I hesitate to describe my bumbling trip across the great pond, except to say bumbling is it, in a word. Large queues at security everywhere, but Rome wins for longest walks from one terminal to the next. And the rule seemed to be no matter where you are, and no matter that you’ve followed directions carefully, you’re actually supposed to be somewhere else. The final straw was when I was dozing quietly at the gate where I had been explicitly directed to wait both by humans with the correct uniform and by the lighted digital directories at every intersection, when I dimly heard a message in Italian ending in Sees-co. I went to find a correctly uniformed person, who checked her computer and explained to me that the message said the gate had been changed, take-off time was NOW, and where the hell was I?

She trotted down the hall, flagged them down, and I stumbled off to a different gate and got on the plane. Good Grief. Could it get worse. Yes. I was met at the Turin airport by a polite, English-speaking young man who drove me to the hotel, I checked in, was met by festival greeter, got my badge and instructions, and stumbled up to my room. It was noon in Turin, but 4 a.m. my time, and I had slept about an hour on the Rome-Turin leg. I fell into bed and slept until 9 p.m. local. Got up and prepared to go out and fetch a meal. That’s when I missed my passport. Turned out I’d left it at the desk and it was in my little message cubbly hole. Surely it’ll get better. Or different.

I’ll post more after I’ve rested some. First newly learned things: Jet lag is real, as I can attest by the fact my morning meds are now at night, and vice versa.

-m