What’a day… And is not finished yet!

Hello all,

I’m now sitting in my British Airways flight to London Heathrow under heavy turbulence over the Alps writing about my day. The day is not finished yet, but I have so much to tell that I will probably need to do two or three posts today… :-)

Well, it all begins yesterday. I had to go to my bank to enable the international money transfers through my internet banking and to request a recommendation letter to present to a British bank, when I’ll try to open my account. However, I was too busy at my work, so, I’ve decided to leave it for today. I thought: well, I have my flight at 1PM, so, I can wake up early in the morning, go to the bank and I will be back at home with plenty of time to prepare everything and go to the airport.

Well, in theory it was perfect.

Today I woke up at 7:00 AM. I’ve then quickly changed clothes and toke the car to go to Milan. Left home at 7:26 AM. I’ve then stopped at the gas station to check the air on my tires and then I followed to the secondary motorway that goes to the main motorway to Milan. It was all perfect until we got near the exit of the secondary motorway to enter the main one. A HUGE queue! The advisory panels said that there was an accident near Milan and the road was all blocked: a queue long 20 miles.

Then I made the boring travel. I arrived at Milan, on the parking I usually leave my car when I have to go to downtown at 8:40 AM (yes, that’s right, more than 1 hour to get from my home to up to Milan. Then I toke the underground. It was something like 8 or 9 stops to arrive to the Duomo, the most central underground station and there switch to the other line that would get me to my bank. Missing 5 stations to Duomo, the train stopped half in the station half in the tunnel and the driver said that we had a problem with the electricity lines.

After a couple of minutes the driver talks to us again telling that they were going to restore electricity in a few minutes and we would be able to restart our journey. Well, after 5 minutes he came from outside the train opening all doors manually and telling that it was not possible to recover the service any more. The line was stopped until second order.

I have then left the station and thought that it was possible to go walking from that point to the Duomo. After trying to walk in the middle of the crowd I have realized that it was already 9:30 AM and I was going to be late if I went all the way to my bank. Then I stopped at another agency of my bank, tried to manage to do an international money transfer as the person who was attending me was very unpolished and then left the bank trying to find a taxi to take me to the parking where I left my car. There were no taxis. There were long queues waiting for taxis.

I started walking trying to find another taxi stop and finally got a taxi. When we arrived at the parking I asked to the guard there about what happened to the underground and he said that someone just jumped under the train! I thought to myself: When did the guns came out of fashion? Couldn’t this suicidal guy just shoot up on his head and not bother anyone else?

I toke my car and headed home. The motorway was easy and the ride was quite fast. I arrived at home and found the Amazon package with my Limited Edition copy of Halo 2. The package is fantastic. Very well done.

I toke all my stuff, put all on my backpack quickly and left home. Toke the car and headed to the airport. Arriving to the exit of the motorway that drives to the parking where I leave my car when traveling it was all closed, stopped and with another huge queue. There was a strike of Volare’s employees and they decided to walk from its headquarters nearby the airport to the airport. I managed to drive back to the motorway and use the next exit. I left my car quickly on the parking and they drove me to the airport terminal were I should check-in. From that point thing became a little easier. I have checked in, police officers checked my passport a dozen times (to assure that I was not one of the Volare’s guys) and then headed to my boarding gate.

The flight, as expected from a British company, was on time and the pilot said that in 1.35 hours we should be at London, so, I would say that we have another hour of fly. The turbulence is passing and the flight is going OK. The snack they served in the flight is not bad so, I’m finally eating something.

Tonight I’ll write about the rest of the day, so, keep tuned.

Byes!