Milan and the American Embassy

I am suddenly awakened, I think it's an hour or so later, when an Italian couple gets on the train and begins to tell me in Italian that my friend is in their seats. I look at the old lady across from me and she gives me a smile and I can see that they have been talking to her. I can also see a slight glint in her eye that very kindly says, “I told you so”. I look over at Mike and like me the sweater pillow is now over his head to keep the daylight out. “Mike! Psst!!! Mike!” He peaks through his sweater and I can see his blood shot eyes. “Hey you’re in their seats, come back to this one over here.” He gives me a look that says he could really care less, and turns his body towards the window and goes straight back to sleep. For a split second I think how rude, but then I realize how tired I am and I do the same thing to the Italian couple expecting me to do something about it. I can hear them exchange words in Italian. Finally they give up and on sits next to Mike and the other next to me. Just as I feel the man take his seat next to mine, I pull the jacket over my head and fall fast asleep for the remainder of the trip.

“Hey Gema, we’ve arrived.” Mike gently shakes my shoulder. I open my eyes to a brightly lit train. Many of the passengers are making their way off the train. I didn’t even feel us stop. The little old lady gives me a sweet look and then walks down to get the isle to exit the train. I get up, I’m dizzy and my head is foggy, still in a dreamy state of mind. Mike hands me my bag. The clock is ticking and we still need to navigate our way by foot to the American Embassy to get Mike his passport. The Embassy opens at 9am and closes at 12:00pm, therefore it is imperative that we get there as fast as we can. Mikes plane leaves at 8am the following day, there is no room for mistakes here as it is 8:30am. We hurry off the train with Mike leading the way. Mike looked up the directions the night before and we are walking at a fast pace trying to determine where to start.

Something you should know about traveling is to bring a compass. Every time I get off a train, directions in my guide book always start with “Head north east until you reach (fill in blank) Street.” Traveling to so many locations means I have no idea which direction is which.

Mike manages to figure it out and we pick up the pace. Apparently we have a ten-minute walk, which is great! We should find it in plenty of time. Now filled with hope, Mike and I begin to jabber on about the city and how different it is from the rest of Italy. Milan is the fashion capital of the country. It is where all the modeling takes place and is filled with shopping, large business buildings, and people hurrying around in their Italian suits. The best way to describe it, is that it is the New York of Italy. We stop at a corner looking at Mike’s directions and map. Our destination can’t be too much further, however we are stuck at a fork in the road. “Lets just ask” I say and the next friendly looking face that walks by I ask if he knows where the American Embassy is. The handsome Italian is dressed very smart, and trendy. He had a smile as he was walking, dressed in a blue blazer and nice jeans and a beautiful leather satchel to carry his things. He says he doesn’t know in decent but still broken English then digs into his satchel to look it up on his phone. He starts opening his phone and blushes, he puts back the phone and digs again. He then pulls out a second phone and begins to Google search it. Mike and I kind of chuckle at this as it is obvious the man is embarrassed for having two phones. Just then we look up. How could we miss it! It gently waives in the air, it’s the American Flag. Being so far from home and I had taken for granted how beautiful our flag is. Mike points it out and we start chuckling again. That must be it! We look back at the man and try to point it out, but he is too busy trying to help to notice. Neither Mike or I want to make his help feel unwelcome so we allow him to continue on. He tells us that we are really close and looks up and down the street and begins to walk about 5 steps forward. He looks up from the GPS on his phone and lets out an embarrassed laugh. Here it is. It was right in front of us the whole time. We give him our biggest thanks and I grab Mike with and excited jump! We are here! It’s just about to be 9:00am now. We walk straight to the front and are stopped by the guards at the front. They tell us that we have to wait. Apparently the workers in the A.E. are taking a coffee break! WHAT! Ugggh so Italian – the day just started and they are off for a break. There is a really nice coffee shop right next to the AE so we decide go in and have cup too. We choose a small corner by a window to put our things down and I walk up to order. Mike says he’s not hungry but I know it’s a total lie. I’m starving and we have been splitting meals since our stuff had been stolen. I try and give him the bigger share of the food but he always insisted it was split even and would leave me the fair share. I walked up to the counter and ordered two coffees and two buttery breakfast rolls. When I come back with the food we sit down and quietly eat. When every crumb is gobbled up we both start complaining about the Italian culture of taking breaks and closing early. Don’t they know people need their passports! It’s been about 15 minutes and he decides to go back to see if its open. Luckily the shop has Wi-Fi and I tell him I will watch our stuff.

