Day One:

It’s 5:54PM and we are almost an hour into our flight from Boston to Rome. We’re flying Alitalia even though after reading many reviews from seasoned travelers that you want to avoid Alitalia if at all possible. Reason we booked Alitalia was because it was about $150 cheaper per ticket and offered non-stop flights at great times.

Hopefully I’ll be able to get some shut eye as the plane is scheduled to touch down at 7am in Rome. I stopped at Kappys after the Mrs requested that I pick up some orange Ketel One nips to help get some shut-eye.

Plane observations, this Alitalia plane is old, I mean OLD. I’ve been on cleaner planes and I’ve been on planes where the plastic stuff holding the seats together wasn’t all busted up like this one. Even so, overall (an hour in) I’d book this flight again for the cost savings and direct flights.

There is an American couple directly in front of me bringing what looks to be a one year old to Italy. The kid has been on again off again crying and while I sympathize with the couple there’s no way I’d take The Bean and Snoop Maddie Mad on an eight hour flight and lug them around Europe at 4 and 6 years old let alone a one year old.

Thankfully we’re not sitting near to the stanky mofo in 11D. I nearly passed out walking by the filthy animal. Those poor poor people who have to sit next to him for this 8 hour flight. I’m not sure if I could endure it. He’s rotten. How do you lose that much self respect for yourself that you walk out of the house with obnoxious BO knowing you’re gonna be on a confined plane to Europe?

Surprised to see an Indian woman (dot not feather) as part of the all Italian flight crew. Also the flight crew is comprised mainly of attractive women. I guess they don’t have to fill any gay men flight crew quotas on Alitalia.

They don’t have cranberry juice on Alitalia but the nice Indian stewardess (dot not feather) just poured me some mango/papaya juice that should pair well with my orange Ketel One.

6:40PM
Dinner is served. Saying what they serve is bad cafeteria food on Alitalia is an insult to bad cafeteria food. Some salmon with hints of green tinge mixed with soggy broccoli , some funky looking pasta shells and bread. The Mrs passes altogether offering me her tray of food which I refuse and I eat only the roll on my tray. Eagerly awaiting the stewardess to come and take the funk away. It looks like my decision to purchase the industrial size package of beef jerky at Target may have been a wise decision. The mango/papaya juice with orange Ketel One is niiiice. 🙂

The flight crew has been better than the average domestic flight crew that I’ve encountered in the past 4 or 5 years. They are friendly and very efficient. Service has been swift and very accommodating.

7:45PM

I get reamed out by the Indian stewardess (dot not feather) who catches me taking a picture of her and demands to see my cell phone. I tell her the reason I took the picture was for an article and show her my cell phone gallery which included photos of the shitty food, an envelope they handed me for a UNICEF donation which I thought was pretty fucking brazen considering the cost of the flight, a shot of my beef jerky and two photos of the Indian Stewardess (dot not feather).

Understanding that the Stewardess might think I’m some type of sicko who intended to do unsavory things with the picture like post them to a Indian stewardess (dot not feather) fetish website I offered to delete the photos of her. I explained that the picture was part of a travel story I was doing for my blog. I even offered to show her what I had written which in hindsight was probably not a wise decision but in my head the last things I had written in my 6:40PM entry was about the good service.

I deleted the photos wishing to avoid confrontation and “getting” why she might think it’s weird even though the photo was really just to demonstrate how there was an Indian stewardess on an all Italian flight crew. So needless to say you’ll just have to take my word for it.

9:50PM

I just fell asleep about a half hour ago and the one year old directly seated in front of me has begun to shriek, waking me up. What I didn’t realize was that there was another one year old in the seat directly in front of the first one year old and they are out dueling each other for who can cry the loudest.

Now again, I can sympathize with parents that fly with children and like I said before I wouldn’t bring my 4 and 6 year old cross the pond yet but what is pissing me off is that these dopey parents aren’t getting up and walking the kids up and down the aisle. That’s parenting 101 shit. Don’t just sit in the chair with the kid screaming. Get off your ass and walk the kid around the plane. The seatbelt sign is not illuminated FFS. I won’t give the parents the stink eye as I know how much that has to suck for them but it would be nice to get some sleep.

It could be worse, I could be sitting next to Stinky BO guy up in 11D.

10:21PM

The parents sitting directly in front of me finally get up and rock the baby in the aisle after a good 40 minutes or so of their baby screaming. It takes all of one minute for the child to calm down and stop crying.

10:33PM

I let a monster seat ripper beef jerky fart fly with reckless abandon. I wouldn’t normally but It’s payback time for waking my ass up. Having trouble falling back asleep.

10:46PM

Still can’t fall asleep and guess who just walked by en route to probably lay a beating on the airplane’s toilet?

If you guessed Stinky BO guy from 11D you win the booby prize.

It’s too bad I didn’t know when he would make his way down here or I woulda saved up that seat ripper beef jerky fart and timed it so he woulda got a nice face full as he passed on his way to the lavatory.

11:50PM

Our flight is directly over Madrid. Just got about an hour of sleep. We’re flying at an altitude of 40,000 feet. Air temperature outside the aircraft is minus 65 degrees and we have an hour and 32 minutes left on the flight. When we land it will be estimated 7:22AM with the time zone change.

12:18AM East Coast Time 6:18AM Rome Time

Flying over Barcelona, Spain as the orange glow of morning illuminates the sky. Thinking about The Hot Wing Challenge 21 days from today. We should have a deep field of contestants. Should be a great night.

12:47AM

Over the Mediterranean Sea outside temp -58 C, 40 minutes or so til touch down. The flight we are currently taking has no wifi. What I want and I want it yesterday is wifi globally. On my plane, on my boat, everywhere. I figure we’re about a year or two away but let me tell you that flying without wifi makes a flight seem at least twice as long. I’m not sure what the technological glitch is that takes so long to roll out wifi on all airplanes in this day and age but if I were an airline and I already had it on all my planes I’d put that front and center on my advertisements.

11:30AM

Lunch at Virgilio’s RistorantePics below from the flight-