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Let me just start off by saying I will NEVER travel without Harry Potter again. It is always a terrible plan. I stood repacked my backpack about seven times last Wednesday trying to figure out if I wanted undies or HP. Let's just say that while having fresh undies rocks, I made the wrong choice.
There's really no exciting way to start this whole story, seeing as I need to preface it with: I went to Milan last Wednesday night and thus began five days of: entering every wrong door possible, getting taken out by Italian stallions, and the eating of any possible piece of pizza, panini, or gellato available.
At midnight in a new airport, a toilet sign with a man and a woman pointing towards a door is usually your best friend. So we go busting in like we own the place and this guy is staring at us like uhm hey freaks, and we look at him like uhmm hey you weirdo I have to pee leave me alone and start commenting on how much we looooove Spain because it has seperate bathrooms and is so much cleaner and how on earth do people manage to pee all over the floor. On our way out, the super "nice" bartender calls out to us "OY, THAT one is for you." and points at a door with what they must think is a woman on it.
The entire trip went about like this:
wrong door, get lost, walk around and eat, get lost, eat, get lost, walk around, get lost, eat, eat, drink coffee, eat, eat, walk, walk, get lost, get lost, get lost.
After the bathroom adventure we attempted to explain to a cab driver that we were trying to get to our hostel but Italy is anti-wireless and so we spent the next ten minutes contemplating the busses and then somehow explaining where we were trying to go, getting dropped off, passing out, eating a super delish breakfast with gronola that I wanted to just eat and eat but I think they'd dislike that greatly and then asking for directions at the hostel to get to the bus station to go to Lake Como. Bergamo is probably the tiniest city ever, yet the kid in the hostel managed to send us on an hour walking adventure trying to figure out where we were. An old man on a bike, about a dozen churches and an old woman on a bus later, we figured out the right directions and ended up on an hour (but really two because their guesstimation is way off here) bus ride later we were eating pizza and cheese and wine and dried fruit in Lake Como.
The next part of our "plan" was to show up in Milan for the night, facebook some random kid named Lorenzo who was a mutual friend of Maureen's, and figure out where to sleep for the night. So we get into Milan at like eight and are wandering around lost (surprise) asking strangers where to sleep and this kid tells us to go to McDonalds for the metro. It took us a full day to realize all the M signs were not for McDonalds, and that we were about three subway stops from the sketchy hostels. So instead we end up in a cab asking him to take us somewhere safe and he drops us off at a hotel where we basically are like "What's up, we are poor, cut us some slack" to the corny balding guy. He hated me, mostly because I tried to steal his pen and he wanted it back.
Now onto more exciting things.
When in doubt always go to McDonalds. French fries, happy meals, and almost always Wifi. We ended up at McDonalds facebooking with Lorenzo telling him where to pick us up to take us out and progressed to make a sign with Lorenzo??? written on it, while standing on the corner trying not to keep saying "Lorenzo?" to strangers. We end up getting picked up and taken to this ridiculous club. I'm not really sure how to explain the absurdity of this whole situation in a clever or entertaining way so let's just get it out:
Lorenzo is a genius at engineering, and has lots of rich friends. Not to be rude/gold digger ish, but if you want to marry an Italian stallion with money, I'll give you their numbers. Mattaeo is friends with the guy who basically decides who gets let into the most exclusive clubs, which all have like 80euro cover charges and a three week table waiting list, so we basically get taken straight in and the guys buy us drinks and we all hang out in this club all night. Lorenzo's "sugar momma" was taking him to the Broncos game in London (insert me being furiously jealous despite how humiliating they were last week) and so he was like "Oh, Mickey and Mattaeo will take you out don't even worry." End of night one.
Now begins the downgrades. We wake up the next morning and the stupid hotel man who I want to fight is all "ohh, sorry we have to move your room." So we get moved from a three bed and bathroom with a terrace room to a double bed and cot with a tiny bathroom and no terrace room. Then Saturday we got moved to the cot and double with a shower and no toilet room. Am pretty sure that if we had stayed one more night, we'd have been given a room with just a shower. To all huddle in and keep warm like sardines.