Knowing how the Italians are about people just sitting at their tables I decide to sip my coffee really slow. This is a classy place and I was worried about being kicked out for looking like traveling bums. At this point Mike and I haven’t showered in a few days and I feel dirty. I go to the restroom and brush my hair and touch up my makeup to look a little less bum like.  I then head to the counter and order a few small cookies to go with my coffee. Mike comes back just once to barrow a bit of cash to take a picture for his passport. This is the last I see him for a every long time. I grazed as slowly on the cookies as possible. The waiters and other workers in the café are eyeing me. They either think we are bums and want me to leave, or they know something is wrong. I cant hide the nervousness on my face and I try to play on the computer to keep my mind busy. I am so determined to get Mike home! If this fails I will feel awful...more than awful! I am so nervous that I am sick to my stomach. For some reason I feel like there was a reason for us to have met, and that reason was for me to make sure he gets home safely! I slowly sip my drink and eat. When I begin to feel like I am getting too many stairs from the café employees I would get up and order another coffee to keep from being kicked out. It is almost 1:00pm and I haven’t heard a thing from Mike.

Just then I get a facebook message from him explaining that it looks like things are working out its just going to take a while as he is trying to get ahold of his family. I feel a little better but still the knots never leave my stomach. Finally about 2:15 Mike walks into the café. “I got the passport” he says with a big smile. I look at him repeating what he says and give him a huge hug. “Your going home! We did it” We do a celebratory dance that attracts more glances from the café employees. You must be starving lets grab lunch! I order us a quick meal to split. We gobble up the last few bites and just then a café emolyee comes by and asks us to leave telling us that we were talking up tables and they were losing business. To be fair the place was starting to fill up so we grabbed our things and happily walked out of the café. We didn’t care, our mission was accomplished and now it was time to relax and explore the city.

Mike and I go back to the train station and check in our bags. Time to explore the town and get me a new camera. I decided that since I stil had a month left to travel, and since this was a once in a lifetime adventure, a camera would be worth buying. Mike had already been to the town so he gave me the grand tour showing me all of the tourist attractions. The city is small but magnificent. The shopping here is also amazing. We found an electronics store where I bought a camera similar to the one I had. Both happy like children, decided to get an ice cream gelato. The scoops were large tasted delicious! We made jokes on a curb and enjoyed every bite. We made plans to stay in the airport that night to save money on accommodation. Later we made our way to a small park to kill time. There was an elderly group playing some time of game where the roll balls into a some type of lined thing on the ground. We could really see or under stand them so we decided to speak for them as if we were reading their subtitles. We turned a sweet old lady into the head of a retired Mafia gang. The entire story line and conversation we made up for them was hilarious.

Another old women walks by with a little cane and gives a us a look and smiles. “That smile means that you’re on my bench. For that your going to die” I say to Mike in my best Godfather accent. We both laugh out loud. “Come on its getting late and we need dinner!” says Mike.

We grab some food and toast over a coke for our last meal together and then head for the airport. Once in the airport we find two empty benches that face each other. Perfect! We put down our things and pull out our sleeping bags. We both drift quickly asleep. It had been a really long day.

I woke up a bit stiff thinking this is what it must be like to be a true hobo - sleeping on benches and traveling the world. My flight was at 6:45am to Spain and I had just enough time to check in. I head down with Mike and get in line. Mike waits near by and waits for our final goodbye. At the counter the lady tells me its too late- the gates are closed. I have missed my flight and there is nothing they can do. WHAT!!! I slept in the airport and still missed my flight! How is that possible! Not only that I have to buy another ticket. I run to Mike, about to cry, and tell him the news. We speak to an agent and I have to pay 70 euros for a flight to Spain. I am so frustrated and upset. “You should go. I think this will be really good for you. You can stay with my friends there to save money. It will be ok.” There is something about way he says it that calms me down. You know what you’re right. I purchase the ticket and am taking the next flight to Barcelona. Mike takes all of my extra clothes and souvenirs. He is heading to LA to see his girlfriend and promises to drop off my things at my Aunts house. We head over to his terminal and its almost time to say our final goodbyes. We sit and chat watching the sun come up. With my new camera I take a picture. We both look haggard and tired but I love this picture. I lost photos of 4 different cities with our bag being stolen in Cinque Terra. This picture represents two strangers, meeting in a foreign country and have an epic time adventuring. When things turn to distress, we banded together and turned our distress into more epic adventuring. Mike is an amazing person and I have no doubt that we will remain friends for a long time. I look forward to meeting his girlfriend too and am excited that this will not be the last goodbye as it usually is when you meet people through travels. 

