August 9, 20196 yr I first went thru the St. Gotthard, via rail tunnel, in 1977 on my way from Milan to Luzern. I went thru it in the other direction via road tunnel, the longest I have ever been thru, in 1984 from North to South, on my way to Venice from Luzern. Last, i flew over it in a Lufthansa 737, in both directions, on a business flight from Frankfurt to Bologna and back in 1995. The southbound Lufthansa flight was funny. I flew from Phoenix to Pittsburgh, then Pittsburgh to Frankfurt on a US Airways 767, one of my nicest flights ever. While waiting with a massive case of jet lag, since I rarely sleep on airplanes, I was in the departure lounge to Bologna when out of my blurry eyes I noticed a dark skin colored man from India staring at me. Finally he got up, sat next to me and said "JOHN, what are you doing HERE!". He was a former colleague and close friend from India who I had worked with a year a half before, before he left my company to return to India to be with his family and take up a job at home. As I was flying in from Frankfurt, he was flying in the opposite direction from Delhi to Bologna! Not the first time in my business travel that serendipity like that has happened to me, it has happened to me quite a few times, meeting former colleagues, even family, on layovers, like happened to me in 1990 on a layover in Caracas, Venezuela. As we boarded the Lufthansa flight, my friend wanted to talk to me on our flight to Bologna, where he also had business to conduct. He shooed out the passenger next to my window seat, and we talked the entire flight southbound over the St. Gotthard pass to Bologna. He was a life saver, because I had not exchanged money for Italian Lira back then, so he paid for my bus fare from the Airport to my destination, where we parted ways. An angel of mercy for me that day, tired as I was. My landing on Lufthansa in Bologna was the worst landing ever. As we were in ground effect before touchdown, the pilot flared too early and we slammed into the runway from about fifteen feet, opening many overhead bins and dropping contents on the floor. In my suitcase, a bottle of cologne was broken, so I got many cute remarks on how I smelled by my client there, lol! Worst landing ever in my life. John Edited August 9, 20196 yr by John_Cillis
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