The past few days

The past few days since I’ve updated have been mostly uneventful. We packed up our bags at Seven Hotel on Tuesday morning and ate our free breakfast, then made the walk to the train station. My bag was getting progressively heavier, what with the 2 bottles of wine and my huge sweater purchase. I decided in my head as we walked that if anyone bothered me, all I’d have to do was swing around and hit them with my backpack—it would knock them out for sure. Lydia and I used to talk about different ways to defend ourselves should the need arise, and we developed the joke that a frozen bag of pierogies would suffice nicely. I suppose girls tend to think of these things sometimes.

We have recently obtained a food bag. Yes, the dreaded food bag. And guess who got to carry it? Me. Oh the memories. Actually it wasn’t too bad, since we hadn’t yet accumulated as much stuff as Lydia and I did. But our 3-week break is sure to be a killer in the food bag department.

The train from Sorrento to Naples was uneventful. I stared out the window, observing my happy little world whiz away. Deep green valleys and sea views gave way to dingy ghetto apartments and junkyards sporting cars compacted into suitcase-sized squares. Naples really is the most unappealing city I’ve seen in Italy thus far. I’m so glad I don’t live there. We’ve also heard it’s the highest crime city—another great reason not to live there. So far Shane and I have been lucky to keep all our possessions to ourselves. That is, with the exception of New Year’s eve in Rome, when we both stupidly put our metro passes into easily accessible pockets. The next day, neither of us could find them. We are guessing we were the victims of a pick-pocketer.

Upon arriving to the Naples train station, we went to buy reservations only to find that the next un-full train for Milan didn’t leave for another 3 hours. Three hours in this train hole? The Naples station is by far not the place you want to be stuck for more than 20 minutes. We resigned ourselves to our bad judgment once again and made ourselves comfortable in McDonalds for the remaining wait, where we bought french fries and I worked on my picture editing skills. While in there I heard my favorite song “I Got A Feeling”, which made me happy and sing-songy for the rest of the wait.

Unfortunately we weren’t sitting together on the train to Milan—we were across the aisle--even though no one was sitting anywhere near us. We decided that the one stopover in Rome must be a killer, if these were the only seats left on the train. In the meantime, we sat next to each other and entertained ourselves by watching Glee, my newest favorite show.

Upon stopping in Rome, the train was flooded to capacity. I somehow got sucked into trading seats with the woman across from me, so I was even farther away from Shane and we couldn’t really talk except through mouthing. We spent the trip passing the laptop back and forth and staring into space, wishing for a bed (or at least I was!). One kind woman across from me gave me a mint that tasted like licorice then got REALLY strong. She herself ate about 10 of them during the trip. They must be her favorite.

Once in Milan, the trek to the hostel was easy since we had stayed there previously, even though we went the long way on accident. We were upgraded to a two double bed private room with a bathroom, which was nice. Our bags were then brought in safe and sound—whew!

The next day we woke up freezing. I wore my coat and even boots in the room just to keep warm, and I was still cold. The heater was cold, the air was cold, the floors were cold. By the time we left I was in a bad mood over one of those feelings you sometimes get that you’ll just never be warm again.

We devoted this day to figuring out the ropes of the metro system for getting to the university from our apartment. First we had to find the apartment. The entire day was a whirlwind of hopping on one metro, bus, or train after the other. We made several mistakes and went the wrong way several times, but we found both the apartment and the school by the end of the day, along with the best route for getting there. When we got back to the hostel, they had cleaned it and the heater was on full-blast. YAY! We had decided to book another room there for the night rather than trek across town to find one closer to our apartment. Seeing as how much stuff we had to lug around, that was probably a good idea.

Thursday morning dawned bright and…cold again. This time we had decided to go meet with someone at the school with whom Shane had been in contact, to see if we could pay for and get our apartment before the night. Our first mistake was on my part, causing us to hop on the wrong train going the wrong direction. No biggie, you just get off at the next stop and retrace, right? Unfortunately this train came out of the tunnels and just kept gaining more and more speed. We could tell that we were headed out of town. Great. We were already late for when we had hoped to be there—thankfully we didn’t have an appointment. We got off at the next stop about 15 minutes later, and waited for the next train…and waited, and waited. Finally it came by, and we hopped on it regardless of which one it was. We just wanted to get back into the city again! Assuming by the places we stopped at that it was the one to lead us to our destination, we stayed on it until what we thought was our stop. Unfortunately it wasn’t, but it did land us in the general vicinity of the university. We trekked around for a while trying to find the set of office buildings we needed. Upon finally finding them, we were met with Gudula, a very nice younger woman about our age who spoke English. She couldn’t reach the person we needed for the apartment, but was able to set up a meeting with us and a woman who runs the building we were staying in. Unfortunately the meeting wasn’t until 3pm, and it was only about 11am at the time.

Since we had stored our bags at the hostel again and told them we might not be back until 3 or 4, we opted to just not go back until we were actually ready to pick them up and take them with us. So we took our time by eating at a cute pizzeria right next to our apartment building, and walking down some shopping streets. I bought a sparkly tan scarf, which I loved at first sight. Unfortunately I don’t think I’ll ever be able to do much shopping here because everything is so expensive—I’m not even sure there is such a thing as thrift store or second-hand here.

