Sunday KL to Verona

The older and stiffer I get, the harder and more unpleasant sleeping in planes is!

I had coffee on the Alitalia plane from Rome to Verona just so that I could see whether the milk was milk or a collection of chemicals. The packet said ‘skim milk powder’. I could find no other list of ingredients, so maybe it was just that – dried milk. It tasted OK. Better than long life milk. You are also expected to bring your own headphones. I suppose I could have asked for some. I watched ( not listened to) a 1 hour travel show. Subtitles came in use. One of the 4 destinations featured was Martha's Vineyard - where 5 days ago I booked a b and b for a few days next year.

My room looks out over a courtyard with roofs, churches, spires a bit further away. Very pleasant. It is plain, spartan maybe, but quite adequate. The room is furnished for 2 people with 2 beds, 2 desks, 1 cupboard, 1 bedside table and shelves above the desks. It would be a bit of a squash with 2 people. In recent years a bathroom and air conditioning have been added. The accommodation is part of a complex built by the Salesian order of monks. They rent out some rooms to private people – the language school is one of them.

We had lunch at a serve yourself place. It had some different , interesting options, but I was too tired to think clearly and then a few of us pottered around for a while, had a drink in a nice place, bought some groceries and then came back to the room and pottered, trying to stay awake.

It is nice to hear church bells ringing.

Saturday Sydney to KL

The bus trip to Sydney was uneventful until we arrived in Sydney. My pack was the last bag off the bus and was damp. There was moisture on the floor of the bus. No worries, thought I, a bit of water won’t hurt. The bus driver was uninterested, said I could write to the company. We got into the airport and realised it was wine, not water. The things inside were dry at that stage but the inside of the pack was a bit damp. I took the harness out and found one of the straps quite wet. We had coffee and wandered around a bit. We checked our bags in. I am not sure what I will find or smell when we get to Verona. To compensate for the smell of wine on the shoulders of my shirt I felt justified in trying a sample of perfume and then a sample of handlotion.

If you want to drink white coffee on Malaysian Airlines, be warned. The little packet of ‘creamer’ contains glucose syrup, vegetable fat, sodium caseinate, stabalizer, sodium silicoaluminate, natural colour. I thought cream was someway related to milk. I will never complain about long life milk again. It is currently ½ hour since Helen drank hers and she is still alive. She said it was not too bad.

Wandering around Kuala Lumpur airport in the middle of the night was significantly less unpleasant than Bahrain. It was not as sparkly and glitzy. It probably helped that there were fewer people.