Like any other weekend, we started out with the best of intentions. We had booked our hotel in advance, found all the train information. Researched museums of interest, their cost and location. We found out the cheap places to shop, we thought we were set.
Oh, but how the shit can hit the fan.
I guess I should start from the top, for clarity.
I got off work in the library early, we got all ready to depart. Packed our stolen bread and fruit, filled our water bottles and threw our maximum of two outfits into our bags. We split responsibilities for toothpaste, soap, etc. We gathered our group and only had to wait about 5 minutes for the bus! (A real first here in Firenze where the buses come around about every 20-30 minutes.)
Getting to the train station here is pretty easy, so it was all easy peasy, we bought our tickets and boarded our train, found a little room with 6 seats, made a giant bed of it and settled in to sleep the 3 hours.
We were surprised by the train attendant and he informed us we had boarded the wrong train. It was still going to Milan, it would just be an hour later. Fine.
We get off the train after a pretty nice train ride, and Lindsay informed me that the Stazione Centrale in Milano is known for its number of thefts and gypsies. ggreattt.
So we make it through to the outside. The only directions we have to our hotel is that we have to get onto the 90 or the 91 bus from the station and take it to Piazza Susa. We don’t see a single bus in sight. So as we're getting catcalls and I'm being called Shakira and we meet a very nice hobo who wants us to take the metro. We opt to ask the tabbachi stand (which took us 30 minutes to find) how to catch the 90 or the 91. He tells us two blocks down. So we get on the bus, and ask the driver which fermata we get off at to get to Piazza Susa. He lets us know, we get off. Now were stuck in the middle of the Milanian suburbs and have NO idea where our hotel is aside from its street address. We take about 10 minutes staring at the Bus map at the stop to find our street, and once we do, we realize we're actually just like 2 blocks away.
The hostel is kinda sketch mcgetch. In a big way, actually. We climb the 2 flights up and stop short at this sight
yeah, that’s the neon sign. We go in, prepay for our two-night stay and the concierge walks us to our room. We walk out into this
super grungy courtyard and down a few doorways. Up 4 flights and through an unlockable door. We enter into a one bedroom one bathroom apartment that has been filled to capacity with bunk beds. We selected our beds, were told that the shower in the bathroom in our apartment doesn't have hot water, and that the air conditioning would cost 10 euro. Great! Next we were introduced to the biggest joke of our 24 hours in Milan. His name was Max, and he was from Belarus. I do not have a picture, but suffice it to say he kept saying how fortunate he was to be in a room with 4 pretty Americans, and how great Belarus is. Some of his precious verbiage includes “You know, in Eastern Europe when you stay in Dormitory you share things... like apples… or pants. Tee Hee Hee” -- “Are you eating something tasty wifzout me?” – “I’m sleeping all alone over here, why not come join me?” – “Why it is such a pity are you leaving before anyone can see you!” Well we told him our names were Pam, Marge, Susie, and Chloe—we’re sly like that.
Hotel Medusa (the hostel that could kill you)
(the "bathroom")
Oh, yes. Quite a bloke. We had to get out of there, so we decided we’d take all our stuff (minus our bag of stolen apples and bread loaves and some books) and get on the bus to the center of town. We thought we might be able to walk it, but we didn’t know in which direction to start walking so we stopped into a café and asked. She told us to take the 54 or the 60 to the Duomo. OK. We find a tabbachi, find the bus stop and hop on. Café lady didn’t specify in which direction we should go on the bus, so we went with logic, and were horribly wrong. This is when travel went sour for us. An older lady on the bus told us to get off at the next stop (we were already so far from the center its not even funny) and switch to the other direction. After we did that we had a good 20 minute long bus ride and Lo and Behold, an H&M. We all freaked out, jumped off the bus and ran in. Yes, we had found the almighty duomo and its glorious street of expensive shopping. **We went into H&M while it was light out… we left when it was dark. We were all getting a little hungry and in NO hurry to get back to our hostel (where the free food was) we stopped into a little panini bar type place. An 8 euro sandwich and coke and about an hour of just lounging there, we paid at the counter and Brazlee wanted to buy some little cioccolato candy. But the nice guy at the bar gave us each one, for free! Maybe Milan isn’t so bad.
