I'm from the streets!

Ahem, so we had to catch a late night plane from Palermo to Milan then catch a bus into the city from Bergamo and then another bus to Malpensa. Basically Milan has three airports and they're no where near one another making a connection about a two hour endeavor for most people, but not us, oh no my friends it turned into a six hour marathon of a night on the streets of Milan, literally.

(Editor's note: The following was actually written when Chris finally caught a bus at 4:30 AM following turmoil and fears that few people should ever endure, he thanks everyone for their prayers. Anything in brackets was added after the night in Milan)

This night was bizarre, it was like something out of a Thomas Pynchon novel sans the deaf people dancing in unison.

Milan: Arrive at 12:15 which is 15 minutes after the last bus to Malpensa Airport. (Next bus goes out at 4:25, apparently the airports, train stations, and world shuts down at night in Milan)

• No where to rest, able to leave bags at a close by hotel however they won’t let us hang out in the lobby… who would think a night clerk would be snooty about his company?
• Walk around, find strip club across the street which isn’t happening due to the exorbitant prices of Milan and the exorbitant prices of strip clubs. (Plus I've never been to one, maybe that'll salvage some face with the woman I end up marrying one day considering some of my other exploits)
• Sit by bus pickup on a bench for awhile, talk to last bus driver of the night who tells us the next pickup is 5:45 while pointing to a sign that clearly states 4:25. (The comical part about this was how assured and snotty he was about it being 5:45. You know how it goes, busy people don't have time for details or accuracy)
  
• Shady cab driver offers his services for a ride, I bargain at 50 Euro firm (standard is about 90) and he argues about the difference of 10 Euro (he wanted 60, but really what kind of bargaining power did he have here? There was literally no one else). Eventually we leave and while I’m standing a phone booth, killing time more so than trying to call anyone, he comes back agreeing to 50. However once we get in to go pick up our bags, we notice he doesn’t have anything on his BMW that says Taxi… a little shady. Once inside the hotel the snooty clerk from earlier saves us by letting us know that the airport is closed meaning riding out there wouldn’t matter because we’d have to wait outside anyways. Either way he saved us from getting ripped off, mugged, or raped.
• Try to rest in the gateway to the underground which is locked, Bart accidentally kicks the door and we hear the cleaning man making a phone call which we assume is to the police so we leave. Our night as homeless ragamuffins continues. (One of my finest moments as a human being, finding shelter on the streets of Milan in a subway entrance)
  
• Find our way to the front of Milan Centrale, apparently the mecca for wary travelers of the world. This is where the night gets good.
• After eating the best hamburger I’ve had since leaving America we went to sit down on a bench and were offered drugs and alcohol, we moved before prostitution came up.
• We play basketball with a trashcan and an empty water bottle, it’s hard considering the wind. Bart wins, and when I say “wins” I mean he makes the first basket after like 257,008,089 tries combined.
• Off in the distance I spotted a giant mutant rat that I’m pretty sure is on it’s way to becoming the real life Splinter from Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, since there was nothing else to do we followed it to a little patch of grass and shrubbery where, surprise surprise, two more giant man-eating rats popped out of the bushes. But wait, it gets better. Apparently two of the rats didn’t get on so well which resulted in a mega-rat-mega fight royal. Seriously if we had gotten it on camera I swear it would become a viral video on TV or made it to the front page of youtube and collegehumor. (One of the most surreal moments of my life, I couldn't stop watching and hoping they'd continue fighting. I felt like a boxing fan during the 60's and 70's)
  
• Just before leaving we met Robert, a homeless chap from Romania who spoke fairly good English. He talked about being a business man about twenty years ago and traveling to Dallas and even spoke, with convincing knowledge, about other parts of the US and history. This is one of the few homeless people I’ve encountered here whose story I actually believed. So we talked for about 15 minutes, took some pictures and headed on our merry way to Spain, somehow alive and not male prostitute converts (I’m pretty sure one of the guys going around the station was trying to recruit some other Americans into his pimp ring).
  

Ok so that's the unedited version of what I wrote down as we finally escaped to the airport. I can't even begin to adequately describe how strange and surreal this night was. We were constantly suspicious of people walking up near us, Bart was falling asleep all over the place and things were just flat out crazy. However it seemed like we were in a pretty nice part of the city and that my fears might have been unmerited, on the flip side that cabbie in the unmarked BMW didn't settle well in my conscious especially when the hotel clerk said he thought the guy was probably going to rob us.

On a lighter note, the hotel in Malaga is beyond anything I expected. We each have our own double bed, a full size bath, and there is a casino just up the road. Few people get to see how excited I am about playing poker or roulette but man is it fun. On our first venture there last night I almost tripled my money so that'll help easy the pockets a little for the big hit my bank account is taking from this month-long excursion around Western Europe. However the sun and the casino aren't the best part about this hotel, it's the food. Oh my God, after months eating crap in the Beaumont Hall cafeteria this is divine. Seriously, there is so much gourmet food and massive amount of desserts that I've never seen before. Templeton (the rat from Charlotte's Web people, if you didn't know that you need to lock up your knowledge about children's cartoons...) would be in heaven.

Anyways, I'm off to do something lazy and unproductive because that's what vacation is all about no matter what other people say.

Chris