on journey: embarking on a 6-week trip to italy

Friday, June 16: As is normal for East Coast flights to Europe, we were due to fly to Brussels and then to Venice on a 6:00 p.m. flight. We took an Uber ride from our house to Dulles International Airport with Kumar from India. He drove so slowly that a car passed us on Vale Road, a dangerous hilly two-lane road on which no one ever passes. Still, we arrived at the airport so early we didn’t have to wait in any lines. As we sat in the airport, the crowds grew and Mike heard the flight was full, which seems to be the case on every flight these days. I was worried about the severe thunderstorm warnings through 9 p.m., meaning we could be delayed and miss our connecting flight in Brussels (we only had 1 hour and 40 minutes), or worse, the take-off could be dangerous.

By 5:00 it was raining but there was no thunder or lightning. Luckily we left at 6:11 on Brussels Airlines with no delay at all. The flight was about 7 hours and 50 minutes and we arrived in Brussels pretty much on time.

On the flight, I watched the movie Lola, about a transgender teenage boy -> girl who had been kicked out of the house by her father. Lola’s mother had been visiting Lola behind the father’s back and had saved money to help Lola get a sex change operation, but unfortunately she died before giving her the money. Lola, who had been living in a shelter, showed up for her mother’s funeral and her father acted like a real asshole. Lola took hold of her mother’s ashes and insisted on going with her father to the mother’s hometown to scatter her ashes. Finally, they came to some understanding. Her father’s heart softened but he’d still never accept that his son was a girl. It was pretty interesting to see how the trans issue affected an entire family.

The inflight meal was a rather bland rigatoni and white wine. I took a half a Valium and managed to sleep an hour or two at most. Once I woke up, I watched The Whale, which was difficult to watch. The main character, Charlie, was basically killing himself with obesity. He had left his wife and daughter for one of his young male students, who had killed himself by jumping off a bridge, leaving Charlie deep in grief. Charlie was trying to reconcile with his difficult daughter. It was a rather dark and depressing movie.

Saturday, June 17: We landed in Brussels close to 7:30 a.m. where we had to go through European immigration and then had to wait forever, till 8:30, for them to post the gate number for our 9:30 flight to Venice. Of course I had been carrying my heavy backpack plus my regular small backpack; together they were difficult to juggle. I seriously wondered how I’d manage to walk 200+ miles in the Tuscan sun and heat with that pack. It was tough enough just schlepping it around through the airport.Plus, I had brought my jean jacket which I used on the freezing plane but likely wouldn’t need in Italy. Finally, we proceeded to the gate.

We took off on time and landed in Venice at 11:10 a.m. We had to wait a while for our luggage to appear, so we were relieved when it finally arrived.

We then took the ACTV bus into Venice to Piazzola Roma, where our adventure would begin.