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Published: September 5th 2005
Not a Wal-Mart
Somehow, big buildings are just cooler when their centuries old. Arriving in Milan after an early rise and flight by Ryanair, we experienced for the first time what it is like to encounter a third language and culture in one day, entirely foreign to both of us (David’s excellent French proved more than proficient for our time in Paris). Having several hours until our train departed from Milan to Florence, we made our way via the subway to the Duomo (cathedral) in the center of town. Milan’s metro is quite confusing, but a helpful array of sparsely multi-lingual homeless men happily stand waiting to help you purchase the right ticket from the extremely confusing ticket machines for whatever you are willing to give them. “Duomo?” he asks, clearly surmising from your backpack and age that you are indeed a passing tourist, “si” we respond. He pushes a few of the confusing array of buttons and drops your coin in the machine which it promptly rejects. Without losing a beat, he rubs the coin vigorously on the surface of the machine where several years of wear attest to the validity of this strange practice. Inserting the coin once more, and after a tense pause, the machine grants us a ticket and he
Sometimes...
Sometimes, you just don't want to know the tranlsation. smiles holding out a small plastic cup with a twinkle in his eye.
The city of Milan in general seems surprisingly light on things to see and depressingly dirty. However, the Duomo is so large and its interior so grand that I would go out of my to visit it again if I were passing through the city. The surrounding square with its impressive architecture and towering ancient buildings are also worth a few carefully framed photos. Most impressive the inside the massive cathedral are the tall stained glass windows at the alter end of the structure. The 4+ different windows stand some 50 feet tall and each contain no fewer than 144 smaller window frames each portraying in minute detail a scene from the scriptures. Back outside, we saw a group of about 30 most likely Peruvian Christians (if I’m any good at naming music) playing traditional Peruvian instruments and singing while others passed out tracts in Italian and Ukranian, and still others preached in Italian about the joy and satisfaction of a life following Jesus Christ. I was shocked to find throughout our time in Italy that I had little trouble understanding with a Spanish ear any
Capt. Carruth and his trusty flying rat
David and his avian companian grew close to one another in the square in front of the Duomo. Italian conversation we needed to understand. It was being an American English speaker talking to an older person with an extremely thick old Irish or English accent. Most of the more basic pieces of information or requests are actually the same to the ear; they’re only spelled different. Take a glance at the pictures for some more humorous things that took place in the square.
Jumping on our train for Florence we had the opportunity to share a car with an older Italian woman for some time. She spoke a few words of English and filled them in with French and Italian ones, understanding well David’s French and my slow Italianized pronunciation of Spanish as we spoke to her. She told us about the land and geography of Italy as we rolled through the Tuscan hillside, and asked us about the striking similarity I found it to have to the plains of Kansas. Surprisingly a ticket for the 3 hour fairly high-speed journey from Milan to Florence cost us only 21 euros.
With little trouble, we found our place of lodging in Florence, the Ostello Archi Rossi. I must say that I’ve never seen anything like it. It
Me and the flying rats
A man came up to David and I and put a handful of corn in our hands, completely unexpectedly. Instantly the local feathered population covered us for about a minute. It was quite the experience and we gave them a euro for the worthwhile entertainment, then doused ourselves in Purell hand sanitizer. was as though someone had taken an ancient building and a hostel full of character and added top of line security, technology, and service so subtly that you never noticed it (unless you paid attention to the little white balls with black dots in the corners of every hallway ceiling, and the staff asking everyone who walked anywhere to show them their key). For a rock-bottom price (€16-22 depending on the season), we received comfortable lodgings, a great breakfast, and a building decorated with student murals on every wall and ceiling and upper floors covered from top to bottom with decades of profound quotes, signatures, proclamations of home countries, and random paintings. Among other things, I added to the top of the first stairway a quote I found once in Denver, Colorado that has always made me laugh: “It’s not so much that the world is full of fools, as just that lightning isn’t evenly distributed.” In the courtyard a beautiful garden plays host to several large sculptures; from the decks and dining hall to the benches of the garden, young people from all over the world wile away the late evenings telling stories from their lives and travels, and
discuss everything from world politics to why they thought Prague stunk, stopping perhaps to watch a movie together on the only TV in the building, a big screen at the end of the dining hall with a large collection of movies beside it.
Towering over the central square, the Duomo in Florence (Firenze in Italian) I found far more impressive, if not by virtue of its unexpectedly monstrous size, then for its intricately constructed pale red, jade green and stone white marble exterior. Inside we found a magnificently painted dome, a mural of Dante’s work The Divine Comedy, and an analog clock that used the 24 hour time system (besides having a very unique way of writing the Roman numeral 4, see picture). David used his best Latin to translate the quote about Dante under the mural, while I translated what he said into Spanish for an older Mexican couple with whom we were sharing the view.
