Milano

I am very far behind in updating, but the past couple of months have been just a little bit more than crazy. Plus, the wireless internet has either been completely not working or barely working through most of April.

There's a lot to write about, but I think I'll just pick up on this past Friday because it was one of the more eventful, things-gone-wrong, kind of day I've had.

There was a huge design fair going on in Milan. Bob, our professor, opted to pay for our train tickets from the class budget if we wanted to go, so I thought sure! I've always wanted to go to Milan and this should be a lot of fun.

Ten of us left Castiglion on the 6:53 train to Florence. I grabbed a fantastic doughnut from a place by the train station, but four of my cohorts got there too late so upon arriving in Florence, they sprint off to McDonald's for food, telling us the car number and what seats are ours on the Eurostar. All our tickets are printed on one sheet and one of the McDonald's girls has this ticket, not us.

The train leaves in 12 minutes.

We find the train and get comfortably seated on the Eurostar because they're the fastest, most comfortable trains and we rarely get to ride on one.

And we're all about half awake when Jeff announces he just heard the train doors close. What?

Instantly we're all alert and up from our seats, the other four aren't there. Kelly and Jess go dashing off toward one of the doors to see if they really are closed and I'm standing there, looking out the window, and Mary goes walking by outside.

I banged on the window and she sees me and says, "We can't get on the train!"

Oh crap.

This isn't good. Really, really not good. Not only are four of us missing a reserved train, but THEY have the ticket!

The train is moving by now and the six of us are in panic mode. Not having proof of a ticket means a very large fine and a paying for a new ticket. Especially on a Eurostar. We have to find the conductor. Everyone grabs their stuff and we start treking down the train towards the front. We're in car nine, the conductor, of course, is just past car one.

Car three stops us though because it's 1st class. So Kelly goes ahead while we wait anxiously to find out if we have to buy a new ticket plus any fines.

She comes back and announces we can go back to our seats, the others will be on the next train. Apparently, even train conductors have cell phones.

Relieved, we go from car three to car nine again, trying to pretend the six of us aren't silly confused tourists, which is exactly what we look like.

All is well until the ticket checker shows up and can't understand why we don't have a ticket because her English is... not so good. Finally she makes a phone call to the front with one of those handy cell phones and then syas we're good and leaves. Whew. Another few minutes of panic and energy.

We arrive in Milan and check the board for our friends arrival time. Nothing coming from Florence. That's weird.

We split up, take bathroom breaks, grab snacks, and come back and try to figure this out. Finally, Jeff finds the paper train list and the train from Roma Termini should have them on it.

One hour later and we're all running to greet each other, hugging, laughing, thankful we're all together again.

Then we get on the Metro. It's packed. Super full. But it gets us to the expo.

We split up there because our group is too large to stay together for the day, but no less than 30 minutes later we run into each other again, and Sally is upset and on the phone.

Her wallet was stolen on the Metro.

By this point, we're wondering why we came at all. It's turned into a messy, crazy day and it's only 1pm.

Then, miracously, the day go better. All of the exhibits were incredible and fun and very interesting. Our train ride was uneventful on the way home for the four of us who left early (Me, Jeff, Colin, and Jess) and everything was good.

So, there's my trip to Milan. Minus most of actual Milan. I'll try to add pictures soon!