PJA Sabatical: Monday 3rd of October 2011

Well we took off at midday yesterday and landed 8am local time. Passport control was amazing. I literally only had one person infront of my in the line I was in. I can remember landing at Montreal and walking into the passport control area only to see a long zig-zag of hundreds of people stretching all around the room. Heathrow wasn't much better last time I landed from Hungary. Ok so now I have the second ever stamp in my passport (after Florida) - woohoo. I walked out in to the arrival area to see my name on a board and within 10 minutes I was in the front of a Mercedes taxi heading to the hotel. My brief spell in a non-airconditioned environment waiting outside for the few minutes told me it was hot. I was back at 32C again like most of my time in north Italy however there is much higher levels of humidity here. The weather forecast on the BBC suggests storms but the taxi driver said it hadn't rained for a couple of days and we didn't have any today either.

I got to the hotel by 9am which was far too early to get my room key but they did give me a key for a hospitality room where there was a couple of bathrooms and a shower/bath as well as some basic drink making facilities and financial news items running 24*7. I stopped in there for a while at first watching tv and then reading before I eventually fell asleep about 15 minutes before they rang me to tell me my room was ready. I went down and got the keys and then headed up to the room. It's very modern and the view is great from the 18th floor. My lack of sleep was catching up with me so after a quick scan through the tv channels I fell asleep. I woke a couple of times but basically was asleep for most of the rest of the day. Come 9pm I was a little peckish so I ordered some room service. A Bento box and bottle of beer. It arrived just about when they said it would and it was very good. The miso tasted different from the stuff normally portioned out in the UK, certainly a better and more interesting flavour. The sashimi was very soft and delicate, the veggie tempura was good too although the prawn piece, whilst large, wasn't that good. The best bit bar far though was the Teryaki Gindara Cod that was with the tempura. Definitely one of the nicest pieces of fish I can remember eating for a long time.

It's strange but I think living in Canary Wharf has taken the edge a little off the view I have from the room. Water, lights and skyscrapers (including a mini-death cube - private joke for those that work in the actual death cube) have a similar look at night.... Well tomorrow I'll check out the Skypark on the 57th floor and I suspect the views will be much more spectacular from up there.