Waiting in the long line for entrance to the famous Uffizi museum (being too cheap to have paid the extra 3 euros for reserve tickets a few days before online) we passed the hour an a half wait with our newfound
Stained Stories
This is one of the spectacular stained glass windows that has detailed depictions of different Bible stories. line buddies, two late twenty-something girls from Israel who were scientists there for the, and I quote, “Twentieth World Congress on Electron Crystallography” with the overwhelmingly enthralling theme this year: “Novel Approaches for Structure Determination of Nanosized Materials.” Apparently 1500 scientists had gathered in Florence at a fortress on the north end of town for this event of scientific proportions. Knowing men and women from Israel must serve two years in the military to receive citizenship after their 18th birthday, we asked them all kinds of questions about their service and travels and received a spectacular critique of this government about which we were so uninformed. Inside the museum, we viewed works from El Greco (probably Spain’s most famous artist), to Leonardo di Vinci, to Matisse.
Much to the disappointment of everyone who talks to us, we didn’t take the time (3 hour line) or the money (€ 9) to see the David. However, leaving the museum and crossing the world famous Ponte Vecchio bridge, we headed toward the hilltop Plaza de Michelangelo. On the way we actually, literally, ran into our Israeli friends again and, finding ourselves headed to the same destination, climbed the nearly mortally long staircase
David taking in the view
A travel weary youth tours the back of his eyelids in the duomo square. to the top together.
Here, back dropped with a scene of sunset blazed storm clouds on the distant mountains, we did view the copy statue, known as the false David. Our friends introduced us to six other Israeli scientists and we took some group pictures for them with the spectacular Tuscan sunset. These women had all come together to the conference and were of various ages, certifications, and disciplines of the sciences. They invited us to join them for dinner at a restaurant down at the bottom of the hill, and we enjoyed a great evening, talking about everything from being a Jew in modern Israel to the massive commercial entity which they had heard about but never seen, known as Wal-Mart. As we walked back to the hostel, we passed back over the Ponte Vecchio, lined with closed shops in their ancient wooden structures, but alive with tourists and locals enjoying the view and listening to an acoustic Italian band covering all the modern staples like U2, Coldplay, and some famous romantic Spanish hits. After escorting them all to the bus stop, David and I returned to the hostel to spend several hours chatting up the night with friends
from all over the U.S., U.K., and a few other countries. Being one of the most popular vacation weeks of the year in Europe, we all agreed that there indeed had to be more Americans in Florence than Italians at the moment.
After sleeping in a bit, and catching breakfast, we checked-out and wondered what do to with the several hours until our train. We settled upon trying to go up and see this conference and then hitting the Medieval Torture Museum (which we had heard was a hilarious 30 minute tour). That no tourists were allowed to see the huge fortress was made quite clear by the sign at the entrance and the older guard. Not to be confounded that easily, we approached the gate and, explaining that we were students and had heard about the conference from the representatives from Israel, were told to go to the front desk of the conference to get our ID. Figuring we were in for a penny, in for a pound, we advanced and excitedly told the director (a very scientist-looking Italian woman) that we only had a couple of hours before our train left and would like to view a
Decades of Quotes and Signatures
This is one of the many walls in the Ostello Archi Rossi where we stayed. Some art, some quotes, some graffiti. bit of the conference. She asked a few more managers, then nodded at the secretary who promptly printed up some fancy name badges with our names and home countries proudly proclaiming “XX World Congress on Electron Crystallography”, which security required everyone to wear. In the main exposition hall, we found a forest of boards reminiscent of a grade school science fair on steroids, surrounded by very bearded or young and ambitious looking scientists from what seemed like every country in the world. Bearing such titles as “Structural Parameters of Several Lanthanide Structures,” and “Electron Density in Cubic BrTKO Gamma Ray Diffraction,” and “E. Coli M16A structures in Yeast MPP,” David noted that at least they had chosen English as the conference language, to which I responded that it was still Greek to me. After listening to one of the speakers for a couple of minutes I realized that she was speaking in perfect English, and yet and I couldn’t understand one sentence she had said. At the point our brains were completely fried and we followed a few scientists onto one of the ramparts surrounding the fort. Here we were treated to a few no tourists had seen and decided
Doing their part
These girls were speaking what I think was Russian, and they were painting some balloons onto another person's work. that it had been worth the effort. Besides, how many people get their own cool name badge from Florence?
