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I am back in Toronto, Canada after returning through my first week long trip out to Europe.  I’m pretty tired right now, but in all fairness I did promise a trip report and some photos.  From the onset of my trip, I have traveled a total of 14,631 miles and have another 14k miles or so to go.  

Great Circle map of my trip so far:

If you have read my previous post, the first leg of my journey has been San Francisco to Boston then connecting to Toronto.  As I had some American airlines credit vouchers to use up, I figured I might as well use it before it expired. 

If you read the previous post, you might just want to look at the pictures instead.

AA150 SFO-BOS 3/14/07 2030h 757 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 2700 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 per www.seatcounter.com.  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 good 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

AA4606 BOS-YYZ 3/15/07 1030 RJ35 Seat 1A

This was my first time on the dreaded RJ (Regional Jet), and unfortunately it won’t be the last.  I would have to say, that this was probably the most claustrophobic flight I have ever been on.  The plane interior was literally the size of an SUV and had 37 people on the plane.  I myself am not a giant, but my head did scrape the ceiling when I stood up straight.  Thankfully this flight was only about an hour which I could barely tolerate, but survived nonetheless.   I was so cramped I didn’t even want to take any pictures.

After immigration in Toronto, I had to wait a few hours for the Alitalia ticketing officers to arrive and re-ticket my original ticket to Italy.  It was a mess that took two hours to sort out, but eventually it was sorted and I left as fast as I could to go see Grandma!  I hopped to the Enterprise rental car office where they gave me a brand new luxury Hundai (the new SUV) since I am a “family member” of an employee and drove to my grandmothers house.  (Thanks CC).  I ate a very late lunch with her then promptly fell asleep on the couch while watching Chinese TV.  Eventually, I woke up and drove my grandmother to my cousin’s house.  My Aunt, Uncle, Cousins, and Grandma then all went to a new Shanghainese restaurant and ate quite well.  Barely made it home before passing out and sometime in the morning I leisurely woke up, sent some emails, and then drove to the airport Enterprise location.  As part of Enterprise’s service package, I got dropped off right at the Alitalia departures terminal.  After snapping this picture I ran inside since it was freezing.

 

The Duomo cathedral

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.  I was looking forward to the new Alitalia Business class and was excited to see Italy.  I knew I was really in for a treat when I walked right towards the very bored looking Magnifica class check in agent who immediately 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.  I had plenty of time to get through security and relax in the lounge.

Air Canada Lounge

From my experience, most lounges aren’t more than a room with free newspapers and sodas/alcohol.  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 self serve alcohol, couches everywhere, a business center, and even SHOWERS!  Although I did choose to enjoy some food, I figured I’d drink quite a bit on the plane so I didn’t touch any alcohol.

Magnifica Class

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 suprised 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 (Poderi di Luigi Einaudi 2004) 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.)

Milano:

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 cheap 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.

T he 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.

The Galleria

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!