I am in freaking Milan!

I am a little surprised that I made it given that I had four different connections to make and all different modes of public transportation.  much more to come on this.  just reporting in so my family is not worried.

only one regret so far

= buying a 5e map at the central train station in Milan.  I had written it all down:

1. flight times
2. where to get on a shuttle bus to downtown Milan, how much this was going to cost, how often it came and when
3. which metro lines to take to get to my hostel
4. street directions from the final metro station to the hostel door

and yet, when I arrived in Milan at 9:30 at night I got worried about getting lost in the dark anid bought a map at the tourist kiosk at the station.  its plastic and waterproof and, thus, hard to fold.  I haven’t used it once.  the hostel had awesome paper maps with all the typical tourist places marked on it.  for free.

what a waste of 5e.  that’s over 7$.  boo.

backpack follow up

D told me that it wasn’t strange at all that those guys had the same bag as me.  apparently it is the same bag they give people who join the German military.  that’s right folks; I have an authentic German rucksack.  and I bet when people look at me wearing it the very first thing they think is, “I bet she was in the German army.”

welcome to Milan

when I got off the airport in Milan, I was pleasantly surprised to see the entire Malpensa airport plastered in Jonas Brothers posters.  are they coming out with a television show?

day zero in Milan

I took the Malpensa Shuttle from the airport to downtown Milan.  literally as soon as I got on the bus the sunny blue sky clouded over and became so dark it looked like night.  the rain came after that.  and then the hail.  the poor people waiting to get on the bus after me were pelted with knuckle sized hail and completely drenched.  they were not in happy moods when the ticket guy finally let them board the bus.  the bus ride was supposed to be about fifty minutes long but it took a lot longer than that because the highways in Italy have insanely poor drainage.  every time we came down and up a hill we were plowing through at least eight inches of standing water.  it was terrifying.

when we reached Milan the sky was still really dark but the rain stopped almost exactly when I exited the bus.  luckily for me I was able to completely escape the rain.  although I did have my trusty umbrella with me just in case.  Koln has taught me a lot about the fickleness of weather.

hotel

I took the metro from the central train station to my hotel.  it was really dark as I walked from the metro station to the hotel but I found it almost without incident.  I rang the buzzer and someone from inside said something I didn’t understand, I stumbled out something about looking for the hotel and the door buzzed.  inside was a gorgeous entry way.  I couldn’t believe that my 19e hotel was located here.

the guy who buzzed me in started checking me in and while I was still out of breath these four Australian guys in the computer room adjacent to the front door were talking about looking for a place to eat.  my hungry stomach didn’t wait for me to think and blurted out, “are you going to get food?!”  they invited me along and before I could even catch my breath from the stairs up to the hotel, I left with them and we had a great late night dinner at a Thai place nearby and really freaking expensive drink (emphasis on the non-plurality) at a bar down the street.  9e for a martini?  is that standard?

when I got back to the hotel it was after 1:00am and the desk clerk was asleep and I realized that I didn’t know where my room was (luckily he told me the number before I left) or the bathroom or anything.  my Australian friends showed me where the bathroom was and I found the room on my own.  the door creaked really loud when I opened it slowly, trying to be quiet, and found a pitch black room.  I waited until my eyes adjusted a little and started feeling around to find the empty bed for me.  I just laid in bed feeling triumphant for making it to the bed alive.

I didn’t end up meeting my roommates until the next night.