The Medieval Torture Museum was a look at the forms of corporal and capital punishment of old Florence as well as the dietary, sanitary, and domestic conditions of the city. We laughed a lot, more often at the wax recreations of diseases like leprosy or the chopping off a thief’s hand, while being quite queasy at some of the capital punishments. Overall, it was wealth the money, as we had come with spectacularly low expectations which nearly guaranteed our satisfaction. After a distinctly Italian lunch of fresh baked pizza (1€ a slice), we hopped back on the train for Milan, sleeping most of the way there.
Planning to spend our last day relaxing our travel weary persons, we were not prepared for one last adventure that would acquaint us well with the not-so-touristy parts of Milan. We planned to stay at the only youth hostel in Milan listed in our travel guide, and quite well recommended I might add. We once again matched wits with Milan’s exceedingly confusing subway system, this time without soliciting any aid from locals, and
Youth Hostel Murals
This is the hallway leading to the Dining Hall. found our way to the hostel (which couldn’t have been further from the train station). After a long confusing walk, following signs on the street, we found the hostel, part of an international chain of hostels, and inquired about how to catch a 6:55am from Bergamo airport (my flight to Seville) and David’s 7:10 train to Nice, France.
The friendly international staff said we should be staying at the newer hostel branch right next to the airport, and catch the short train to the station from the airport (in the distant suburb of Bergamo) for David’s train. (Thank you Lonely Planet Travel Guides) They said the fastest way there would be to take the Autoestrada Bus to Bergamo, and would cost us 5 euros. He gave us directions to the nearest regular bus stop and directions to get off at the 3rd stop and the buy tickets for the 7pm bus from the Tobaco shop by the bus station. We needed an ATM machine to buy our tickets because we had unexpectedly both run out of money, but the ATM by what we thought was the right bus stop was out of order. Finally finding the right stop and
What time is it?
Duomo Firenze. Besides being a 24 hour clock, notice the way the roman four is written. an ATM, we just barely missed our bus to the station, so we waited another 20 minutes for the next one. Distracted by a conversation, David told me when we had reached the third stop and we hopped off. We walked and walked and looking our map realized it had been substantially farther to the right intersection than we had been told. Excited at having found an ATM at last, we got some cash and looked for the bus station. As we walked up the sidewalk I suddenly solved the puzzle of the stops. When the Italian man at the hostel gave us a price for something earlier he had written 4 and said three several times; consequently, we he said the third stop… exactly, it had actually been the fourth one he meant. Walking for several blocks we wondered if his directions had been off in distance again, and stopped to ask directions to the “Austoestrada.”
Now here I should explain that we would find out later that the Autoestrada bus line is named after something, the interstate, which is conveniently enough called the… you guessed it, Autoestrada. The word for bus stops is actually “Autoestradale” (note the
Medusa a la carte
Head of Medusa, slightly grilled, with a pinch of limon. Bon appetit. single extra syllable, because I didn’t). Well, in our jubilation at solving the problem of the fourth stop, we had completely overlooked the small green sign on the sidewalk that was the bus “station” we sought (an Autoestradale). Continuing our journey with our luggage in tow, we asked another person where the Autoestrada was, and again received the reply that if we just kept going down this street we would see a big overpass and would be there. About half an hour later, and seeing a bridge of some kind off in the distance, we decided that our guide was terrible at gauging distance. After a few kilometers we finally arrived at the foot of the onramp to the interstate, soaked in sweat, and praising God we were patient men by nature. Walking into a nearby gas station/Burger King we shared with the Italian speaking attendant our dilemma, quickly realizing our mistake (which I think he found quite humorous, as would I had I been simply reading the story at the time). Fortunately, there was another “Autoestradale” at the foot of the onramp. We decided to cut our losses by eating dinner at Burger King and heading to the sign.
The 'False David' in Plaza d'Michelangelo
Nothing may be as good as the original, but the huge sky and free admission sure made up for a lot. Finally, two and a half hours after our little bus should have left the original intersection, the last bus arrived at our stop at 9:30pm. Humored by our plight, the driver said we could pay at the station in Bergamo, and a kind British/Italian banker let us borrow his cellular phone to call the hostel and tell them we would arriving a bit later than expected, not surprisingly, they found it all very funny as well and promised to stay open, however late we might arrive.
Having a great conversation and receiving much advice about places to visit in Europe, the man who had loaned us his phone, wished us much luck. Arriving at the station, the bus driver said that since it was already closed not to worry about the fare. Perhaps, all’s well that ends well.
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DeMo
non-member comment
quite the adventure...
it's good that you two know so many languages together. :) i wish i could have seen that sunset.. ahhh, and be in Nice when the moon rises over the Med. gorgeous. i wonder if you will have so much traveling excitement when classes start? :)