where everything is written in English. I wish I had more time to prepare for the trip and could have at least learned how to pronounce Italian words by now, which was my original goal. To make things even more interesting, Seth’s conversational Italian is not nearly as good as his knowledge of reading Italian from Renaissance Poetry. However, I am positive he will easily pick up modern-day terms and re-familiarise himself with spoken Italian very quickly!