Giorno 87, 3 April: Migration to Milan and the Fall

Zebra Hostel, Milan, Italy, Giorno 87. Migration to Milan and the Fall

      The day was predominantly a traveling one, finding out about the slowness of Dutch trains in Amsterdam and the odd lenient security at the airport. On the 90-minute plane, I read a good bit of Stephen King’s Different Seasons, a collection of short stories starting with the one that inspired the movie The Shawshank Redemption. The prisoner’s narrative voice is so convincing.

      Once in Milan, our idea to rent cars turned ugly, 300€ plus 20€ for car insurance daily (we’d be using the car for 5 days) and one of us would have to be 25 years old to ride a van (we’d need one to fit all of us. There are now seven of us: Liam left us in Amsterdam and a Canadian girl named Devon, also an international studying abroad at UEA).

      Lugging my bags hurts. Each time I feel the weight of my gigantic, green duffel bag, the weight of my regret for taking almost all my clothes from Norwich increases. Vinnie gratefully helped me out as we walked to our hostel from the metro station, though. And my friends had all offered to help decrease the weight of my luggage at airport check-in in Amsterdam if need be. Joe particularly, and he had even brought me some things from breakfast my first morning in Amsterdam, which was really considerate. As for the luggage, it was under the 20-kg. maximum, but still, 15.4-kg. is no feather.

ZEBRA PRINT!

      Once at the hostel, that is definitely covered by zebra print designs on the walls everywhere, we all went to a pizza place and dealt with the language barrier as best we could. I got pizza alla zola, I think, when I meant to get a meat one. Oh well. And we tipped horrendously too much, but the two servers did put up with us in their otherwise quiet restaurant.

Gelato! And a Happy Mo.

      We headed to the market for water and enchanted bottles for the evening, then to a nearby gelato place with dark chocolate as an option (I definitely had a scope), and finally back to the hostel for most of the evening, playing cards and ping pong/sting pong. Vinnie (annoyingly) did really well in the latter. When we did go out, I foolishly took Vinnie too seriously about racing along the pavement and I ran. I haven’t really run in two weeks, but even though I know it’s vacation, my body misses it. This time, though, my boots tripped me up mid-run and I slid to the pavement, friction causing blood to dribble from my knees and right hand. My right hand bore the worst pain from my fall on all fours, since I may get a casual wrist cast for a few days. I am still able to type this with both hands, but my wrist has slightly limited motion compared to my left.

Dinner

      I felt dumb for doing that. Strangely, the pain at the time brought me into a state of homesickness, particularly missing a person from home that had just visited me, Katya. The good-bye was really sad, making me numb myself to it at some points and deal with it at others, and the fact that she’s no longer here stings a bit, more than my right hand. Email correspondences and our transition back into long distance hurts more than the first parting in January. She was physically in my arms a few days ago and now there are only her words upon a screen. And as much as the sites and cities are amazing, there is no replacement for home.

      Still, I’ve finally made it to Italy and I’m excited for what lies next.