Sept 6

Fair warning, the internet connection at he B&B is VERY slow. I'll post some text  now and add pictures later.

Sept 6
Amazingly easy check in at Boston’s Logan Airport.  Yummy “American style” lunch of clam
chowder and steak sub.

TSA was reasonable and polite even though their baggage scanner snapped off my luggage tag
and tried to eat it.
First class travelers are some of the rudest people that I’ve seen – even to each other.
They’re like a pack of rabid dogs shitting on everyone to get in 10 seconds before
everyone else because THEY are the entitled one. Then, after this type of behavior, they
sit down with each other – all smiles – and talk about the “less affluent people”. Don’t
ever let me get like that.

Sprint sucks. Not only does my phone not work in Italy because of their Sprint
customization. Turns out that I have an embed sim card so I can’t use a European one. To
top it off, I can’t even get an international roaming plan because they configured the
hardware to only accept their bandwidth which is not the standard in Europe.

The international terminal at Logan has virtually no amenities and electric plugs to
recharge electronic devices are almost non-existent.

OK, we’re on the plane! Of course, I’m hungry now and should have brought my own snacks
with me.  At least they have arancia rossa (blood orange, juice) and a surprisingly tasty
selection of wines.

 I think that I’ll begin my immersion with and Italian movie - “Bianca
come il latte rossa come”.

I am sitting next to a very nice young woman from Mexico City. She and a friend (and her
friend’s parents) came to Boston and are now headed to Italy. They’re flying all the way
to Venice and Florence to see a musician perform. It was nice that I could offer them some
advice for what to do in their free time.

I’m very impressed with them and their language skills. They all speak Spanish, English
(no noticeable accent), and at least one other language, each.

Food time! I’m being served by flight attendant that has a passing resemblance to John
Barrowman. Actually, the entire flight staff has been very professional and courteous but
I get the feeling that they’re NOT TO BE CROSSED under any condition. For airline food,
this is pretty good: Baked Pesto Mac & Cheese, prosciutto & mozzarella, potato salad,
roll, and cassatta for dessert.  Wait. No veggies. Um, who cares.

One really neat thing about the Alitalia plane is that every seat has a UBS plug in next
to the movie screen that charges devices. Nice move.