ght my tickets; I had two train changes to make, once in Firenze SMN and one in Milan Centrale. Each had about a 20 minute 'layover.' The train leaving from Perugia was delayed 5 minutes which was fine until it was 10:10am – 15 minutes late. Then 20 minutes late. There goes my layover, and I knew I had just missed my train in Firenze. But there was nothing I could do, and I'd wait until I got to Firenze and just get the next train to Milan and then to Como. No need to fret over it since last trip home from Cinque Terre that was all I did and we got home safely while making every train. So I waited patiently to board the time and got on. Somehow the train managed to make up all the time so I got to Firenze and onto the next train without any problems. My train from Firenze to Milan was very nice except the screaming toddlers. But even they are incredible. I have idea what he was saying but if he was speaking it English I feel like it would have been something like this, "Mama, my soul is weeping with sorrow. My heart is pierced by this cruel existence." He was probably hungry or upset that his mom took away a toy, but there was so much emotion to his voice which could only be caused by a deep wound. Despite what I thought he was saying, I still got a splitting headache listening to him screaming in aguish. But no matter. I got off the train in Milan very hungry and went to a vendor for a salami sandwich. The place was packed. I finally ordered my panino and the guy behind the counter took forever asking me if I wanted the panino hot or if I wanted a beer with my sandwich. I think he took offense when I said I just wanted the sandwich and he didn't have to toast it; I would eat it cold. After all, it was a salami sandwich and I brought a water bottle with me. Not really thinking about the time because I had 30 minutes in Milan I headed to my train platform and realized that it left in 5 minutes. I quickly got on and found a seat, not noticing that this train had assigned seats and I was nowhere near my train car. I walked through 3 train cars until I got to one that barely had anyone in it and decided this was good enough. The train staff could move me if they wanted to, but there were only like 20 other people in the car which could hold about 100 so they probably wouldn't. I arrived to Como on time. The first time that has ever happened! My parents were there to greet me, so we hopped in the rental car and drove around the lake a little bit. We decided upon where George Clooney lives – a nice, big, yellow house right on the water with a private drive going up to it. After the driving tour we went to the hotel since my parents hadn't gotten there yet to drop off all the suitcases and everything. It only being 6pm we decided to wait a little bit before going to dinner. At first we wanted to get on a boat to go across the lake to other town for dinner, but all the boats had left. So we hopped back in the car to go to this little restaurant my mom read about in her slow foods book. After an hour and a half of searching for it and road signs we arrived to find out that the place was booked for the night. Starving at this point we headed back to the hotel and had dinner there. It was delicious. Tagliatelle with 'prawns' and zucchini followed by tiramisu for dessert. I couldn't ask for a better meal. So we are back in the hotel room for the night, most likely getting up earlier than I would like to explore more of Como and the other surrounding towns. Maybe George Clooney will be flying in tomorrow and we'll meet him. Hey, you can only hope…10/6: Today we woke up early (9am) to catch a ferry from Como to Verenna for the day. We got good seats on the ferry and made frequent stops along the lake. Lake Como is gorgeous and huge. There are a ton of little towns up and down the coastline with lots of very big old Italian manors with acres and acres of gardens surrounding them. We get to Verenna and have a quick look around before deciding to eat. That's my family's most favorite past-time: eating (probably explains why Thanksgiving is my favorite holiday). So we found a restaurant in a tour book that was suppose to have amazing food. It did. I am in love with ravioli and tortellini. My mom forced some wine on me even though we were going for a hike later that day (you guys are wonderful role models!). After lunch we grabbed some homemade gelato - also incredibly delicious. Then started the hike up this mountain to the ruins of an old castle. We started up the mountain, ended up far away from the castle and in a cemetary. Went back down the mountain, looked at map and realized our mistake and hiked all the way back up it. None of packed well for the trip; instead of wearing shorts and t-shirts we all had on long pants and long-sleeve things and jackets. We finally reached the top all hot and sweaty. It was definitely worth it; the castle ruins were gorgeous with great views of the entire lake as well as a falcon demonstration that we happened to stumble upon. We hiked back down and got on a boat to Bellagio. I don't think I would recommend visiting unless you want to shop; its like Disneyworld for the wealthy. After about 40 minutes we decided to leave and got in line for the high-speed ferry back to Como. Next to me in line (lines in Italia are more like clumps) was an older man and his wife,
most likely German. He tried to get ahead of me in line, but the only way to do that was to push me which isn't kosher at all. So when the ferry docked and people were allowed to get on the ferry he tried to get in front again. But being my father's daughter, I quickly sidestepped in front of him which is when, I'm pretty sure, I learned some bad German words. After securing good seats on the ferry, my parents and I had a good ferry ride. We arrived back in Como about a half hour later, starving, and went to a small pizza place since my parents had yet to eat pizza in Italy (granted they had only been in Italy for 2 days now). After dinner, where the waiter told me I stop Italian beautifully (I said one word), we ran back to the car in the rain because it had started sprinkling during dinner. Luckily, the rain really started coming down right after we got back in the car. And then back to the hotel for the night where they were hosting a smallish wedding dinner.10/7: All three of us woke up early on Sunday to get to the train station. My parents decided like that morning to train with me to Milan where they would spend the day and I would continue onwards back to Perugia. I was slightly nervous because my connections in Milan and Florence were 13 minutes and 25 minutes, and if the trains were late, I'd have to wait about 2 hours at the stations. So about 10 minutes late a train arrives on
our platform, we get on, only to realize its the wrong train. We're going to Milan, but we're not on the direct train to Milan so we're stopping at every single stop from Como to Milan (which is a lot) which means I've missed my train connection in Milan already and then my connection in Florence. We're also not arriving at the same Milan train station so we had to figure out the metro in Milan. When we did get to the correct Milan train station, there was a train leaving for Florence in the next 5 minutes so I ran over to the platform, talked to the train workers about having a ticket to Florence just on a different train and everything, but its Italy so they were like, "Whatever. Get on the train." Trying to find a seat and walking the length of the train, I got stuck behind a foreigner like me with two rolling suitcases; that's a difficult feat to accomplish when train aisles are narrow so I helped her by dragging one of the suitcases along with my two other bags. I felt so bad because people were giving me dirty looks for trying to drag this bag along the train instead of putting it up somewhere and I think I ran over a couple people's toes. Once the girl found her seat (there were assigned seats and since I didn't have a seat on this train, I was hoping to find a carriage with lots of empty seats) and I helped her get her bags up and out of the way. She sort of repaid me by telling me to sit in another seat close to hers by telling the guy sitting next to the empty seat to get up so I had a seat! The entire time I was slightly paranoid that I was going to get kicked out of my seat since it technically wasn't my seat. But I had a nice long time on the train, in the same seat, and was bale to get most of my homework done. When I got to Firenze I had to wait about an hour and a half for the next train going through Perugia, but I got back when it was still light which is always nice.
No comments:
Post a Comment