Once the shopping streets ran out we found ourselves in front of a large castle complete with a moat. Hm. So far in my experience here in Milan there’s not too much worthy of being excited about, unless of course you love shopping. Bummer for us since we’ll be here for 3 months. We took pictures of the castle and proceeded to go inside, where there was basically a large open courtyard to walk around in. Slightly boring actually. At the entrance we were bombarded by our European enemy: another “gifter” who wants your money. This time it was a Black guy from Africa, and he began rattling on about random things as he tried to put a rainbow-colored thread bracelet on my wrist. I declined and tried to pull away, but he insisted, and somehow I helplessly stood there thinking about why I can’t ever just put my foot down with these people from the get-go. After adorning me, he turned to Shane, who also refused. But did that stop the guy? No. As he put it on, Shane said, “I’m not paying for this.” But sure enough, as soon as we began to walk away, the guy began rubbing his fingers together. “Please, just for some coffee.” I looked at him and said “We told you no!” When he kept bugging Shane to give him some money, Shane took and ripped the bracelet off his wrist and threw it on the ground. At this the guy got mad and walked away.

After a few pictures with the castle, another guy approached us. I’m quite sure he had seen the exchange between his companion and us, yet he still tried to shake our hands. We ignored his hand and were actually quite rude to him, refusing to make conversation with him or accept his “gift” of a bracelet. Apparently unfriendliness makes them mad (are they really surprised?) and as we walked away Shane thought he heard the guy cuss at him under his breath. We opted to skirt around the castle to get out.

By the time 3pm approached, we were more than ready to have our apartment and have a place to call our own. Previously we had been planning to stay there with Ryan, our friend who was also doing the exchange program with Shane. However, in an email we were told that only Shane and I could stay in the apartment because there were only two beds—Ryan would have to get a single apartment at a different location. We still aren’t sure whether or not they will let us all 3 cram into one apartment, but it sure would save us some money. However, I’m doubtful about it because of the sleeping arrangements. Two twin beds do not accommodate 3 people, and there’s no way I’m about to share a twin bed for 3 months. I’d be perfectly happy sleeping on the floor, but we’d have to get more blankets and padding for me to deal with that for 3 months too. I guess we’ll find out.

We were met in the apartment building by a woman, Alessandra, who spoke almost no English. She brought us up to our apartment on the 4th floor, rattling away in Italian. We sat down and signed some papers, gave our passport information, and somehow understood as she explained in Italian how to get our WiFi working. She then brought us up one more floor to speak to a woman living right above us—a woman who speaks flawless English and offered to help us with anything we needed, anytime. Whew! What a relief! There is something very reassuring about knowing there is someone close by who speaks your language in a foreign place.

After visiting this woman, Alessandra rattled some more in Italian, handed us the keys, said Ciao, and left! YES!! We had a place to live!! Our only question was: when do we pay?? She hadn’t asked for a cent, and we assumed she thought it had already been taken care of; it should have been before we came actually, but the school never gave us their information for payment. Regardless of when we paid, we had a place to keep our bags!

First impressions of the apartment: the rooms are nice and big, the balcony view is pretty, but the furnishings are slim and I can tell it will feel a bit un-homey. Homey is my big thing. I have to have a place that is homey, if I am at all able to make it so. Unfortunately I don’t think this will be one of those places. As you walk in, you are met by a large kitchen/dining room area. The kitchen counter is almost non-existent, and there is a washing machine smack in between the sink and the stove. A large table takes up the other side of the room, along with a smallish refrigerator. The small bathroom, which only fits tiny people, opens to one side of the kitchen. The back room is the bedroom, fairly large, with two twin beds, two closets, two desks, and two nightstands. A window looks down onto the street. There are only two windows in the entire apartment, typical of European buildings. That means not much light, which is another one of my big things. Oh well. I will post pictures as soon as I can. We’re still not sure if we will be living here or upgrading to a 3 bed place to fit Ryan….or maybe me, since I’m technically the tagalong.

We rushed back to our hostel to get our bags and deposit them at the apartment before going to meet Ryan at the train station. He had been traveling in France. We got there just as his train was scheduled to arrive, but we didn’t know which platform it was on, and the schedule of arrivals didn’t list it. So we walked up and down the train station looking. No Ryan. We waited in the middle. No Ryan. We walked down to the metro. No Ryan. Finally we decided that he had decided to venture out to find the apartment on his own, so on our way back we stopped at a grocery store and bought some essential items, including toilet paper and pasta. Upon reaching the apartment, still no Ryan. Shane left a note on the front door telling him to buzz our apt number, and we sat down and enjoyed pilfering someone’s wireless. Finally when we had about given up hope of him ever finding it, our buzzer sounded. There was bedraggled Ryan, lugging two huge suitcases after traipsing all over town getting wrong directions. We made spaghetti that night with pesto and shared stories of our experiences over the past week.