I’ve Arrived

Got in yesterday afternoon. Traveling time was about 15 hours including a layover in Amsterdam. The flights felt long. I expected to be so tired that I would be asleep most of the way over but that was not the case. I had female seat mates both flights. The first was an accountant headed to Holland for work. She was your typical friendly American girl, and she sure could hold her liquor! My only gripe was when she accidentally spilled a cup of water all over me. Luckily I dried out pretty quick. There were mostly Dutch folks sitting in the vicinity, and somebody was let me say… letting out gas… the whole way there. It was super stinky too! We held our breaths, rolled our eyes and giggled each time it happened. What happened to common courtesy?!

I thought KLM food was surprisingly decent. I made sure to eat something because there’s nothing worse than sitting there with a growling stomach.

My luggage didn’t cause too much trouble. My two check-in pieces were 50lbs and close to 70lbs. (Thanks to careful weighing by Ban Fu and Long!) I thoroughly expected to pay the $50 heavy bag charge for one. Either the agent wasn’t paying attention or he just didn’t notice. I sure wasn’t going to point it out. I didn’t even have to turn on my female charm. ;-) My carry on was too heavy! There wasn’t a weight limit as far as I can tell, but there was no way I could lift the bag to the overhead compartment. I almost took out a woman when trying to remove it. Oops…

It was such a thrill to see Stefano. It had been almost 5 months since I last saw him. I must admit that I spent much of the traveling time thinking about the move and how would fit in into this new land and culture. I’m happy to report that Stef is just as he was the last time I saw him. Yay!

I was feeling rather jet lagged the rest of the day. The highlight was definitely the stop at Gelateria Marghera. Stef claims it is one of the best in town and I believe him. I had noticed that the whole city of Milan was pretty dead due to the August 15-16 holiday coming up. It was crazy, no traffic and hardly any people around! But at Marghera it was packed, at 10.30pm on a Monday night. See for yourself…

I stuck with my Marghera favorites, pistaccio and cioccolato rhum (it had been 2 years and it was as good as ever!) but almost wavered when I saw the fruity summer berry flavors. I’m saving those for next time!