Tuesday, 14 April, 2020
Day XXXVII of the Great Italian Lockdown would be one of untold freedom while still following the Prime Directive, STAY AT HOME unless you have "essential" business to conduct.
And today, I did!
But first, an important message . . .
FIDAF finally has something to say
about the 2020 American football
season in Italy
The 2020 season is . . .
. . . KAPUT!
The Division I, II and CIF-9 seasons are all done.
Our DIII, known as CIF-9 because they play nine-man football, is the only level that actually played games this year.
During the first two weeks of their season, CIF-9 played 18 games. Still, nine of the CIF-9's 41 clubs did not play a game in 2020.
The DI and DII seasons were scheduled to open the weekend after our Lockdown commenced, thus zero contests played.
This announcement came out at about 2:30 p.m. local time which was good for me on a moral level.
We all knew that this was coming, that's why the Skorpions' Board of Directors opted to send me home this week.
Still, I had made a commitment to the team to not leave Varese until our season either played itself out or FIDAF cancelled the season.
Due to a technicality, my cancelled flight to Rome to start my trip home last Sunday, I actually was still in Varese when FIDAF made its unprecedented decision.
I'll take it.
Instead of playing American football
on the field, FIDAF has set up an
all-divisions Madden Tournament
The Skorpions are in the AFC North Division.
Go Skorpions GO!
As for me, at 7:30 p.m., my journey home . . .
. . . STARTED!
Today's first leg was this flight to Rome where I would spend the night in a hotel in the Rome airport before flying to both London and then Los Angeles tomorrow morning.
Just as he did on Sunday's aborted flight, Enzo Petrillo drove me to the airport again today.
NOBODY was at
Malpensa's Terminal 2
Enzo' white car, on the left, is about 20 meters from the main entrance to the terminal.
OH, GREAT!
My flight was NOT cancelled
The check-in counter was deserted
Checking-in was a breeze
for me today
One last selfie before Enzo
and I parted ways
A GOOD man.
I was the only person in line going through security because, as I said, the terminal was deserted.
On my way to Gate D14
Getting closer
Nice sign but no shops were open
The Gate D14 waiting area
We only had about 30 passengers on the plane.
Still on time
That's a big Alitalia plane
for only 30 people
Alitalia comes from the Latin
root word "alitius" meaning
NO LEG ROOM!
Our attendant was in
Prime Directive compliance
All of us were on board and ready to fly a full ten minutes before the scheduled 7:30 p.m. take-off.
We were definitely keeping our Social Distance as the airline only had two people seated in a row.
Our rows had six seats each. I was in the 20th row over the wing and nobody sat behind me. While I had the aisle seat on the left of the aisle, my row mate had the window seat on the the right side of the aisle. Same thing for the row in front of me but they were staggered in the opposite direction.
With nobody in front of me or behind me, for the first time in
I don't know how long, I fully reclined my seat for the flight to Bella Roma!
With no other planes flying either in Milano or Roma, I experienced something new.
In Milano, we pushed back from the gate for about 50 meters made a 90° turn and instantly gunned the engines and roared off to the Capital city.
No need to queue for take-off, just GO!
In Roma, when we landed, we needed to taxi to the gate as usual. What was not usual was taxing at about 80 miles an hour, again, no other planes were in sight.
Once at the gate, we deplaned in an orderly fashion about five rows at a time so as to maintain the proper Social Distancing.
ROME'S AIRPORT AS AN OPEN
COFFEE BAR!
I will use it for sure tomorrow morning before the flight to London.
Not on this trip
My hotel for the night was
actually IN the airport
My accommodation was a small, clean room at a reasonable price that will make tomorrow's morning flight to London much easier to deal with to be sure.
Only one good one on the net today . . .
Seems about right to me
Reading Is Fundamental!
The Greeks gods were basically mean,
thin skinned, unchecked sex maniacs
with power
Who does that remind me of?
I'll be in Camarillo tomorrow night if all goes well.
I look forward to it but truth be told, I'll miss all of our Italian friends greatly.
Until We Meet Again Skorpions!
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