Wrede between the lines

At the moment, I'm feeling quite under the weather at a "hostel" in Milan. Which... as you will find out, is annoying on sooo very many levels. But, we must go in order. Please bear with the writing style as my periatal lobe feels as if it's shifted enough to attempt dismount through my ear drum.

Where oh where did I leave off? Oh yes, my final night in Dublin. Long story short, the phrase "drink and drink and drink and drink and drink and drink and fight!" surely rings true.

If that is to say, playing the dice game and Hey! That's My Fish! with folks at the hostel means the same thing. I felt kinda like jerk from the standpoint that I'd told Dawson I was going to go to the club with him.... but, staying in was certainly more in the cards than anything. As usual, I'd play the game, and emphasize the rules aloud while making moves to entice the onlookers. After a finished game, it was all, "AND YOU'RE PLAYING THE NEXT ROUND!" and sitting the round out so as to get as many people in on the action. And BAMF! I've got a MILLION friends for the night. The Hollanders were awesome, along with the Frenchies and whatnot. The random guy from Spain, not so much....

And what's Europe without me picking up old habits, right? There were some serious Swiss gals out on the back deck. I went through nearly a half pack in conversation. And when at last we called it an evening, I played it cool, suggested that if it just so happened that our paths would cross again in the future, only good would come of it... or some such. Off they ran, giggling away as I made one last overly Americanized attempt at saying "kitchen" in Swiss German. Awwww, memories.

RYAN AIR

My first bout with that airline, and most likely the last. The money you save on the cheap airfare, quickly depletes in baggage fees and the spinal injuries one will incur while sitting in their plastic, non-reclining death traps of doom. No in flight beverages as there are no trays to put them on, and the bright blue/yellow color scheme just ain't cutting it. Also.... there is no assigned seating. You can only imagine how that train wreck unfolds.

CARCASSONNE

Definitely wins in the 'smallest-airport-i've-landed-at' department. Definitely all about the tarmac disembarkation and a 20 foot baggage claim conveyor belt. I kept my distance from the eccentric French guy I met in line, as he was beginning to ask too many personal questions. Perhaps friendly intentions... perhaps IDENTITY THEIVERY.

Outside, I ran into a load of Irish(wo)men of course and asked the easiest way to get to town. They offered to share a cab so long as I wasn't a murderer. To which I replied, "Murderer seems to be more of a career move involving the killing of multiple people, and I most certainly have not killed more than one." Chuckle chuckle chuckle. When the cab arrived, the driver refused to take us in directions that were so far a part. (I wanted my bearings in le centre ville, they wanted to go straight to their hostel outside of town). I ended up taking the bus.

My phone at this point refused to update the time difference from Ireland, and consequently forced me to miss a bus to Le Cite, the giant walled castle on the other side of town. Ended up staying at another Hostel International hostels.... which, while clean and all, are absolutely boring. You always get the families and locals that want no interaction whatsoever. The plus side to it's location, however, is it's right inside the castle walls, (very much like the ones in Cesky Krumlov). I stayed but one night in Carc before moving on.

THE TREK TO ITALY

Since I haven't been going from big city to other big city, I keep getting shafted on overnight trains. As it turned out, to get to Milan, I'd have to take 3 separate trains spanning 6/7 hours... find a place to stay for the evening in Ventimiglia, and then shoot off to Milan.

I'd been thinking Ventimiglia was a French town, as it was written 'Ventimille' on the ticket... no.

Got off the train there at odd hours in complete disorient. As it would happen, the Korean guy I'd seen on the train was talking to another group of backpackers. I walk up. "Do I hear ENGLISH SPEAKERS?" With a big grin plastering my face. So there we were, a few South Africans, a couple folks from the US, and a Korean fellow all with the common goal of staying up for 6-7 hours to catch different morning trains. As celebration of new friendship, we went to the first restaurant we saw, ordered a ton of pizza and a liter of wine from our festivly plump waiter Dominigo. Follow that with a cappucino, and you've got yourselves a start to a good night.

From there, it was off to the beach, where we traded stories of our scariest childhood moments and threw rocks into the Mediterranean. And so it was, the sky filled with stars, the moon burnt crimson, and the weary eyes of temporary travel companions fighting off the inevitable, we returned to board our train, and went our separate ways.


There you have it. An entry. I'll post about Milan when I get around to it. Now I go back to sleep for the tenth time this afternoon. Hopefully the weather is good tomorrow, (weather.com says it's going to be just peachy.... what with the 90% chance of heavy precipitation) so I don't miss out on Lake Maggiore (my initial plan for today before getting hit by the wave of sickness.) Cause... in two mornings, I'm on the move again. What I can say, is Milan's really awesome. (That is, what I saw of it yesterday) A good suggestion I received from a backpacker last trip.

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