Sonoma, San Francisco, New York, Milano, & Torino.
That does sound like a mouth full, and it should be, because it is. Saturday March 1 we attended Karl Falk-Calsen’s and Melissa Wilcox’s wedding in Lafayette, CA. Just to keep the family proud they have chose the last name Falk, no hyphens! We were fortunate because Taylor and family attended as well. He drove us to and fro. Leander & Rachel came a little later due to Leander’s basketball game. However, for Mary & I, that really meant we had to be all packed for this trip before the wedding.
Sunday the 2nd, we did a final load of laundry. Finished packing, picked up the cottage, ran the vacuum, and at 14:00 German came and drove us to the Grand Hyatt at SFO. Normally it wouldn’t pay to stay a night at the airport, but the first flight was an early one 07:30. You still need to get to the airport two hours before you flight. That would have meant leaving Sonoma about 04:00 in the morning.
So instead of leaving Sonoma at 04:00 on Monday morning the 3rd, we got to stay in bed until 04:30. Then it was down to the lobby, catch the airtrain to the terminal. There was a short line at the American check-in. Everything is so automated now, but since our final destination is international we had to check-in with a person.
We were checked-in and headed to security before 05:00. Security was unbelievably quick.There was a line but it really moved along. It was about 05:15 when we finished with security. This was one of those rare occasions when we would actually be able to take advantage of the Admiral’s Club.
Fortunately, the Admiral’s Club and our departure gate are right next to each other. Here we were able to get some fruit and something to drink before our flight. Nice, but not worth paying for. We headed to the gate just before 07:00. Boarding began on time at 07:06.
Honestly, I was hoping to sleep though this flight. Maybe I got a hour out of the six hour flight. Mary said she didn’t get any. We did watch a movie. I watched “Conclave”. Very good movie, just a little too obvious from the first few minutes as to where the plot was going.
Upon landing at JFK, we headed to Bobby Van’s Steakhouse. It is in the center of Terminal 8 where the flight from SFO disembarks and where the flight the Milano boards. We have had dinner between the flight on several occasions. We were unpleasantly surprised to find that it was been replaced with another steakhouse – Idlewild. They had just taken over the space in the last week. The food as ok, but not as good as Bobby Van’s. They also didn’t have their liquor license yet so no wine with dinner.
We ordered on New York Strip, fries and a lettuce wedge salad and split it all between us. The waitress was very nice and gave us an extra plate to make sharing easier. They didn’t supply a steak knife, this made cutting a little difficult. The steak was tender enough, but the knife was duller. We finished our 16:00 dinner, and headed towards the gate for of 18:20 flight. Yes it seems a little bit early early for having dinner, but there was much of a breakfast or lunch on the flight from SFO.16:00 in New York, is 22:00 in Torino, so it was dinner time.
It was close to 17:20 by the time was actually made it to the gate. We sat for a minute and then got in line about 17:45. They kept asking me if I wanted a wheelchair. I responded by saying I just needed a little more time to make it to the plane but I could walk. Needless to say, but we did manage to get “pre boarding”. It really doesn’t matter as we were in Group 1 anyway. In the future I may be asking for a wheelchair just so they don’t have to ask.
This time I was intent on sleeping. I got comfortable, off with the shoes, covered myself with the blanket, with the lap belt on the outside. By the time the wheels left the ground I was asleep. At some point in the next couple of hours the seat converted into a bed, and I managed to get about four hours of a sleep.
I also managed to watch the whole “Conclave” movie. Breakfast was yogurt and fruit. We landed in Milano about 45 minutes early. As we were exiting a security officer approached us and directed us to a priority line for immigration. No wheelchair the but cane seems to be working in our favor. There was no line at the immigration station where we were directed. There was for everyone else. We headed to baggage collection and got our bags.
Too many bags! The packing wasn’t quite thought out sufficiently. There was a large green Away bag, we each had our soft sided bags (packed ready for Tanzania), there was one small carry-on sized suitcase filled with stuff for Serra and the girls. I had a carry-on sized roller bag just for our medications, my iPad, my AirPod Max’s and the canasta cards. Mary had one smaller carry-on bag for her stuff. That’s right - seven bags. Shameful.
When we go to Tanzania we only get 25 kili, about 50 pounds, but it has to be in a soft sided bag. Our Away soft sided bags are packs a weight in about 12 kili, so we are good. We will also carry our backpacks, so we’ll probably get close to the 25 kili weight limit.
We got the bags and headed to the Malpensa Express for Milano Centrale. No problem with the tickets, but the train was packed full. With seven bags there was a lot of maneuvering to get them on. Mary & I got separated during the process, but we both got on. Less than an hour later we were at Centrale.
We stopped and got a drink and a croissant. Mary was able to take her medication. We then booked an 11:10 train (Frecciarossa 1000) to Torino. It was running 5 minutes late, but we weren’t in any hurry. I wrote to AirB&B and asked about an early check-in, normally check-in would be at 15:00, and the 11:10 train would get us there at 12:15. They said yes so we booked the train.
Well, the five minute delay got expanded for 35 minutes. We finally departed about 11:50. We arrived in Torino just before 13:00, got a taxi and headed to the apartment. The taxi was just under €10. I only had a €20 note. Somehow the taxi driver thought he should get the whole thing. Sorry, I am an American, but there is no tipping in Italy, I asked for €10 in change. There was some back and forth but I got it!
We checked-in to our AirB&B and almost immediately went down for a nap. I got up at 16:00 and took a shower and got dressed. Made arrangements with Serra to meet at her place at 18:30 for dinner. Mary got up and then went back to sleep shortly after 16:00. Eventually we did make it to Serra’s for dinner.
Amadea has really grown. Of course when we were here last she was a slightly premature new born. Six months later she is much bigger, duh. We had a nice dinner and played with Luisa and Amadea for a while. Helped get them ready for bed before we left. Pietro had a meeting and left just as we arrived and returned just as we were leaving.
We got to the AirB&B just about 21:00 and immediately headed for the bed. It would be twelve (12) hours later before we got going again. We were tired. Yesterday, we got up and were at the airport at 05:00 California time on Monday, which was 14:00 in Torino. We arrived in Torino at 13:00, twenty-three hours later, on Tuesday. In the future I will plan this better and spend at least the first night in Milano rather than try and make it the whole way. We also have too many suitcases!
Buonanotte Enrico e Maria
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