--

I got up shortly before 6:30 AM, Central European time. That's nine hours ahead of the west coast, for reference. After a friendly greeting from my hostel manager and a generous free breakfast, I set out for the one minute walk to Rome Termini train station to take the Leonardo Di Vinci express train directly to Fiumicino Airport to begin my long journey back to Los Angeles.

It was about 8:00 AM by the time I arrived at the airport, about three hours before my flight was scheduled to depart. So far so good. And then I checked the flight screens and noticed that my flight--Alitalia #7620 operated by Delta Airlines--was delayed by one and a half hours. The new scheduled departure time was 12:15 PM. Well, at least I wouldn't have to rush through check-in and security. The last time I was coming back from Europe, I spent two and a half hours at Charles de Gaulle Airport just to check in, and an additional hour to get through security before waiting half an hour for the plane to fill up with all the passengers behind us.

Unfortunately, this ended up being an even longer wait.

It took about an hour to get through the check-in line, which was perfectly normal. Security was pretty swift. And then it was off to the gate to wait a couple of hours for my flight. Half of this was occupied by finishing Adam Gropnik's wonderful Paris to the Moon book (a fantastic gift from a friend), a delightful account of one man's five year stay in Paris with his wife and newborn son. Unfortunately, that still left over an hour to do nothing except wander through the terminal, looking at shops, and maybe getting a drink.

We finally boarded the plane at 11:45, only to be told that rather than depart at the expected 12:15 time, the plane still had to wait for clearance to "undock." And so we waited... and waited... and waited... and finally, at around 1:00 in the afternoon, we rolled out and taxied to the runway. By the time we were actually in the air, it was 1:20, making my flight a whopping two and a half hours delayed for no real reason, based on what I discerned. And perhaps others have suffered worse delays, but I haven't, and I was a tad peeved.

Here's where I go on a tangent: Alitalia. The worst airline I have ever dealt with.

I found it interesting in looking at the flight information screens that out of the dozen or so flights that were delayed in my branch of the terminal, a good ten of them were either Alitalia planes or Alitalia flights operated by other companies. My conclusion from this: Alitalia taints everything it touches in Italy. The airline has had financial problems for years, and it's never been really successful. Why it continues to operates is beyond any American or Italian's comprehension. And since it's a large conglomerate organized and run by the Italians, it naturally follows that anything related to organization is very... very bad. So unless I don't have a choice, I don't think I'll ever be flying with them ever again.

Anyway, we departed two and a half hours late. I was scheduled to land in Cincinatti at 3:30 PM, where I would have one and a half hours to switch planes and take a 5:00 PM flight to Los Angeles. As we gained altitude, I decided that this delay pretty much put that out of the question. I could land before five, but between retrieving my luggage, getting through customs, checking in a second time, and going through security again, the chances of catching my 5:00 flight were slimmer than Lindsay Lohan staying sober during a party. Oh well, nothing much I could really do. Might as well try to enjoy the flight.

--

Some notes on my flight.

It was basically a Delta flight, but definitely the worst of my four transcontinental flights I've taken. Most likely because I've been spoiled. On my way to Italy two weeks ago, I took a Virgin Atlantic jet to London. That flight featured a TV screen in the back of the seat and entertainment that included four dozen movies (all selectable at any time; you could fast forward or rewind; you had total control of your viewing), dozens of audio channels and soundtracks, a plethora of games, a travel channel, news, video games, and interactive flight-monitoring screens. And all of this in economy! So with many hours to kill, during that flight, I enjoyed Blood Diamond, Happy Feet, and Little Children.

This flight? Fixed screens overhead in front of me, which meant no control of movies, and a pathetic audio listing with half a dozen stations looping the same under-one-hour loop of songs.

And the movies? Oh dear.

The first film was decent enough. The Astronaut Farmer told the story of a farmer who was once discharged from the navy, ending his astronaut career, but still dreamed of going to space, so he built his own rocket. Only the federal government doesn't want him to fly, for fear of making NASA look bad, so he faces a struggle. But ultimately, it's a ho-hum movie of a man trying to blast off into space. So there's the dream, the struggles, the setback, the resurgent inspiration, and the triumph. Not a bad movie, but kind of boring and predictable.

And that was promptly the best film of the flight, because the next movie was Wild Hogs.

I let out a groan when I saw that. Having taken a critical studies in cinema class this past semester, I now look at movies a little more critically than I did before. And it boggles me how movies like Wild Hogs--a story about four middle aged men donning biker gear and going on a cross country trip to recapture the freedom of their youth, only to run into a "real" biker gang who then feuds with them through a climactic showdown at a local town terrorized by the gang, where a four on four fight breaks out and all seems lost until the original founder of the gang randomly shows up and tells the gang they've lost their roots, and everyone goes home happy--can get made. (Big breath after that run-on clause.) Meanwhile, independent movies that filmmakers pour their hearts into... movies that are quite well made... never see the light of big box office day.

