I was asked by my good friend Alessio Roberti founder of NLPItaly to give part of the NLP Practitioner course to participants in Rome.
It is not the first time I have been to Rome. Over the years I have given many courses there, and seen private clients on a 1-2-1 basis.
Rome certainly has a character of its’ own, from the cobbled streets, to the history of ancient Rome, the religious aspects of the many churches, plus the Vatican.
Every building in Roma has character, unlike Milano which are built in a style from Mussolini days, very flat and square, no shape.
I had decided to leave Friday 12:15 midday, on an Alitalia flight from Heathrow, and checked in on the internet, and I checked the flight details prior to leaving home, and all was OK.
On arriving in Heathrow, Terminal 2, I approached a representative of Alitalia, only to be told the flight had not even left Rome on its’ inward journey to London. Oh Poo Poo.
No problem, there will be other flights, the course does not start until Saturday morning.
I went through to departures. At least I can look around the limited duty free shops. Now I know why they are there, as I am forced to buy more books to read. Thank goodness for PhotoReading.
Two and a half hours delay. Oh Poo Poo but no rush, I can relax.
An announcement is made over the public address system:-
“All Alitalia passengers on AZ203, please go to desk number one, where you can obtain a food voucher.“
Great, I can get some decent food for lunch, as all Alitalia now serve is a non descript sandwich, a small biscuit and a soft drink in a plastic cup. One good thing to come out of the delay.
The queue at desk number one is long, and I begin to talk to the fellow passengers around me.
I heard different accents. American, Australian, German, Italian, British. All had a tail to tell. All of the looked tired, sleepless, and were complaining.
The Americans had flown into London the previous day, but instead of seeing the sites, had gone to bed.
The Australians had left Australia two days previously, the flight was late leaving, flown to Hong Kong, were their connecting flight with Cathay Pacific to Rome had just left. They were re booked onto another fight with Korean Air going to London, from London they would take Alitalia to Rome. In all the confusion, their baggage had been lost.
My delay was nothing.
But the queue was not moving. For half an hour we stood in the same place. Alitalia had run out of meal vouchers.
Eventually, I got my voucher, and had my lunch. I was lucky, I had nothing special to do. Elena Martelli my translator for the weekend would not arrive in Rome until 8pm, when we would meet and have an evening meal together. No rush.
That’s another story.