Orio al serio (BGY), the airport is an experience

Every once in a while we all feel like it's time to get a break of your everyday life, be it from the local environment you're grown too used to, be it your work that you need to take a break from, or be it anything else for the matter. For some people it happens more often than for other. I happen to be one of them. And whenever I can, I just book a plane ticket as little in advance as possible and take off. I never buy the return ticket, just one way. How should I know when I want to go back home? Or if I want to go back home directly or through a stop somewhere in-between. I also never seem to learn that very often cheap tickets actually aren't cheap tickets. Or even if they are cheap compared to other options, they have other faults. Like a 25-hour travel instead of 5 or 8 hours.

Like it has happened times and times before, this time too, when a decision had been made that I will go to Malta, I chose the Ryanair option which would take me from Estonia to Milan Bergamo (BGY) airport and from there to Malta. If you're unaware of any of those places, then those are all countries. Well, except for Milan Bergamo, which is a a city in Italy. Or truth be told, two cities - Milan and Bergamo. Bergamo is just the location of low fare airlines airport in Milan. Details. Just details. Besides that fact that you should really learn the map.

This was the schedule:
6.30am bus from Tartu, Estonia to Tallinn, Estonia, arrival ninish
11.45am flight from Lennart Meri airport in Tallinn to Bergamo, arrival twoPMish
6.45am the next morning flight from Bergamo to Malta

All's good. Except for the fact that, and of course, let's keep the option open that it was just me, 0.4 liter beer in Bergamo (the town, not the airport, even though airport prices were the same) cost 4.5 euros, pint in another place 5.5 euros. And even though from previous experience I always remembered Bergamo being a better Milan, this time it seemed boring, expensive, and nuthinsayish. Even the pizza I ate in Italy was pretty bad. So even though I had intended to stay in town until almost midnight, I got fed up already after 5pm and I exited the airport shuttle just after 6pm.

After that it was time for pleasure time at the airport. Previously I had read that Bergamo Orio al Serio airport is something of a nightmare if you have to spend the night there. You know people, they tend to exaggerate. As they did this time. It wasn't a nightmare, it was an experience to remember. And preferably not to experience it ever again.

Firstly, the airport is quite small, but that's usually not a big deal. Secondly, at some point before the midnight the security pushed all the people to the arrivals area. Yes, probably they wanted to clean everything else, but considering the amount of people there, there was half as many chairs. So many people had to lay back on the floors. Which is not a problem, if the airport wouldn't have been cold due to the always opening and closing doors. The saddest thing was to see a Russian family (yes, Russian; no, not Putin; Russian, still human) who initially had set up a nice place for themselves in the departures area to wait the morning flights. Then the security said that they are closing this area, move on. Well, they moved on, as did dozens and dozens of others. They moved on quite a lot. So did I. They set up another camp to see the same security again in half an hour. And move again, to ever-getting-colder areas with far from enough chairs. As some point they managed to get their two kids to sleep on their bags. And they themselves, well, I saw them standing a lot. I stood and walked with my bag for the sake of it - you know, it's exercise!

The good thing was that there was free wireless internet available in the entire airport. Now make your guess, how many charging points there were? I found one, after asking for it from a security guard. It was positioned next to a toilet door and to nobody's surprise, it didn't work. 24/7 internet is nice...if only we'd also have appliances that would last that long without charging. Got to add small print here - in the morning I did find an ad on one screen saying that there's a free charging point on the second floor inside an expensive restaurant. To my defense, it was one of 6-10 messages that were shown one after another just next to the restaurant door.

It was an experience, to remember. And mainly, not to do the same mistake again. Nights are cold. Inside Orio al Serio. And mistakes, you know how that goes, there's always another day.