Day 32 – Milan

Whilst everyone was still asleep, I got up and left to get my haircut. I knew the general area where it was but not exactly, and I had to ring calvin when I couldn’t find it. I found another one he went to before because the one he suggested was closed. The hairdresser spoke no English and I had come equipped with a picture and a well remembered Italian phrase, emphasising ‘short, but too short’. As a result, I think he was scared of cutting it short as every time he asked if it was ok, I needed to tell him to cut off a bit more. Finally it was perfect, and he started layering my face with shaving cream.

I was getting a shave as well apparently. As my moustache is a bit ‘fuller’ than my beard, he asked if I wanted to keep that and shave the rest. I couldn’t help but laugh but he shaved it all off. It was the first time I did this and my face never felt smoother. My skin felt a little bit sensitive though and couldn’t wait to get home and put on some moisturiser. When I did get back, I was so happy that I told every one how cool it was over a plate of spaghetti.

The plan today was to visit one of the tallest buildings in the city and go up to the 39th floor, which offers spectacular views of the city. When we were getting our tickets for the metro, we heard crying and shouting from a toilet just around the corner. It turned out to be a woman stuck inside and she was desperately trying to get out. Finally the train station attendants came to her aid and we carried on. Calvin got a metro ticket for 6 journeys and with the attendants occupied elsewhere, he slipped through without having to use the ticket. He later realised that he forgot to collect his €4 change when he bought the tickets, so ‘karma struck hard’.

On the way to the skyscraper, we passed by a large circular tent-like building that was advertising for Panoramic Italy. When we were told it was free, we couldn’t say no and we watched a 10 minute movie on everything Italy. It was actually very interesting. Moving on, we got to our destination and realised that the automatic doors wouldn’t open. The girl at reception came out and said she had never heard of such a thing in this building, yet Calvin had done this only a month ago. A security guard then intervened to clarify that it was now closed and only opened on Sunday’s. It was pretty weird though, like everyone was hiding something.

We were determined to get up and so we walked around and tried to find another entry but had no luck. On the other side of the building we had a coffee, and Calvin asked one of the baristas why it was closed. After going to find her supervisor, she explained that it was because of Expo. Odd, you would think they would open it more for that and show off the city, possibly charging people to see it too?

Nevertheless, we enjoyed the rest of our coffee whilst watching a group of children. Half of them were learning their ‘street dance’ routines and the other half were all hitting each other with an empty 2 litre bottle of coke. I can’t imagine how sore that would be but the boys were screaming with the pain at times. Instead of watching anymore of this ‘mess’, we left and I had persuaded my girlfriend (who doesn’t really take any interest in football) and Calvin (who had been there 6 times already) to visit the San Siro, home to AC Milan and Inter Milan football clubs.

It meant that we could get the new metro that was being built and stopped right outside the stadium. This line was completely machine operated – no drivers or ticket supervisors – and so we got to sit right at the front. It was like sitting at the front of a double decker bus, only we were underground and could only make out the walls on either side with the lonely track in between.

As it wasn’t game day, the area around the stadium was deserted and we eventually found the ticket office to try and get in. I didn’t want a tour, just to see the inside from the stands, but it closed in 10 minutes and they wouldn’t let us. We also weren’t going to pay €15 for a 10 minute look. We walked around the stadium from the other side and got to a delivery entrance. Talking to the steward, I told him I was leaving to go home in an hour and I really want to see it. If it was maybe 10 minutes earlier I think he would have, or if we slipped him a couple of euro as he seemed genuine, but unfortunately he said it was too late.

Walking on around, there were so many openings into the stadium as they were letting in trucks and vans to set up for a concert. Some of the builders saw us looking and just laughed saying “no chance”. It was worth a try. Before getting the metro back into the centre, we stopped at a water tap/fountain where I soaked my girlfriend by placing my finger over the tap and sending the water everywhere. Somehow we all got soaked in the end but the hot sun dried us off in a matter of minutes.

The first day in Milan, Calvin showed me a burger restaurant and since then, I hadn’t stop suggesting to go there for dinner and all my hard work had finally paid off. We got the metro back in and arrived in the restaurant at 7.20pm. I had only realised then that our train was at 9pm and we had yet to pack or reserve seats (it was going to be an overnight train). We ordered, ate and left by 7.30pm – not even exaggerating, none of us have ever ate that fast in our lives, but our whole trip rested on this train tonight – running after the tram that passed and back in the flat by 8pm (by the way, the food was well worth the nagging and rushing).

We shoved everything into our bags and left as soon as we could, saying goodbye to Calvin’s flatmate as Calvin accompanied us back into the train station. When we arrived, all the ticket machines weren’t working and we couldn’t even buy tickets, yet alone buy our seat reservations. We thought that there may not be any seats left but we checked trains 2 weeks in advance and the same problem kept occurring. We needed to get a ticket for the ticket office and we were in a queue of 80 people, meaning that we would ultimately miss our train if we waited.

Calvin and my girlfriend went to McDonald’s to work out where else we could go, or other routes to get us to Berlin, whilst I remained in the queue downstairs and hassled the train information counter to either help us get to our destination or to fix the automatic machines so we could do it ourself. Nobody wanted to help with the problem because they were so lazy. Everyone was asking for the machines to be fixed but the answer that everyone got was that they were fine and ‘no possible’. I told the others the bad news and we accepted defeat with the idea that we would get the tickets for the same train tomorrow night. When we arrived back down to the ticket office, the queue ticket machine was now broken so it was a free for all to get the only worker that was on.

I had to ring up our hostel in Berlin to cancel it but apparently because it was within 24 hours, I wasn’t allowed to and I would be charged. I was allowed to change the date though so I changed it to 7 days from now, just to be safe. When I arrived back, the police had arrived to keep order and wouldn’t even let me in to sit with my girlfriend and Calvin in the queue. At 10.20pm, the ticket office closed and the man working got up and walked away, mid customer. This was definitely the worst experience with Italian people I’ve ever had. I remained after closing time and was adamant that they need to fix the stupid machines and stop saying ‘no possible’ – it was like in school, when you get told off for doing something you actually didn’t do and the teachers don’t want to hear your side of the story.

At last, we were kicked out by the police and the only thing we could do was return to Calvin’s flat for one more night. We felt bad for staying longer than we said but we had no choice. His flatmates thought it was hilarious when they saw us again and we all worked together to find out how we would get to Berlin tomorrow. Do we wait until tomorrow night again, leave in the morning and waste the day or hitchhike, like Calvin and his flatmate do?