Last week I was on a business trip to Genoa. I was there to represent the Technology department in the lions den of a quality managers' meeting, as I had been a few years previously in Liège and in Bielsko-Biala. This time around was somewhat more relaxed than the previous few. The quality team had finally accepted our way of working and come round to accepting our thinking behind the complex tolerancing on seemingly simple parts. And to accept the necessity of measuring what we make.
Naturally, I had only a little time to experience Genoa itself.
My evening out with the team at a pizzeria in the port at least showed me the way down to the port, so when I escaped an hour earlier than required the next day, I was able to wander down for a quick look in the daylight. The Genoa that I saw had that certain Mediterranean lived-in grandeur that many Italian cities posess; fading architectural glories simply being part of the activity going on in and around them. At least the busses were now electrified (using overhead transmission lines) so that the level of soot particle attack on old stone was reduced, even if the traffic otherwise continued apace.
The port area was a little bit dead when I visited. The mix of upper class (yachts and a few of their designers, coffee and wine bars with excessive glass and stainless steel) existing along with the Ecuadorian fake-goods sellers didn't really work. I say "mix", but really the two worlds are oil and water, imiscable when coexisting. The intermediate layer of November tourists was very thin, as could be expected, which dampened the spirits more than the warm but grey weather. The university district around Via Balbi at least added that chaotic sort of youthful vigour that universities tend to do. As my colleague RP said, it would be worth going back to Genoa for a weekend in late spring, early summer to get a more in-depth impression of the place.
As an aside, I was stunned by the wonderful section of the A7 Autostrada between Milan and Genoa near the Scrivia towns and leading down to Busalla (where our company has its Italian production plant). Curves! Mountains! Scenery! It had everything. I could have imagined better cars to drive on it than my Fiat Bravo hire car, but even that was able to let its hair down without collapsing in a heap.
I flew in and out of Italy via Milan Malpensa. For some reason, the security control was chaotic, despite the sleek "entry pods" that permit only one person to enter into the scanners at once. It may have been there, though it could also have been anywhere, that I lost my passport. I managed to lose my boarding pass there, too - but when, after some minutes of panic, I enquired of the security personnel there, it was swiftly found. I didn't realise that my passport was missing, however. I still don't know when it went awol.
And, as I write this, I am still without my passport. From searching everywhere at home, asking the hire car company, Frankfurt airport and Malpensa airport to have a look, to filling out the application forms for a new passport (there is very little in life that makes me more nervous, skittish, fretful than filling out forms), it has been a stressful few days; I need the passport to get back to England for Christmas with my family (As a good subject of the Queen, I have no other form of ID that would be valid for travel.) We need it in order to apply for my baby daughter's own passport (as a good German citizen, she needs proof that I agree with her having said document).
So, I wait. The man I spoke to at the British Consulate-General in Düsseldorf reassured me that it would not take the advertised four to six weeks to get my new passport. I certainly made it clear in my accompanying letter that I need it soon; currently applications for the new electronically readable passports (which can not be printed in Düsseldorf as could be the older versions) are dealt with rather more quickly and I could easily expect it before our travel. I will remain on edge until I have presented it to border control at the Channel Tunnel…
One positive corollary of the whole passport episode is that I cannot travel. All of a sudden, in the two and a half weeks before the Christmas holidays, I was being asked to travel to Palencia (via Madrid), to Nazelles near Tours and to Bologna. Now, I am safely and happily "stuck" at home, getting my normal workload done, if not dusted, and being home for bedtimes. I appreciate that all the more.
