Italy 2010

I went to Italy. I actually got back two weeks ago but haven't written anything about my trip so now I'll try after Sarah gave me a prod over the weekend. The problem with Italy is that I don't know enough about it. Sure there were Romans and all that but who, why and when did they do what is not clear to me. Actually since I've been back I've researched some things so now I understand better the things we saw.

My wife was going on a business trip and had to return through Europe so she suggested we meet in Rome. Well, Rome sounds like a place to meet so off I went. SFO to YYZ, that's San Francisco to Toronto, I see TOR was already taken by an airport in Wyoming so maybe all that was left was YYZ. Air Canada flight, nothing special except maybe the Molson on board.

I must say I wasn't too happy with the Toronto airport, the immigration guy told me that since my layover was more that 6 hours (by 10 minutes) that I would have to do the full entry to the country thing. It wasn't a real issue, after all Canada and the U.S. haven't fought any wars lately, but the problem was that it meant walking from the arrival gate the length of the terminal to the front curb and then all the way back to my departure gate. When I was waiting there I realized I had ended up just one gate away from where I arrived after a mile walk. Maybe the 6 hours is enough to qualify for citizenship? I should have had some health care while I was there.

In the airport I sure knew I was in Canada. The newspapers were full of hockey news and the TV monitors were all showing hockey news. Eh? Another thing about Canada is that everything is written in English and French. That includes all the signs and package labels and everything. It must be expensive to do all that, but I guess they have to to keep everybody happy. So I was off on AC 890 on a Boeing 767 just like the picture above. Next stop Leonardo daVinci airport Rome (FCO). Except as we found out nobody uses that name, it's know as Fiumicino after the small town that's nearby.