Historical note: I did not succeed in my goal to fill all of the pages in my passport with stamps, though I got reasonably close.
Note: I wrote this while I was still on the trip, but didn't get around to posting it until now.
Rome! Finally! After deplaning, we all trudged off to baggage claim, where about 10 bags came off the carousel for the entire 767 full of people. So I moved off to the huge line of people at the missing baggage desk. Like any airport line, about 95% of the people were civil about the whole thing, and a few people got really worked up and belligerent. The people at the desk handled it pretty well, considering. I was told that my baggage was still in Moscow, which was only a little surprising. My flight into Moscow was delayed, so I arrived at Sheremetyevo International Airport about 10 minutes after my flight to Rome took off. The surprising part about that was the fact that a new ticket for the next flight to Rome (only a couple of hours after my original one) was waiting for me at the passport control desk. I gave them my passport, they gave me a new ticket, and then read my luggage tag numbers to someone over the phone. I was a bit surprised at the efficiency, but when the bags didn't arrive I wasn't shocked or anything.
Anyway, I got around to leaving the airport around midnight, so I had to get an unlicensed taxi to take me to the hotel. Not a huge deal, and he didn't fleece me (as far as I can tell) but the receipt he gave me was printed on receipt stock for what appears to be a strip club. Good thing I'm not expensing this! That one would be hard to explain to the people at the office ...
One thing that annoyed me slightly was that I didn't get a stamp in my passport when I entered Italy. I have a goal of filling all of the pages in my passport with stamps before it expires (January 2010), so when I don't get the stamp it slows the process down. Also, aside from the people at the lost luggage desk, and the unlicensed taxi driver, all of the people I've had to deal with have been kind of rude. Maybe it's just the night shift.
Anyway, I'm off to bed. More later.