Italia

It was another gruesome day on the road. Somehow it seemed so easy: we'll just take a quick flight to Milano and then hop into a car and drive ourselves to Firenze and there we are. So much for the theory, the practice was slightly off, off enough to make it a long exhausting day. To start with we flew EasyJet, which seems to think that they are the European Southweat - no assigned seats that is. Now Southwest, as much as I despise them, has it down cold with their 3 boarding groups and their somewhat orderly lines but EasyJet, well, that is a different matter. Unruly crowds of Italian males at the very front by the counter, no lines, a stampede threatening to happen any minute, people pushing and shoving and hauling huge-ass suitcases on the plane and then complaining that they can't find overhead bin space. Then the usual thing happend: two passagers were micracoulosly missing and therefore we couldn't leave. After everything had been sorted out we - of course - had lost our position in line for starting and to make a long story short what should have been a short hop turned out to be an ordeal. EasyJet also doesn't provide anything free of charge anymore, not even a papercup full of lukewarm water or tiny packages of stale pretzels. The seats didn't recline - need I say more.
Finally we landed in Milano, the airport is called Malpensa which is sort of a strange choice given that mal means bad and pensa thoughts, doesn't seem like an auspicious name for an airport. Anyway, the shuttle bus to the car rental dumped us somewhere in the boonies - normally not such a big deal but with 80 kg of luggage and no cart it kind of is. We made our way to the cars just to find out that, oh yes, the cars are here, and here is your reservation but wait, you have to go to the terminal to get the keys. Reminded me of the old joke:
Heaven is a place where the police are English; the chefs are Italian; the car mechanics are German; the lovers are French and it's all organized by the Swiss.
Hell is a place where the police are German; the chefs are English; the car mechanics are French; the lovers are Swiss and it's all organized by the Italians.
Three hours in the car later we reached Firenze. I have to say the Italians seem to have lost their car-mojo sometime in the 90s. I remember them as sporty drivers, sort of fast, a bit reckless maybe but in command of their vehicles. Maybe we had a typical Sunday-driver issue today, along the lines of Grandpa-taking-out-the-car-for-the-first-time-in-ages-for-a-little-Sunday-spin but the driving was horrible. 90% of the drivers were meandering between the lanes, going way too slow for an Italian autostrada, apparently not having a clue what they were doing - and 10% were driving like testosterone-crazed lunatics - sitting on your tail with 5 com to spare, weaving in and out and passing on the right lane (a super-big no-no in Europe, one can only pass on the left side, never on the right) driving supped-up Subarus with spoilers - yukee!
We found the apartment with the help of the GPS system sort of okay - GPS's just never seem to know about road construction and there is plenty of that in Firenze. Anyway, the apartment is nice, on the 5th floor of a not so nice old building but spacious and furnished okay in an interesting mixture of IKEA and vintage (well, let's face it: old) furniture. Max has his own room with his own bed that he already complained - like a real American - is way too small. The train tracks right by the house might be a bit of a problem - I specifically asked about noise and was told that the apartment is quite - well I guess by Italian big city standards trains all hours of the house are not considered noise. The location is good though, pretty close to the center and so I hope we will be able to do a lot on foot.
Tomorrow morning we will take advantage of having the car for a few more hours and take a trip to Ipercoop - the equivalent of Walmart in Merida and Mercadona in Frigiliana to stock up on stuff for the next four weeks. In the evening Jutta will join us as she is in Florence for an English language teaching class. If the weather holds up we'll have a great time - just need to get some decent shoes, a nice overcoat, maybe a couple more sweaters so I won't look like a tourist in this stylish town and I will be all sets for live in the big city.