Mike and I above at the airport as the sun is coming up. 

The only picture to survive our epic Cinque Terra & Milan adventure.

PS. It is now just over a month later from when this adventure took place. Mike was able to drop off my souvenirs and pay me back. We also plan on connecting sometime soon here in California. Probably sometime over winter when he is on break from school. Cheers!

Train to Milan

(Mom this one is for you)

Mike and I wound up staying up until about midnight researching the best way to get to Milan. Turns out we were going to have to start at 4am and jump three trains to get there. What a pain! Not only were we completely drained from the day’s events but we were going to have to get up in a few short hours and stay alert on the trains so that we don’t miss our stops. Around midnight I suggest to Mike that we walk down to the train station and buy our ticket now so we can just hop in in the morning. The station was only a few hundred meters away so we walked down together. We find the automated machine. In Italy they have ticket stands that need Wi-Fi to function. For some reason the dang thing just did not want to work. Finally we give up and head back to the room to pack. We prepare everything to grab and just go in the morning. By this time it is almost one when we finally crawl into bed. Mike was out in seconds, but I had a really hard time sleeping. The bunk above me had clothes of a female traveler but she never showed up. Her belongings were there for two days… untouched. All I could think was who was she, and was she ok? Why were her clothes neatly folded as if expecting to return? I am sure I was just so tired my mind was creating anxieties from the violating events of having our bag stolen earlier that day. Whatever it was, our cheap hostel, that was a bit creepy from the start, was now a place I could not wait to leave. It seemed darker that night, and if wasn’t for Mikes light snores I defiantly would not have slept a wink. Thank goodness he was there. I felt safe around him and knew we were going to be ok. We were team California!!!

I woke up from a bad dream around 3:00am. Great, there was no way I was falling back asleep so I quietly laid in my bed and tried to think of the happiness and adventure I had experienced the past couple of days in this amazing little town. Funny, even though the hostel was cheap and creepy, and we had our things stolen, I still loved Cinque Terra more than any other village I had visit in Italy. I think about the hike, swimming in the Mediterranean and jumping off cliffs with 2 amazing Californians. The little villages still hold their old rustic Italian culture, but life by the sea has made them more mellow and welcoming than I had experienced in other parts of the country. No matter how this ends, I must return to Cinque terra one day.

At 3:30 sharp I wake Mike up to leave for the train. We quickly wash up and head down to buy our tickets. Of course the dang machine was still malfunctioning! Every time I try to purchase our tickets the machine starts yelling at me to “Insert your card.” The recorded voice is that of an Italian accented woman speaking English. It repeatedly says “insert your card”over and over. Mike and I deliriously tired start laughing really hard. I almost couldn’t talk. It’s as if the machine wants any criminal waking around within a miles radius to know… hey someone here has money.. go rob them!

Well the ticket office didn’t open until 9am and we would never make it on time. “Mike” I say, “Lets just jump onto the train. I mean if the ticket man comes around we will just tell him the honest truth, or bag was stolen and we have no money.” He laughs. That’s a great way to go to jail here… the Italians take train jumping really seriously. “Lets do it!” He says still laughing at the machine going off in the background. I figured since it was so early in the morning the likelihood of us getting caught was slim. Italians typically start work late in the day and end early, the chances of there being a ticket man on the train at that hour was slim.  I was right – we made the first hour train ride without any sign of a ticket collector. We got off at our first stop and went straight to the automated machine to buy a ticket. I purchase the ticket being extra careful that I got the right ones. You see I was paying for both of us, and there are no refunds unless you take the ticket to a ticket office to exchange. As I mentioned before they don’t open until 9am, and its still 5am at this point. I had been traveling for 2 months at this point and every penny counts as a traveler.

When I give Mike his ticket and look it over to double-check the times. “Mike I bought the wrong ticket! How could I be so dumb! I must have been so nervous and tired that I touched the wrong button!” Mike looks at the ticket “You bought the wrong ticket alright…Wait… Gema! You bought us a direct ticket to Milan! This is a speed train ticket! We are going to arrive there at 8:30 instead of at 9:30! It’s ok, we are ok!” He must have seen the worry on my face because he gave me the biggest hug and told me how this is the best mess up I could have ever done.

