Some of you may know I'm going to China on Thursday for three weeks. I just dug out a notebook to take, and it turns out to have been the notebook I took to Mongolia last year. And it turns out to contain a poem I never shared with you guys. I don't know how many of you remember my Ode to Terminal Five at Rome's Fiumicino Airport. Terminal Five is for when you're going to the US. Flying from Rome to Mongolia involves going through Moscow. I remembered writing this while I waited for my flight but I lost track of it. So here, a year or so late, is my Ode to Terminal Three.

Now, Terminal Three, I had thought,
Was run as an airport had ought.
As it turns out, however,
That very endeavor
A paragon really is not.

Of airlines, it houses a lot,
Not all of them in the same spot.
A far lowest level
Is there to bedevil
Those who the cheap tickets have bought.

If a third-world location you sought
As round the wide globe you did trot,
Your flight, you would see,
Paid a low landing fee
And a lousy position it got.

With rankness the area's fraught.
The bathrooms have all gone to pot.
Though of gates there are ten,
The truth, ladies and men,
Is of place to sit, there are squat.

If without breakfast you're caught,
And you'd kill for caffeine cold or hot,
You'll find none down there
And must re-climb the stair.
On the airport, this place is a blot.

The lesson has therefore been taught
And a note to yourself you must jot:
When it's time to leave Rome
To head farther, or home,
Make sure you don't fly Aeroflot.