Milan Day 3? New York? What about Chicago?

Homeward bound! Ha! Not so much.

We grabbed a taxi to the airport rather than trying to figure out how to take the bus, and got there in plenty of time to discover that our flight had been cancelled. What? Yes, there was a sciopero, which is a useful term to learn: a strike.

It was scheduled for something like 10am to 3pm, and so our flight was cancelled. They would have to put us on a much later flight out of Milan, and would not be able to get us to Chicago tonight. "We can get you to New York, and you can fly to Chicago in the morning." "New York?! I have to fly to New York tomorrow!"

So the solution that seemed most logical was indeed to fly to New York, where we'd spend a night together; then Eric would fly to Chicago in the morning, and I'd begin my business trip a day early. I would need to have my clothing laundered, since not only was I out of socks and underwear, but also everything smelled musty, even things I hadn't worn — but I figured I could expense laundry. I'd also have to have someone in Chicago send my computer, overnight, to New York.

I would need a shirt to wear the next day (I had bought new pants, which were clean, but needed a shirt). Also, we'd need lunch, and with a delay so long there was no reason to stay at the airport. So we checked our bags at the left-luggage room and headed to the bus. (The bus seemed easy from the airport — there was only one bus, and so we wouldn't be getting on the wrong one.) Just before leaving, we saw the strike begin, with chanting, yelling workers marching out into the airport lobby. I know I should be sympathetic to labor concerns, but I couldn't help but think, you people just fucked up two days of my life and I'm not inclined to be sympathetic.

Anyway, we went into town. First stop: shopping. I found a shirt I liked at Benetton, but it was the last one in my size, and missing a button. We asked for help, but it was apparently the last in the whole city. At €50, some $70, I wasn't going to buy a shirt missing a button, even though it was a top button I'd never button, and an extra was provided anyway. So we stopped in Celio, where I bough a nice blue striped shirt. So there you have it: I stopped in the Italian fashion capital and bought French clothing. Ah, me.

We had lunch in a street café next to yesterday's pizzeria — we didn't have a guidebook, and didn't have time to figure out something that would be really yummy. The meal was lackluster, and a little sad for our last meal in Italy. Oh well.

The flights, once we were on them, were uneventful. Rather than an American flight, we were booked on British Air (since they were the ones whose original flight had been cancelled, and who rebooked us). Unfortunately, this means we don't get credit for all the miles we flew, since the arrangement between AA and BA is that you don't get credit for flights between the UK to the US. But the nice things was the BA in flight entertainment, which had been upgraded since our last BA flight: you get a personal in-seat video, and you can start and stop the videos at will. This means you don't have everyone piling into the bathroom at once when the movies end. It also means you can select (from their library) something good that you want to watch, rather than whatever crap they show everyone. So I watched The Ice Storm an Ang Lee film from about 10 years ago that I've always meant to watch. It was really good — very well acted.

Since I went straight from Italy to New York, I won't be able to create a Finn and Charlie cartoon till I'm back in Chicago. I arrive Thursday night, but I have my radio show Friday morning, so I won't really be able to sit down at my drawing board till Friday night our Saturday. I've drawn a little talking-head cartoon to explain the situation; I should be able to scan it at the office and post it tomorrow.

Labels: italy, journal, personal

posted by Tony at 11:59 PM