Greetings from Milan Italy. I am currently at the Park Hyatt Milan and am enjoying my stay here. The weather has been “real nice” as the locals have told me and I happened to stumble upon a few interesting places and events so far. However, I need to find a mini USB cable before I can share. If not, you will have to wait until Monday night when I can download the pictures and movies off of my camera.

I guess I will start my trip report so that you have something to read:

After a tiring day of work on Wed, I had to pick up my new SHINY passport since my current battle scarred passport was was due to expire. Going to the passport office in San Francisco reminds me exactly why I don’t think the government should get into the managed heathcare business. Imagine waiting at the hospital for a doctor with wait times that rival the DMV! Well I recommend all of my readers to get your passports NOW, even if you’re not going to go anywhere soon. Hell, it’s valid for 10 years so you might as well. Those wait times are amazing!

Nonetheless, I picked up my passport, went home to pick up my luggage, and then drove to SFO.

AA150 2030h SFO-BOS Seat 23ABC

I purposely routed myself on this flight for three reasons. 1. It was only 30% full. So my chances of getting a row to myself was likely 2. It was the redeye so I could sleep. 3. It was the longest route in N. America (about 2500 miles). At checkin, I was offered a First Class upgrade for 15,000 miles, but I declined since most likely the plane wasn’t full. As I predicted, I was able to secure my own seat and as almost everyone else, laid out over a row of three and was able to get a couple of hours of shuteye. I slept so deeply that I was woken up by the flight attendant to tell me to sit up for landing.

*Please note, typically this flight is packed to the gills, but somehow it wasn’t on this particular day.

From the arrivals terminal I had to wait for the Alitalia ticketing officers to arrive to re-ticket my original ticket. I then hopped to the Enterprise rental car office where they gave me a brand new Hundai (the new SUV) and drove to my grandmothers house. (thanks CC). I ate dinner with her then promptly fell asleep as I was very exhausted. Sometime in the morning I woke up, sent some emails, and then drove to the airport.

AZ157 YYZ-MXP 1830h Flight time: 8h30m

As posted last year about the YYZ-LCA fare sale, I was about to embark on a very interesting and special trip.

As Enterprise tends to do, I got dropped off at the departures terminal and since it was freezing, was inside in a hurry. I knew I was in for a treat when I walked in and walked right towards the very bored looking Magnifica class check in agent who stated that I must be Jonathan since I was the only one flying business class that day who had not checked in yet. I spied the very long economy line, grinned that I wasn’t in it, and handed my passport over. I immediately received my boarding pass and a nice lounge invitation card for the Air Canada flagship lounge in Toronto. Only then did I realize that this was going to be a special flight as I had plenty of time to get through security and relax in the lounge.

Air Canada Lounge
If all airline lounges were at minimum like the Air Canada lounge in Toronto, I would purchase a membership immediately. All I had to do was to show my boarding pass and frequent flyer ID card and they let me in immediately. Inside, there was a light buffet, large selection of alcohol, couches everywhere, a business center, and even SHOWERS! Although I did choose to enjoy some food, I figured I’d drink more on the plane so I didn’t touch any alcohol. Unfortunately from my experience, most lounges aren’t more than a room with free newspapers and sodas/alcohol.

I got lucky. My flight was the first flight from Toronto to Milan with the reconfigured seats which were leather lie flat business class seats. I was assigned center aisle seat (2D) with excellent elbow room and legroom. I was supriseed about how roomy the seats were and immediately checked to see if my seat functioned as promised so that I wouldn’t be stuck in a broken seat if it didn’t.

Upon takeoff, the stewardess and stewards immediately uncorked a few bottles of wine and was literally pouring nonstop until the food arrived. Since I wasn’t sure of which wine I wanted, they gave me 4 cups and gave me one of each as a taste test. I eventually decided on a red italian wine (unknown vintage) which was quite smooth.

The starter was a somewhat cold pasta (shells) served with a red wine sauce. For the dinner entree, I was given a choice of chicken or fish, of which I chose fish. It was actually was quite tasty and was a light pan fried fillet of an unknown white fish (maybe orange ruffy) served with vegetables, bread, and more pasta! When I was just about finished, the cart with olives, cut vegetables, and cheeses arrived. It was red and black soaked olives, carrots and broccoli, and a couple of huge pieces of hard white cheese. Upon nearly finishing that dish, I cart of AMAZING italian desserts appeared. Opting for hot tea, I was presented with a very nice white chocolate mousse.

Instead of watching too many movies and arriving jet lagged, I ran the seat to the semi flat position and slept for a solid 3-4 hours. I woke up from a little turbulence in Italian airspace and changed back into my street clothes. Immigration was a snap and since my flight arrived at 7am, it was empty. Within a half hour, I had collected my luggage and was sitting on a bus headed towards the central station of Milan. I took the tube to the Duomo Station and was checked into the Park Hyatt Milan with a smile. (Thanks Randy for letting me crash with you.)

Milan:
Randy and I hopped a cab to the open air market and much to my dismay, it reminded me too much of the street markets of Taipei. That is, plenty of stuff for sale…but I didn’t need any of it. The only difference was that it was during the day and they were speaking Italian. Met up with Flo, ate a pannini lunch, and then headed back towards Duomo to tour the Duomo Cathedral.

The Duomo is the third largest cathedral in the world and was a huge tourist attraction. After hiking to the roof, I decided to call it a day and take a nap. Walked through the Galleria (high end european shops) and took a nap. For dinner, I headed to a fairly famous Italian restaurant and was mildly disappointed. We were headed back to the hotel via the subway when in the Duomo station I heard a bunch of explosions. At first I thought it was an explosion, but upon exiting, I saw that it was a bunch of actors shooting off classic muskets. Apparently they were recreating a battle scene between the Italians and I believe the French and Austrians from the battle of Cinque Giornate.

As promised, the VIDEO!

Eventually after the Italian victordy, and I ate at Pizzeria Maruzze, where I had probably the best Marguerite pizza I’vy, I headed back to the hotel and slept like a baby until 5:30AM. I then went downstairs to surf the web, use the spa, and then ate breakfast. Randy and I decided to head to the Last Supper and wasn’t able to get in, but afterwards went to a supermarket to get a bit of shopping in and meet up with Flo at a park. We ate lunch in beautiful weather, then attempted to purchase a cable for my digital camera. Unsuccessful, I bought a new SD card instead.

Since Flo and her friends had to go study, I decided to take a nap as I was still a bit jet lagged. Headed back to the hotel, took a nap, and woke up in time to eat PIZZA! Flo, her friends, Rane ever had. At 8 Euros, it was a steal. It was cooked in a classic wood fired oven and had the smoky flavor which was honestly divine. Afterwards, headed to the “columns” to have some beers and chat the night away.

After arriving back at the hotel, I decided to hit the SPA, then packed for my trip to Cyprus. I noticed a card offering free shoe shines in a drawer and I called Housekeeping at 2AM. They simply said, leave your shoes outside now and they’d have it ready by 5AM! The best part? It was!

Hit the breakfast buffet at 7AM and then headed back to Milpensa (MXP) for my trip to Cyprus.

My stay in Milan was quite enjoyable for two days, but for some reason I believe if I stayed a more than a few days more, I would become bored. Don’t get me wrong, there are a lot of things to do, but as I don’t speak Italian, the fun factor was greatly reduced. For the most part, locals don’t speak many foreign languages.

Until next time! Happy travels.

Fare of the day:
LAX-SAL (San Salvador)
April 15 to June 12
On United Airlines.

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