So we attempted to get a bus back to our Hostel, after just walking around the center aimlessly, trying to avoid Max at the hostel at all costs.
We found a bus stop, and waited for a little while
. When we got on, we thought we were doing awesome. Suddenly, some serious freaks were getting on. Like this crazy old man who kept staring at us, leaning between our heads to look at us and was singing and although I didn’t see him, he was truly the devil. We got off that bus because:
1. We thought we saw our stop.
2. We feared for our safety.
3. In fact that was not the right bus and we had to find the bus stop for the bus going the opposite direction. Well once again we were in for a doozy of a trip. A few stops in and this crazy drunk in little yellow pants (wonderfully accessorized by his giant ass crack) comes on and he’s falling all over the bus, hootin’ and hollerin’ all kinds of shit. As he starts heading back to us at the back of the bus, he’s sitting across the aisle trying to talk to us and we’re all just trying to hold in laughter and not lead him to talk to us more. This really nice Israeli man who we later learned was name Ito, came and stood between us and the pazzesco. He asked where we needed to go, “Piazza Susa” we said. He told us we couldn’t get there on this bus and we might want to change anyway to avoid the nutbag. We ended up getting off with Ito, he stayed on the bus for several stops past where he needed to get off, and told us to change to the 54 when it came, and then stay on it until Piazza Susa. Well we did this, waiting at the bus stop right next to the H&M we were at an hour before. Finally, when we got off the bus at the correct stop, we were all so tired, I had to find our hotel in the dark with the map on the back of the business card from Hotel Medusa. We found it, all was good.
We crossed the thankfully vagrant-less courtyard, climbed the nasty stairwell
and thought we’d made it, but the door wouldn’t open. Kelly pushed at the door trying to open it, wrong floor. Uh oh! RUN up one more flight up. No lock on the door? That’s us! The light was turned off in our room cause Maxipad was asleep under the single sheet that was provided on the bed and he was so happy to see us come back. We all were pretty silent and went to the bathroom, trying to layer on the clothes and scrub whatever nasty bed bugs or residue from our short stay in the beds transferred onto us. We walked down the stairs, made time, of course for some photo ops
made our way back to the main desk, and tried to get our money back for the second night which we could NOT bear to stay through.
We told the man who opened the door for us that Brazlee’s grandfather in Sicily had died and she had to go, could we get our second night refunded. The answer was eventually No but there was a moment when we thought that if we were all on the same reservation he would have given it to us. Either way, we were pretty glad to be out of there, and since it was about 7:30 AM at this point, and we knew the Duomo in the center opened at 7 we made our way over there.
We took a few pictures outside, and made our way in. We walked to near the altar and they locked us in! We sat there for a good 20 minutes and finally we just unhooked the red ropes that kept us in and traveled out.
All the stores we were in were closed except for a book/electronics store, so we went in and rummaged through their guidebooks of Milan in hopes to find our way to the Galleria Dell’ Arte Moderna—a half hour later, no such luck. We went to a little café to get a coffee and brioche
. At 10, when all the stores open, we set time limits and went to town again.
(Shopping at ZARA in Milan) At 11:30 we decided to get on the train home! We knew the train would leave at 11:50, so we had 20 minutes to get across Milan and onto a Florence bound train.
We asked the polizia how we could get there, Subway—Two feet away. We owned the subway system and got there in about 15 minutes. RAN up the stairs to get tickets, but the train was already departing. We checked the Self-Service ticket machine and there was another train leaving at 12:00, we had 5 minutes to get on the train. WE all bought our tickets RAN through the train station found the train asked the attendant and got on the first car, walked through the entire first class and found a group of seats all together. Homeward bound at last.
Yes, it was a whirlwind filled with shit and small rays of sunlight. How we dealt with it, I do not know, but I know I learned a lot of lessons about fatty Russians, hostels, Milan and the Italian language. God bless Milan, but I’ll never be going back.
(Stolen Pear...)
(shenanagans on il tren)
(Kelly, poor sicky bum with her fake name)
(NAWWT)
(the Pisstine Chapel)
(Il Duomo)
