Italian Men

Well, I love Italian men (or at least most of them) for their relaxed style - they have a way to look very manly and stylish but you have the impression that they do not even try (not true as I was told by some of my Italian male friends). Anyway the vibe of doing the stylish thing totally unintentinally looks great to me.

But today I am telling a totally different story of Italian men being great gentlemen and putting me in some trouble because of it.

I was on a fairly long business trip in EU and therefore took a much bigger suitcase than normal. Yesterday I finally came to Rome airport to fly back to the US... so far so good.

Stayed at airport hotel - short walk from Terminal 3 (T3). When I got there I could not locate any reference to my flight... so curb-side I checked if I may be at the wrong terminal. Some lovely Italians informed me that all flights to US leave from Terminal 5 (T5), short bus ride away and that I was in the right place to board the bus. I was still not quite convinced that my assistant should have gotten the terminal wrong so I continued checking with one of the gentlemen... while another loaded my heavy suitcase on the bus.

Problems with that 1) I did not realise that my suitcase got loaded on bus to T5 2) bus took off with my suitcase but NOT with ME AND my SUITCASE 3) it turned out that my flight on Alitalia would actually go from T3 so no need to go to T5.

Here I am @ T3 already little late for check in and my luggage travelling all by itself to T5... what to do???

Plan A - check if bus comes back on round-trip so that I can just stay put and wait for it to come back... sorry, m'am not this particular bus.

Plan B is needed fast - convince Italian gentlemen to page their colleagues at T5 to pull my suitcase off bus and keep it save for me - me jumping on next bus to T5 (two pairs of new shoes in my suitcase so I am very attached to it!!!), grab suitcase (actually nice Italian gentlemen again loading it on bus - this time with my knowlegde!!), ME AND SUITCASE taking next bus back to T3 and run to check-in & make last call to board my flight. Phew - talk about cutting it close.

Learning: It's OK and fun to flirt with nice Italien men but keep a close eye on your luggage :-)