Italy - 12 May

The 2010, 12-May through 3-June journey to Italy began with all night packing and immediate driving of four hours to RDU. I have a few rules when flying and taking my bike:

1. No more than 1 connection.
2. That connection must be between the exact same airline (in my case, American Airlines to American Airlines).
3. That connection must be within the United States; RDU to JFK and JFK to Italy is my preferred route.
4. There must be ample time between connections. Instead of trying to have as short as travel time as possible, I put in lots of time between connections - both to Italy and returning - for padding.
5. Aside from the bike bag, I only take a carry-on. Lugging a bike bag and a large luggage on arrival is not fun. So pack compactly.

After successfully being an Airport Ninja I amazingly had a good flight with no one seated beside me from JFK to MXP and got decent sleep for once.

As an aside, it is funny when you get on an international flight with two meals being served. It is as if the nationality of the whole flight is one nation at the beginning of the flight (and first meal) and suddenly changes to the arrival nation towards the end of the flight (second meal). Can't you just serve one kind of meal instead of pretending we are actually in either the departure or arrival country.