So I’m lying in my bunk bed at 4 in the morning.   There are two other people in my room.   One is a Korean kid who checked in after me and the other is a grown man from West Africa here for a week for a postal convention.

The latter stunk up the whole room and he snored like no one I had ever heard snore before.   A few times I heard the Korean bash the top of his bunk bed in an effort to shut him up as the man was sleeping above him.

So here I was at 4 in the morning – now wide awake – contemplating what to do about this situation.   I had one more night in this room and didn’t know if I could take it.   Plus I had seen as much as I wanted to see with Bern and frankly I was sick of high prices and everyone speaking German with no English in sight.

I hatched a plan.   Originally I was going to just go into Milan the following morning and spend a couple of hours there over lunch before heading to the airport to fly out to Malta.

But I did something crazy.

Even though I had already paid for another nights stay in Bern and I wouldn’t be able to get a refund, I went on the laptop and booked a hostel for the same night in Milan.

Yep, I was going to go to Milan a day early.   Sure, I’ve been told there was nothing to do in Milan but, hey, the way I looked at it – there was nothing for me to do in Bern either but at least I’d hopefully be staying in a better hostel, not have a smelly snorer in my room and find some people to speak English.

Plus there’s Margherita pizza!

So at 8 in the morning I headed out to the train station and caught the train to Milan.   I arrived just after noon to a light drizzle and grey skies.

After checking in I went and satisfied my overwhelming craving for Margherita pizza and then went over to the Duomo (yes, another church).   I didn’t pay to go in – just snapped some pics and then walked around the plaza before stopping to do the traditional spinning on the bulls’ balls (hey, look it up on Google).

For dinner I walked over to the far side of town where all the restaurants and bars are.   After passing countless Japanese, Chinese and other ethnic restaurants I found an Italian one with very reasonable prices.   I stepped inside and was greeted by 4 asians.   Ummmm…   I just kind of put my finger up as if to say “one second” and then just walked straight back out the door.

Finally I found an authentic Italian restaurant.   I started with a 1/2 liter of white wine and for my meal I had bruschetta done three ways followed by a great seafood and rice dish.   It was such a huge meal I actually had no room for dessert so I walked it off with a half hour walk back to the hostel.

And that was it.   Nothing special but at least my room doesn’t smell and no one’s snoring…

Euro Trip 2013, Milan, Italy, Trip Journal
Europe 2013
Photo Gallery
Leave a Comment

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *