Ciao!!

Nov. 2, 2008- I finally made it to Italy!! Let me walk you through my day, oh wait, day and a half of travels to make it here. I arrived at the airport in Melbourne 5 hours early so I could avoid the "middle seat" fiasco that I encountered on my flight over here. Only they didn't start checking people in until 3 1/2 hours prior to the flight, so I got to sit for an hour and a half. I should have noticed the sitting theme... From there I got an aisle seat and boarded the plane for Singapore, a 7 1/2 hour flight. I slept zero hours as it was the middle of the day and I wanted to try and stay on some form of a schedule, don't ask me why!

So we get to Singapore and have a 40 minute layover while they clean and refuel the plane. So I walked around for a couple minutes, then sat some more. By this time is was about 2:30am in my world. We reboarded and headed for London, a 13 1/2 hour flight. I passed out and slept for the first 6 hours!! Which is impressive for me since I can't sleep on planes, maybe if I was 5' 2" or something, but as you all know I am not. I guess mind over matter works sometimes. We landed in London at 5:30am their time, don't even ask me what time it was in my world, I lost track after the multiple time zone changes. From there I hung out for 3 hours before boarding my final flight to Milan, a 1 hour 40 minute flight.

So in all, 35 hours later, I arrived at my hotel. Trying to be a trooper I made my self shower and go out walking to scout out the area. I found an awesome Italian joint for some good pizza and a Coke, then proceeded to walk abother 15 minutes before I could not take it anymore. I was alseep by 8pm and up at 4:30am.

Today was a great day. I walked to the Duomo Cathedral. I got there right as the lift was opening to go to the roof so I bought my ticket for the ride up.

It was early so the streets were dead and the sun was hitting the buildings beautifully. I got some amazing pictures. After a long walk this morning I found a park next to my hotel and went for a little run. It is a gorgeous park with tons of trees, a pond, fountains and more. I'll go back and take pictures before I come home.

So tomorrow I head to the EICMA show for set-up and then 2 days of press attendees. Should be a couple fun days and then heading back home on Thursday. I am very ready to be home. This has been an amazing trip and I have a ton more pictures to show everyone when I am home.