11:48pm EST // 5:48am Local
Jetlag Rating: F-
The easiest way I can think of to explain jet lag about an hour after waking up from it on this fine Boeing Aircraft is this: when I left Newark it was 5:22pm EST on Valentine’s Day. I went straight to sleep. About 6 hours later I woke up and had breakfast at what would be 11:48pm EST. Only when I woke up, I was on the other side of the Atlantic having flown against the earth’s rotation into the future and the time is now 5:48am on February the 15th. Sleeping on a plane (even with wonderfully luxurious lay flat seats,) is terrible, and will merit a nap for even the most steadfast of travelers of which I am absolutely not.
Still, Tim & I are back in Milan — 13 years later — coming up on our ten year wedding anniversary. The last time we were here together he had planned a crash course tour of Italy, just the two of us, starting in Rome then taking the train to Florence, then to Venice, and finally flying home from Milan. I was 25 then (below is a picture of me — I swear those aren’t pleated shorts and this wasn’t taken in the 80s— and it was only my third international trip. We have had many adventures since then, and I hope we still have many more to look forward to.
The hotel we’ve checked into is beautiful. In our room we found a duffel bag full of goodies like an Olympic branded jacket and vest, and a sweater. If you look in the album you’ll also see the Olympic Hat I got.
We spent the first part of day one just walking to through the fashion district where the hotel was located, seeing a massive line in front of the Olympics Superstore, gawking at the incredible vastness of the Duomo (more on this later,) and then taking a little nap.
We then took a bus to watch our first event, the women’s 500m Speed Skating Finals. By this time we were starving so Tim nabbed a disgusting hamburger and I found what must have been a two year old hot dog. Despite the terrible concessions they did have ketchup chips which for some reason only known to God us American’s have not caught on to yet. If you ever get the chance, TRY them. We were hoping the American, Erin Jackson, would take gold, but it wasn’t meant to be. Even with Snoop Dogg seated next to her parents rooting her on, Femke Kok (which sounds just like you think it does,) ended up beating everyone (including Jutta Leerdam, Jake Paul’s wife, and yes he was there too so that’s hopefully the closest to Jake Paul I’ll ever need to be…) The event was exciting, and it went fast as 500m is only about the length of the track.
We stayed for a while longer and got to see some of the Figure Skating Pair Skating short program.
It really is amazing to see in person, but we didn’t stay for the whole thing because the jet-lag was setting in and in Short Program it seems many of the routines nail the same moves as part of their set. Seated across from us in the alum is a picture of Jonny Weir and Tara Lapinski, and I must say they are much stronger Olympic telecasters than they are faithfuls. This was also just a qualifying event so there wasn’t going to be any winners. We caught an Uber back to the hotel and the rest of our first day is history.
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