It is considerably cheaper to fly to London, England out of the Calgary International Airport than the Edmonton one. Thus, on the morning of May 5, 2011, Rachel and I set out for Calgary. Paid with a promise of breakfast at Tim Horton's and a bottle of whiskey, our friend, Steve, agreed to drive us the three hours South to catch our flight. The driving soundtrack was the album Helplessness Blues by the Fleet Foxes, we stopped once at Timmie's for breakfast and coffee, again at a Starbucks for ... well, more coffee, and made it to Calgary in plenty of time.
Good thing, too! After many thank you's [and Rachel laughing at me while I tried to lift my backpack], we discovered an achingly long line for check-in. A downside of flying budget airlines? No online check-in the day before you leave! We got stuck in the middle row, way far back in the plane. But our flights were only a little over eight hundred dollars, so ... fair's fair. Since it was about 11pm in Italy when we set off, we tried to sleep on the plane. We were a little less than successful, each dozing for only about two hours or so. The food, however, was delicious. For supper, the main course was butter chicken and rice [pretty good, actually - not the best I've ever had, but also a far cry from the worst I've had ... and far, FAR better than you usually expect of plane food!], sliced fruit [pineapple and melon, so even I could eat it!], cheese and crackers, and raspberry crumble. Stuffed full of the best plane-food I have ever had, we settle in to watch The Tourist, as it was the only movie available to us economy-class folk that didn't completely suck.
We arrive at Gatwick airport [London, UK] early in the morning - about midnight our time - to find it under some serious construction. As we could not check-in for our EasyJet flights until two hours before departure, we had to spend the time somehow. Most of the seating areas had been blocked off for repairs and renovations, so the first order of business was one thing: coffee. One cappuccino and a latte later, we were no more awake than when we'd landed. We managed to find a couple benches and attempted to doze for a short while, though not too much [airports are loud!].
Eventually, we were able to check-in and make our way through security where we spent the time until our flight departed browsing the cool English stores and lounging on the couches [the hidden inside of Gatwick is much nicer than the pre-security portion. If you even have to spend time there, hope to all that is good that you can get through security early!]. Finally we departed.
Our first view of Italy was from the plane window - the Italian Alps [near the border with France]. As we neared Milano Malpensa [main airport in Milan], we managed to garble out some Italian to the businessman sitting next to us who spoke zero english. We came to understand that there were three methods to get to Milano Centrale [pronounced Mill-awn-oh Chen-trawl-eh the main train station]: taxi, bus, or train. Sounded so easy. We had no idea what we had gotten ourselves into.
Next time: the story of our first Italian train station, and arriving in our destination, Boves, four hours late. Whoops!
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