my final adventure during this trip to italy was at the bergamo airport. i left lots of time for the drive there, but got into a traffic jam so started cutting it a little close. once inside the check-in area for my ryanair flight to malta, i became aware that the thousands of people in line weren’t moving at all. apparently, all of ryanair’s bag tag machines had crashed and were rebooting. as time to the bag check time cutoff inched closer, those who were about to miss their flight, including me, started to panic. i made friends with a russian couple who were on their way to ibiza, and we began asking people ahead of us in line if we could move in front of them so we wouldn’t miss our flight. of course almost everyone said no, one middle-aged woman so forcefully that her and the russian woman started hurling superlative insults at each other, almost leading to a fistfight. eventually, with three minutes to cutoff, the russian couple decided to get go for it and push through to the front of the line, and i followed in their wake. the machines were finally reboted and i was able to check my bag 30 seconds before the check-in cutoff. whew!