Ken and Elise's trip

Day 16: Part II, Milan

  We pulled into Milan in the late evening. I had emailed our hotel asking for step by step walking instructions but had not heard back (I’m beginning to believe that emails from my main Windstream account aren’t going through for some reason). Anyway, there we were once again with no idea how to get to our hotel. This was growing old. I have to admit that I had been pretty dumb with this one. I simply had not realized how big Milan is--and how huge the train station is. We did have our book from guru Rick Steves who helpfully pointed out that there is a T1 office on the first floor of the Milan station. But we couldn’t even figure out which was the first floor--was it the huge floor at the top that led out to the city? Or was it the bottom floor where the trains came in. We did sort of dismiss the middle floor as an option (brilliant, aren’t we?). However, even if we could determine which was the  right floor, it was now after 8 pm which was when the T1 closed.

  After walking fruitlessly up and down floors looking for a map of the city, Ken left me with the luggage while he searched for help. A friendly policeman attempted to help, but between Ken’s hearing and the policeman’s limited English, that didn’t go very well. Ken came and got me to see if I could make sense of what the policeman was saying. I did understand that he was telling us that he wasn’t supposed to be helping lost tourists as he had other duties but that he was trying to make an exception. He pulled out a map, and tried his best to show us how to go. Ken nodded sagely and we thanked him and headed out more or less in the direction we thought he had said we should go. When we were out of earshot I asked Ken if he knew how to get to our hotel now. “No,” he said, “I was hoping you understood him.”

  Clearly once again we were in a pickle To make a long story short, we did eventually get there after once again dragging bags through city streets and with considerable help from strangers who spoke little English but were very good at waving their arms vigorously and pointing. At last we arrived, exhausted at our hotel and checked in. The room was decent--no charm, but clean with a rather nice bathroom. I fell on the bed and immediately went to sleep. Ken decided to explore a little. There was a door to another room and it had a key in it. Thinking that it might be a safe he opened it. He peeked in and immediately almost died of embarrassment. There staring back at him in horror were a man  and a woman who had before his unexpected entry been enjoying some sort of activity in the bed. Ken doesn’t remember if the woman shrieked--he thinks he may have.

  Horrified, he decides he should apologize. But certainly he doesn’t want to knock on the adjoining door. So he goes out to the hallway to knock on their hallway door. No one answers--big shock! But of course, while he’s standing there, the door to OUR room closes and he’s in the hall with only his pajama bottoms on. He tries knocking at our door, but I am asleep and don’t hear a thing. Finally, the poor guy is forced to go down the stairs, and ask for another key from the desk clerk who informs him that they give only one key per room. Ken explains what happened, and the clerk looks confused. “There is not supposed to be anyone in that room next to you,” he says. “No one is checked into it.” (We never did find out how the couple happened to be there, but I don't mind telling you it did not help my sense of security to find out the hotel clerk didn't even know who was occupying his rooms. Ken thinks they were employees of the hotel having a little “break” time---in fact he says when he went down to breakfast the next morning one of the waiters looked familiar).

  Finally Ken asked him to call me and ask me to open the door for him. The poor clerk was not thrilled to do that having formed a very poor impression of me earlier. I had not been particularly  warm upon arrival. I was ticked that the hotel hadn’t responded to my email asking for directions (although I now think it probably wasn’t their fault), and I was also unhappy about the fact that I had tried to call the clerk from the train station to get directions and after a frustrating 15 minute call I gave up. The guy was no help at all--kept asking me where we were in the station. I would tell him over and over again that we were outside in FRONT of the station and then he would ask me again where we were. Truly, it was more a language problem than the clerk’s fault, but you must remember that I arrived at the hotel after an hour’s search through the streets of Milan, actually fearing that we might be mugged. So although I don’t think I was exactly rude to the clerk, I will admit to not being my usual cheery self. So Ken insists that the guy was scared of me and didn’t want to call me. But Ken insisted so the poor fellow made a call to the room and as soon as I answered he threw the phone at Ken. Ken asked me to open the door for him as he was locked out. I was pretty confused--I hadn't even remembered going to sleep, and was completely befuddled as to how Ken got out of the room especially in his pajama bottoms..

  At any rate, we finally got it all sorted, Ken got back safely in the room and we piled some furniture and stuff in front of the strange door with the couple who “weren’t supposed to be there” inside.  

  I was starving as I had been sick and hadn’t eaten for days. I was resigned to not eating again. It was late and I just didn’t care anymore. I just wanted to go to sleep. But Ken got dressed and said he was just going to run outside for some cold drinks. Bless his heart, he came back with a pizza piled high with fresn pineapple (I love pineapple on pizza).  

   We got a solid night’s sleep and left the next morning for Mestre.  I wished I had gotten a photo of the outside of the Milan station. In spite of all our anxiety the night before with trying to find our hotel, I had mentally noticed that it was the most beautiful station I had ever seen.

End of Day 16   No photos on this part.