But, I'm getting ahead of myself. Let me start at the beginning. And the beginning - just like in the Bible - starts in Milan. Now, I know when people in America (or at least me personally) think about Milan we imagine a classy, fashionable, and upscale city - something worthy of the Milano cookies from pepperidge farm and the ubiquitous image of models walking down runways. Unfortunately, Milan in real life is a large, dirty, unnatractive, working class, city.
Ryanair - the European budget airline - had really good deals of 5 pounds (about 8 dollars) one way to a variety of cities in Europe. On a whim a couple weeks before leaving for Europe I looked at their destinations and thought "Milan sounds nice, let's go there." Thats how we ended up in Milan but things work out for a reason I've learned.
The first night in Milan was a mess. We got there late. The mean ticket Nazi in the train station was of no help and appeared affronted that we dared to speak English. We took the tram to our hostel (and got lost) but they told us there that they had overbooked it... so we had to take a taxi to another hostel.
The taxi ride was insane. The driver, a jittery man who wore a french beret and listened to some sort of modern/pop jazz (such a thing apparently exists) disobeyed all traffic laws, drove on the wrong side of the road, and sped down the narrow streets at breakneck speeds (he probably wanted us there quickly because young backpackers aren't known for being great tippers and he wanted new passengers). Somehow we survived the trip but the new hostel had no forewarning of our arrival, the desk man didn't speak any English or understand hand signals, and the phone at the other hostel apparently didn't work so they couldn't help. However, after enlisting the aid of guys off the street eager to practice their English we landed a room. And what a room it was.
Ok, there's a little bathroom...
...in the corner of our bedroom... that's odd. And wait, there's more. It's not a toilet after all but rather a bidet. That's right. As Jamie observed, it's random presence in our room's corner meant that in order to use it properly you had to squat/walk all the way from the toilet down the hall into the room... ok...
After the hostel debacle and the oddity of the bidet and room in general we decided to flip on some TV before bed and were a bit amused to see that they had a man dressed as a general delivering the weather report ???? Also of note, we had six channels to choose from but one of them was a home shopping network themed channel that only sold watches... 24/7
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