Anyway, the next day we spent wandering around the Duomo which is the second? largest church in Italy and walked around this huge gorgeous park and then took a lovely nap and the boys picked us up again to get dinner. Aka they ordered a ton of delicious pizza and we had it at Matteo's super nice family house thingy with his grandfather/possibly his uncle's wine and we ate and taught them to play King's Cup and then, surprise, they made that fabulous "We have connections and like to show them off" call and got us into a club where drinks were something like 100euro a piece and we spent the rest of the night dancing and walking around Milan in the middle of the night because "Americans think walking is a good idea." Apparently.
On our midnight walking extravaganza, Mickey tried to tell me something along the lines of "they are hiding things under the Vatican, I am sure of it, because they won't build a subway under there." I don't even know. But I'll check with my bestie the Pope and shall keep ya'll posted.
Begin part three of my story: Follow the panini.
That's really all there is to say. If you are ever in Milan, follow the panini. It will lead you to Luino's, which is the most delicious fabulous amazing I want to marry it and send it to my friends and family for birthdays/weddings/Christmas/Wednesday kind of panini. Let me try to explain: it is kind of like yummy bread that is biscutty but not cause it is buttery and chewy and then you pick what goes inside; I got ham and cheese and just about got back in the half hour line that goes down two full city blocks in each direction to get another two.
We ended the day with a bread and cheese and grapes and wine picnic in our room (don't worry we didn't invite the cranky hotel man) and then the boys cooked us dinner. Yes. Let me just repeated this because I still feel like I'm making it up in my head: the Italian boys cooked us pesto pasta and salmon and fish for dinner and let us watch Sex and the City and normal TV in English in their fabulous hugeo house after driving us all around and getting us into richey clubs. I'm pretty sure three girls have never lived two more opposite experiences. Because then the next morning we checked out so that we didn't get downgraded into the basement and/or dungon, and got in the train to Bergamo. If it hadn't been a full on downpoor all day it would have been lovely but this is how our day went:
Stop 1: Irish pub. You can always count on a Irish pub existing in any city, and being open when everyone else is closed. Stayed there for three hours.
Stop 2: Pizza restaurant. Eat pizza for an hour and a half. Eat gellato for a half hour. Wait half an hour. Have tea to waste another hour.
Stop 3: Pouring rain walk around the market.
Stop 4: McDonalds. Buy three small sodas. Camp out amidst the little kid Halloween party occuring (McDonalds is the place to be on Halloween just so you know) and use the three soda cups for wine. To drink with our cheese. Spend the next three hours in McDonalds.
Stop 5: Irish pub number two. Just an hour here, success.
Stop 6: Train station then bus to airport.
Stop 7: The floor in the airport, for a few hours of sleep before being informed we aren't allowed to sleep in the airport.
Stop 8: Through security, to McDonalds by our gate. (I feel so nasty/American with all this Golden Arches nonsense. On the bright side, was now so broke that did not purchase happy meal. Just sat and fantasized for two hours. Not sure which is worse, being broke, or fantasizing about a happy meal.)
Stop 9: The plane. Amen.
I started this with all these hilarious ideas, but now that I'm done I am fairly sure that the reason they were all so funny was because we were so sleep deprived and living off a wine and cheese diet. But seeing as I somehow missed a few random and possibly funny points:
Hannah, to a french kid trying to tell us his name was Paul: "Wait, Bart?" "Paul." "Bart?" "Paul." "OHH Bart."
Hannah when talking to same French kid, as he tries to explain where he lives "What about Harry Potter?"
Hannah on the train in the rain at night "I just wish we were going to Hogwarts."
Hannah, on getting a text from 1-1-9: "Is that the police?? Did they text me?"
Overall, here are the main travel points of the trip:
1. Always assume that you are going to enter the wrong door, be it into a bathroom, or somehow finding a door out onto the tarmac while searching for a bathroom. Double check, for your sanitary sake.
2. Never leave home without Harry.
3. When in doubt, the old people are always nicer to ask for directions.
4. Take your own pen, they don't give them out like candy on Halloween from creepers over here.
5. When possible, always know rich Italian boys to take you out.
6. Always get your bus/train ticket stamped or you'll get a nice little fine.
7. Turn your flash off in churches so you can take sneaky pictures.
8. Ask the Pope what he is hiding, if you ever meet him.
9. Always follow the panini.
10. Eat everything in Italy.
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