Greetings from It'ly

Varenna, Italy

It's amazing the corners of the planet you can fling yourself into given 24 hours. I'm used to hopping on a plane and ending up half a day laterin Scandinavia's big cities. Rural Italy is another story.

At the airport in Seattle, I was greeted by Northwest Airlines' new e-check-in system, which is designed to save their employees time by not having to help you while you try to use a difficult to navigate computer system.

I followed the directions, entering in the first three letters of my destination, "MIL." I was given three options -- Milan-Lenate, Milan-Malpensa, or Milwaukee.

"Milwaukee," said the man behind me.

I ignored him.

I couldn't remember which airport in Milan I was flying into. I tried to find it on my itinerary.

"What's the matter," the man behind me sneered. "You don't know where you're going?"

"Yes," I said, "I do know where I'm going. I'm trying to find the name of the airport."

"It says Milwaukee," he said. "Just press Milwaukee."

"I'm not going to Milwaukee," I snapped. "I'm going to Milan. There are two airports there."

"Oh, you're going to It'ly! I didn't know you were going to It'ly!"

The man and his wife, i deduced from their matching T-shirts, were on their way to an Alaskan cruise. They reminded me why I have so much scorn for cruise ship passengers.

But I made it on my flight to Amsterdam, which I think took about four days. I couldn't tell, since my watch battery had died. After a six-hour stopover in Amsterdam, I boarded a delayed flight to Milan, followed by a frantic race through the Milan train station to try to catch the last train of the evening to Varenna, a cozy and humid village in Italy's northern lakes district. By the time I finally gt to sit down, I realized I am in unfamiliar turf here -- a huge distance from Seattle both in space and culture. In reality, I arrived 24 hours -- almost to the exact minute -- after leaving home in Seattle. It happened so fast, I'm now wondering, in my jetlagged blur, how I got here.

Comments

[Gary Potter]

So, two questions - what's dial-up like in Varenna? and I promise I did not take it personally - the CSP was a beaut!