We get on the Italian speed train, it’s a train made by the Germans, and this means its fast, very fast and very nice with wonderful gray leather seats for comfort. I think to myself how much I love the Germans and we take our seats assigned by the ticket machine. The train is completely empty so we lay back and begin to relax ready to sleep since we no longer have to jump trains. Just then a little old lady walks in and you can tell she is tentatively looking at each seat number looking for her seat. Sure enough she is assigned a seat right in front of us. This means less legroom for Mike and I on a completely empty train. Why!!! Of all luck! Mike and I try to ask her to take the empty seats somewhere else and she replies in really broken English that she is worried someone else is assigned to those seats. Mike and I look around the train astonished. The train is completely empty! Annoyed but too tired to care I sit down at the window seat and start to make a pillow out of my jacket. Mike decides he needs legroom and moves to the seats just across the isle and does the same. I look out the window and can just see rays of sunlight starting to peak out. Within moments the train starts moving and we are fast asleep....

Note: I am sorry for the delay, I went into areas with little internet and then traveled by train less and less as the trip moved on. I am now able to continue to write, and promise am finishing my entries as we speak.

Lots of love!

xx

72 hours continued

As I mentioned in my previous post, Mike and I decided to stay an extra night since we were so in love with the beauty and nature of Cinque Terre. We woke up, ate breakfast, and made our way to find outdoor adventure. We took the train to the 5^th and furthest village from ours. (We were staying in the first village) We planned to swim and then hike our way home as we had the day before this time in the opposite direction. Walking around we came across a kayaking rental station. We rented a two-person kayak and set forth toward these huge rocks out in the middle of the sea about quarter of a mile out from the beach. We were talking to some locals and found out that if we kayaked out to the rocks, there was a place we could go cliff jumping. Mike being a height junky, and me always being up for adventure were stoked to do some climbing and jumping! We took the camera and started making our way to the rocks and cliffs.

The Mediterranean is BEAUTIFUL! The sea is a deep emerald blue, and could see the sandy bottom as we paddled through the water. We finally made it out to the rocks and scoped out the scene. It was definitely deep. We couldn’t see the sea floor anymore, and we poked our kayak paddles into the water to see if they would touch the floor. We were in the clear. Mike climbed onto the rocks and I paddled the kayak out further away so that I could record the whole thing. The cliff was about 2 to 2.5 stories high. He made the jump in pencil drop form and we cheered when he reached the surface after the deep plunge.

It was now my turn and I began to scale the cliff. I have to admit this is one if the most adventurous things I have ever done. Mike got the whole thing on camera. I took my time climbing as it was really high, and I was much too nervous to climb quickly. Also, doing this bare foot in a swimsuit, I had to be extra carful not to scrap myself on the sharp rocks. When I reached the top I couldn’t believe how high it was. I almost chickened out but the climb down seemed way scarier. I choose to only look at the rocks before I jumped. With a count to three I ran and leaped off the cliff! I leapt as far off the edge as I could, and remember looking far out into the distance. With a massive distance between the water and me I finally just shut my eyes and squealed the whole way down. I remember thinking that it was a long drop and wondered how long would it take before I hit the water. My feet broke through the water and I swam up to the surface. Wohoo! I was on an adrenaline rush and Mike and I cheered again! He was so proud that I did the jump! He also got the whole thing on camera and I even gave a shout out to Mom. It was amazing. We then explored around a bit more and then made our way back to the main shore. Epic adventure of the trip so far hands down!

When we got to the shore we hid our things between a large stacks of kayaks. There was no one around to see us and our things were really hard to get to. I tied our hiking shoes to my bag and dropped them in. We went for a great swim and laid out on some rocks out in the bay. When we returned we were laughing and goofing around. We reached in for the bags and the laughter suddenly stopped. Mikes bag was gone along with all of his money, his passport and my camera. At that moment everything became very serious, and we combed the beach looking for his bag. I think he was desperately hoping that the person would be sun bathing on the beach and he would get his stuff back. Finally we had to go to the police. He had to file a claim and then go the American consulate to get a new passport. Here is where things began to get stressful though. The nearest American consulate was in a town that was 5 hours away and it closed everyday at noon. His flight back to California was in about 36 hours in the same city. We looked up train times and decided to take the 4am train into Milan, we would get in at 9am and pray to get him in on time to get a new passport before his flight. We found a café with WiFi and as he canceled his cards and sorted out directions I decided to plan where to go next. It was while watching him desperately plan what to do when I decided to make the journey with him. I looked up flights in Milan, and found a cheap flight to Barcelona. “Mike.. Im coming with you! Let’s make this adventure of getting you home!” The look of relief on his face made it all worth wild. So we raised a toast over orange juice, and decided to make our way on the 4am train to Milan the following morning.

To be continued.

xx