Italy is always fun to go to. The great Get a Cab Adventure Ride keeps the blood flowing (at reasonable pressure and speed), and it also occupies the mind by keeping track of the number of near-accidents that happen. Motorized traffic in Italy is different from the cold north of Europe. And to think I've only been to northern Italy this time around. In the south the relative order that still exists in the north break down completely. Naples is one of those places where you won't see a single car that is not dinged, dented or broken in some way. At least in Milan they can afford to fix their cars.

A cab out to Malpensa airport takes 45 minutes to an hour, and it ends in the distant countryside. Malpensa is a new airport; I think it opened in 2000, and has consequently been placed in the convenient middle of nowhere. One of the things they've never been able to get to work is the far door of the departures hall. It's been broken ever since I first visited the airport. The reason I know or care is that the KLM check-in desk is in that part, and since the door is continuously broken I have to walk a considerable distance to get there. At the check-in desk, I got my boarding pass as usual, minus the routine question to see my passport.

At the security check leading to the gates, there was some confusion as the x-ray machine operator seemed a bit confused about which direction the belt should run. At one point, a lady in front of me was desperately pushing back the bags that were spilling back onto the floor. The buzzer did not go off as I walked through the metal detector, and I was on my way to the gate. They did not check my boarding pass. Getting onto the plane was easy too... no identity checks there either. Today I managed to board a flight without anybody checking my identity. And it's not just an Italian problem; earlier this year the same happened to me at Stuttgart airport in Germany. Seems that airport security isn't working all that well.