And then I observed just why they're made. Because as the movie progressed, every once in a while, passengers would let out roaring guffaws at certain slapstick humor scenes, giggling like this was comedic genius and the funniest thing they'd ever seen. Note that these were not classically hilarious scenes. Nothing side splitting; just basic clumsy physical gags like running into a hard object. Or getting a baseball ricocheted into your crotch. Humorous, but not worth laughing continuously for ten seconds.

But that's why bad movies are made. Because there are always people who will watch them and love them. *sigh*

And that's when it hit me: I was going back to America. Higher culture of Europe... I will see you another day.

I should note that the Extreme Makeover: Home Edition spoof at the end credits (complete with Ty going through the unveiling process) was pretty damn hilarious and very well done. I'll give it that. But still... this was a bad movie.

On the other hand, I should have been grateful, because the third and final movie was the Diane Keaton / Mandy Moore horrorfest Because I Said So, a movie we watched early January in film class that quickly became our measuring stick for Awful Movie of the Semester. Really... it was quite bad--probably the worst movie I've ever watched--and I cringed when it popped up on the screen. Needless to say, I changed the audio channel to classical music, got myself some alcohol, and tried to go to sleep.

--

Our plane actually made good time. It was 4:10 PM local time when we landed in Cincinatti, meaning we had went from 2.5 hrs late to 40 minutes late. Ten minutes later I was at the customs window, where I was greeted with the following interrogation:

"What was your purpose to Italy?" a stern, all-business customs officer asked me tersely.

"Vacation," I breathed, eager to move on.

"What is your employment?"

The question took me a beat to process, since I had just graduated but had not started work yet.

"I'm a student. Or rather, I just graduated and I'll be starting work as an architect next month."

He didn't seem to like that answer. "So are you employed right now?" The tone was a bit peeved.

"No, I just graduated. I guess you can say I'm a student."

"How does a student with no work afford a two week trip to Italy?" he demanded, suspiciously, as though I might be threatening homeland security.

"Money saved from summer jobs," came the quick answer. I later realized I could have also said, "my parents paid for it."

"What job?"

"Architecture."

"Thank you, have a nice day." The ending came quickly and out of nowhere, and with a slight smile, he returned my passport. It was as if the previous minute had been a totally different scene from a totally different character.

I thanked him and dashed off to luggage claim, where other passengers were itching for their bags. And then the bags came... and came... and came... and mine was nowhere to be found. I'm a naturally impatient guy, and though I've learned to temper that over the years, I can still get edgy. So I waited and kept my composure, but internally, I was screaming at Alitalia.

Finally, after fifteen minutes, my one piece of luggage rolled around. I grabbed it and dashed to the re-check-in room, where I handed my bag to a worker and prayed that he would get it onto my plane so that it would get to LAX when I got there. I checked my watch. Fifteen minutes to spare. Next... security.

Fortunately, it was a quiet day. It only took five minutes to go through the short line, and then it was off to Terminal B.

Up the escalator.

Down the hall.

Turn left! Where's my gate? It's further up! Argh!

I half marched, half ran up the wide corridor, past the sleek and clean shops. I caught gate 21 on the right just as I heard my name being paged. Was I on time? Yes! Two minutes to spare! I walked to the counter, breathless, and handed him my boarding pass. And with that, I was on the plane.

Alitalia #3202, operated by Delta, left five minutes late and arrived ten minutes early. The flight was four and a half hours long, rather boring, and complicated by the fact that the in-flight movie was Wild Hogs... AGAIN. I groaned and rode it out.

At 6:40 I walked downstairs to the entrance of terminal 5 and greeted my mom and dad, who were their to pick me up. My dad gave me a hug (he almost never does that, but obviously he had missed me a lot--here's where the girls can go AWWWWWWW!!), and we went over to get my luggage. My bag came out within two minutes, and before it was 7:00 PM, I was on my way back home on the 105 east.

Somehow, LAX ended up being the best airport experience. And I used to think that it sucked. How ignorant I was--there are a lot of airports much worse than Los Angeles International, Charles de Gaulle being at the top of them.

--

I ended up going about 25 consecutive hours without sleep, which is not horrible for most people, but a decent feat for me, since I literally don't operate without my sleep. And if my last return from Europe proves to be any indication, it means that I'll actually have really good sleeping habits for about a week, since I'll be going to bed before midnight and waking up relatively early in the morning.

Jet lag's a funny thing. But for Europe, it's definitely worth it.