This is about my arrival to Italy. But first, throughout the diary entries and most of my original posts from Germany you may notice I reference "catching rides" or waiting for someone to confirm a ride. That's because of a German website called mitfahrgelegenheit.de that essentially functions as an electronic hitch-hiking site. People going to a destination advertise or look for other travellers heading the same way in order to cut costs be it gas money or to split the fare of a group train ticket. And I suppose there is the added benefit of having company on a long trip. It is a wonderful travelling tool.
Most of the people I met via mitfahrgelegenheit.de either spoke English or had a working knowledge of it and, man, that was oh so helpful.
I hitchhiked a ride from Innsbruck, Austria to Bolzano, Italy which I stupidly mistook to mean Bologna in Italian. Bolzano and Bologna are two very different cities with many, many miles between them. I was quite disappointed to see that I had wasted my time and money on the ride. In Bolzano I was rather glad to find no vacancies
Initial plans were to travel to Florence but the overnight train ticket to Milan was far cheaper and faster so I bought it. Incidentally, the train had a long layover in Bologna....
Sept 9
Caught a ride to Bolzano, which I mistook was non-English for Bologna, at nine. The one youth hostel was sold out so I continued on to the train station and mulled over my late night options; next departures were at 01:09 so I had roughly three hours to settle on a direction: Bologna, Florence, Milan or Venice? As the direct train to Florence was full--and a four-thirty arrival in Bologna, impractical--I chose Milan. Just like that my travels changed. Freedom is mobility.
02:37
Verona. Long wait until connection to Milan. The employees' responses to my mild confusion is not helpful. Cinque meses, they reply but I know that cannot be right ("five months") so I get anxious, thinking I've only five minutes to catch the connection. And the track? Cinque meses, they reply...Trusting my comprehension of the train schedule I schlump to Track 7 and apprehensively board the deserted train for some shut-eye. An African woman is just as uncertain (and damn if I can tell if she is speaking French, African dialect, Italian or English) but I do my best to nod and shake my head simpatico.
04:00
train dork awakes me to inform that 2d class is in the next car. Should I have been offended? Was just glad to be on the right train...Second Class is not a whole lot different than First Class. In fact, I sat where I sat because I thought it was 2d class.
07:35
arrival to Milan. Milano!...Takes me a full goddamn hour to locate Tram 5 for the hostel--which turned out to be a hotel.
12:30
shower and nap [Hotel San Tamoso]
19:15
bought a local SIM card. Had to produce identification. Stupid, bogus security crap.
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