Were having a bit of trouble getting the GPS on our trusty hire car to work so we decide instead to follow our noses thinking that we cant go too far wrong if we just hug the coast. Road signs are handy too. Slovenian must be a very efficient language; its spelling of Trieste is Trst, yep, you just leave out all the vowels. Im glad our beloved Emma isnt Slovenian. Maybe following our noses wasnt such a great idea. Were fairly sure our route to the airport isnt supposed to take us through the middle of downtown Trieste. Its now morning rush hour so its just as well weve got a bit of time up our sleeves. It looks very attractive - a large square facing the waterfront surrounded by classical looking buildings.
We land in Rome. Ive seen movies with scenes of dead planes sitting out in the desert somewhere in New Mexico or Arizona. It seems that the now defunct Alitalia didnt want to bother with that one last flight; we taxi past rotting shells sitting
out here in full view between runways - missing windows and engines, paintwork half peeled off, broken wings. Im somehow not finding this all that reassuring. I dont think theyre just waiting for maintenance, but all the same I think nervous fliers might be a bit happier if they put them somewhere else.
As we stand in a long queue to board our very full looking flight to Palermo Issy points out a middle aged man a dozen or so places in front of us who looks like he should be in the ICU at the local hospital. Its a twenty or so degrees in here, but this guy looks like hes just crawled in from the Sahara; hes soaked in sweat, and hes coughing his lungs out. Surely they wont let him get on the plane, but no problem there, they just scan his boarding pass without a second glance and wave him through. We climb into the bus out to the plane making sure to give ICU guy a very wide berth. We cant see him, so maybe they did stop him after all. On the off chance that they didnt we calculate the odds.
We think there are roughly thirty rows of six passengers, so the chances of him sitting next to us are close to one in two hundred, so well be OK surely. Uh oh, hang on, here staggering down the aisle towards us. Its a bit chilly in here, but hes now wearing a heavy jacket and he cant stop shivering. Pity the poor bunnies who get to sit anywhere near him. Noooo! He plonks himself down right next to me. This cant be happening. I reach for a second mask and put on my sunnies (we read an article the other day about the dreaded virus getting in through your eyes), and turn on all the air vents so theyre blowing everything away from us and towards him. Issy tells me to lean towards her and just face the window for the entire flight. I hope I dont get stuck in this position and find that I cant move when I try to get off. What if ICU guy dies while were in the air, ‘cos thats feeling like a distinct possibility right now? What if he‘s got Ebola? We briefly consider asking one of flight attendants if
we can get off, but that would require facing him and asking him to get out of the way, not to mention being a bit inconvenient for the last four weeks of the trip. I try to look at it from his point of view. Maybe hes going home to die, but if that was the case mightnt it have been better to catch a train, at least then fellow passengers would have the option of moving to the other end of the carriage. Or maybe hes flying because the train would take too long and hed be dead before he got there. Anyway he survives the flight, and we wait until hes long gone before we inch nervously past where he was sitting trying very hard not to touch anything. We then spend a long time in the airport toilets with the disinfectant. That was interesting. I wonder what the incubation period for Ebola is.
Palermo airport looks to be sandwiched between the sea and some spectacular barren looking rocky mountains.
