Having spent last night hurtling into yesterday sandwiched between two men (one of whom was a complete stranger) at speeds that no sane person would even contemplate it’s no wonder I’m feeling peculiar.

As the plane approached Rome airport this morning most of the passengers suddenly started talking Italian. They’d seemed quite ordinary up till then. It was now obvious we were the minority.

I already knew the guy I’d slept (or tried to) next to through from Kuala Lumpur was Italian. His cutting edge designer spectacles said it all. Not to mention the natural fibre shirt, fancy black watch with an orange circle around the face and black leather carry bag with silver zips.

No bloke born in New Zealand or Australia could pull all that together if he tried. Why do Italians hold the world copyright on style?

He made me regret the yellow tee-shirt (100% cotton) I’d changed into in the loos at Kuala Lumpur airport. The brown long sleeved, potentially more elegant top had started to stink after the first eight hour stint of the journey. If I’d kept it on for the remaining 12 hours I could have been patented as a people repellent.

He should have been grateful for the yellow tee shirt seeing we were virtually going to sleep together. But I’d caught him looking at it askance at the beginning of the night as if he expected trouble from its owner - snoring, perhaps, loud one-sided conversations or attempts to convert him to a weird religion.

If only I’d worn an elegant scarf like the one our Italian teacher drapes over her shoulder at night class.

I could almost hear him sneering at my round toed flats and support stockings. Of course I should have worn pointy toed leather boots with needle heels (even though they’d have murdered my feet). Any real woman would rather die of deep vein thrombosis than embarrassment from looking like a bogan.

To keep me at bay he flicked open a large Italian newspaper which he read ostentatiously from cover to cover over several hours. Little did he know I’d had 18 hours of Italian lessons and therefore could decipher all the news items, well, some of the words. Okay then. I recognised “new” and “school” or possibly “scholar”.

Determined to prove his prejudices about me wrong, I didn’t even make eye contact. I lay lifeless as a board next to him all night. He, on the other hand, tossed restlessly and emitted unnerving grunts. That was probably due to him being highly strung. Or maybe he was desperate for a cigarette. He did reek of those European cigarettes that smell like a cross between rose petals and marijuana.

The night seemed to go on forever, the way they do with those flights. Long before morning, the man started staring earnestly at the map showing a tiny plane edging toward Italy.

A hazy dawn broke over scrubby hills. For a few moments Rome looked like poor man’s Wellington. Then we caught sight of pottery coloured roof tops against milky sea.

As we stepped from the plane I was surprised to discover Rome smelt not of traffic pollution but of freshly mown hay. It’s called Leonardo da Vinci airport. Only the Italians would name an airport after an artist. The place seemed deserted.

I was about to say to my husband it reminded me of New Plymouth airport, which could perhaps consider changing its name to Michael Smither airport. But then we rounded a corner and collided with the longest customs queue on earth. In fact there were four customs queues.

“Follow that guy I slept next to,” I said. “He’s a local and knows what he’s doing.”

We took a while to realise he was in the EU Citizens line. With a huge sense of defeat we moved to one of the Non EU Citizens lines snaking practically all the way back to Kuala Lumpur.

Guards stood by in smart grey uniforms. They gave the impression they were there for us to admire more than anything else.  When a customs officer opened a new line we surged forwards like refugees in a World War Two movie.

When we finally reached the official’s window there were no forms to fill in. He simply stamped our passports and waved us through.

I was tempted to say “grazie” in my fancy night class Italian. But then he would have noticed the yellow tee shirt and deported me as a fashion criminal.