Sophia Loren or Whitney Houston?

I run. And run. And run with my trolley suitcase to catch my connecting flight as soon as I get off Qatar Airways B787 Dreamliner from Doha in Rome. I have only one hour left after one hour delay in Doha to get my boarding pass, go through immigration, customs clearence and anything in between to board my Alitalia flight for Bari.

“It’s an unusual name, even for Malaysians,” I explain to the ticketing officer.

“And BIN is not important at all. Thirty percent of men in Malaysia have the unnecessary BIN as part their names. You can either add it to your first name, or middle name, or last name or bin it all together,” I add as the guy is checking my passport against my flight ticket. He nods as if he understands my explanation, shrugs and issues me my boarding pass. And I run again for immigration.

“Grazie senore,” I say to the immigration officer that stamps my passport. And again I run. My eyes are busy looking for direction on signboards inside the hot and humid Leonardo da Vinci Airport. I am beginning to sweat now from a combination of running and humidity. Why is it so warm inside the air-conditioned airport?

Twenty minutes gone since I said “C U Next Thursday” to the Russian Gong Li until I pass through the Italian immigration. And my original plan of walking as elegantly as Sophia Loren trickles down between my butt cheeks, joining my sweat. The wet spots on my navy blue sleeve shirt underneath my armpits keep expanding. Bigger and bigger. The air inside the airport feels warmer and warmer. It’s not because of my running alone that makes me sweat a la Whitney Houston. It is really hot in here. I notice many people are fanning themselves with their hands.

It’s not right but it’s ok. I’m gonna run anyway. Otherwise I’ll miss my flight. I even ignore a pair of eyes that give me the “I-find-you-are-beautiful” look that belong to quite a handsome thirty something Mediterranean guy. I reach the customs. I put my suitcase onto the rolling thingy that scans suitcases.

“Can you please open your suitcase sir?” requests the custom officer in pony tail after seeing the content of my suitcase on the screen. I unzip my suitcase.

“Can you please take out the contents from the bag?” she requests and points at the big white supermarket plastic bag that takes up almost half of my suitcase.

“Red curry paste. And green curry paste. This one is chilli powder. And this is garam masala. These three are rendang mix,” I explain to her as I fish out one by one the suspicious contents from my suitcase.

“And this….,”

“It’s ok. You can put them all back in now,” says she.

“They are not for me. For friends and neighbors,” I quickly add. Omygod. My suitcase now smells of fish sauce, shrimp paste and curry. Urghh….Isweartogod I’m coming back to Europe quietly next time. Otherwise half of my suitcase is filled with curry paste and garam masala. Not to mention that all my clothes will smell of shrimp paste and fish sauce. The signorina customs officer nods and smiles as I place all the Asian cooking paste thingy back in the plastic bag. I zip my suitcase.

“To Bari. Which way signorina?”

“This way,” she points the direction that I have to go. “The bus will come soon to take you to the terminal,”

“Grazie,” I say and walk to join a group of about twelve or fifteen people waiting for the bus for the domestic terminal. My watch says 10 minutes to 1pm. It looks very hot outside. No wonder I’m profusely sweating Whitney-sque. Other people are sweating as well. About 5 minutes later our bus arrives to ship us to the domestic terminal. By the time I get to the boarding gate, there is only about 10 minutes left before departure.

“Bari?” I ask the girl behind the counter, catching my breath.

“Yes,” she replies. “But we are not opened for boarding yet. There’s a slight delay, sir.” If only I knew. I could have done a thing, or two in between.🙄