Just when I thought it was all over, it wasn’t, and maybe it will never be

The night before I was on the Web and trying to select my favorite seat on the SwissAir Airbus. I thought that I knew the model of the airplane but a friend of mine who knows a lot more about airplanes than me (and in fact more than most) corrected one of my older blog entries and educated me on what model it was, but of course I forgot. Regardless, I was aiming for 29G, a bulkhead seat that has just as much room as first class. Of course, that seat was already taken and I was lamenting this fact to Ilaria’s father who promptly asked me which seat and now what. I ended up choosing the seat at random because it wasn’t like I had committed the floor plan of the aircraft to memory.

So, after the short and empty flight from Milan to Zurich, I thought for sure this was going to be last time I was going to be able to speak Italian on a regular basis. I was lamenting this and also very afraid because I knew that I was already standing on a slippery slope. Any disruption in the regular usage of Italian was going to push me back down the slope. Low and behold, I ended up sitting next to Sabrina, who among other things, was one of the nicest persons that I had met on this entire adventure. We communicated with sign language at first because I know she knew that I was American; I had plopped my passport down on my seat in a heap. I waited for the first opportunity to confirm that she was Italian and introduced myself. I think she was shocked but also happy to be sitting next to someone that spoke Italian.

We enjoyed each other’s company for the whole voyage and covered a number of topics. It was amazing how much I LEARNED in the 12 hours of flying and one hour through customs and baggage claim. We took breaks for sleep and meals but otherwise our chats filled four pages in my notebook. So, just when I thought that Italian was over, it wasn’t. We exchanged contact information for a chance to do language exchange; she is planning to stay for three months in America to learn English which is something that I think we will definitely see more of since the Euro is extremely strong compared to the Dollar.