I made it to Milan! - My flight and My Hotel

I am here in Milan now and sitting in the press room at one of the ice hockey arenas. I have barely slept, but ready to take the team photo for the women of USA Hockey. But wait...I am getting a little ahead of myself here. Let me tell you about the journey here and my entry into Milan.

(Photo credit to Laura Levine)

The trip started at San Francisco Airport with me, my two ThinkTank bags full of camera gear, and my large suitcase with all my clothing, tripod and monopod. From the last blog post, where I showed everything I am taking, a lot of people have asked me how I get all this heavy equipment on the plane. People have asked if I buy a second ticket or fly first class, and the answer to both of those questions is "no".  I check the big suitcase and then carry on both of the ThinkTank bags. Even though they are heavy, it was not an issue on the United flight to Frankfurt or the smaller Dolomiti flight to Milan. It does help that I am a million miler on United and have my media credentials (in case I get challenged). Showing media credentials can go a long way with airlines in getting more equipment on board, but I did not have to do anything special to get them on board for this trip.

My flight took off at 6:50pm from SFO. I saw them loading the airplane and thought that my gear was nothing compared to all the cargo going underneath the plane.

I did decide to fly premium economy to have a little more comfort and legroom. After a couple of hours in the air, I took a couple of sleeping pills (from Costco) and actually managed to get 5 hours of sleep on the long flight over to Europe. I used the new AirPod Pro 3 earbuds from Apple and the noise cancelling was awesome!

I got to the hotel around 7:30pm last night and stayed in my room for less than 5 minutes before heading over to the main press center (MPC).  I came back to the room and tried to sleep through the night. The room was small and a little noisy. I went downstairs this morning and asked if there was a way to get a larger and quieter room. And they made that happen. That is a first!

This is my new room, with a decent amount of space. 

I could barely move in the first bathroom (yes, it was that small), but now I have a little more room.

This morning I had my first breakfast at the hotel, and it was very good.

Lots of choices.

The pastries were tasty and the coffee was even better!

They had lots of sweets which I will try to avoid. They also had scrambled eggs and other protein under metal trays. It was nothing to photograph, but it was good to eat.

This is Paulo, my favorite person in Milan so far. I called the hotel last week and asked a bunch of questions and he was the one who helped me out. He speaks great English and was incredibly helpful. It is amazing how much that put me at ease. This morning, he was also the person who changed my hotel room and give me advice on which trains to take to get to the secondary ice rink. 

Altogether, it was a pretty smooth first night in Milan, and now the real work begins. 

In the next blog post, I will share "behind the scenes" of the main press center and more.

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