Milano Centrale

I had set my alarm clock for 6:00am this morning. Then I pressed snooze. And as happens quite frequently,  instead of pressing snooze again I turned off the alarm thinking I would wake up, when instead I slept again. Thank Jebus I woke up at 6:40am and did not have as much last-minute toiletry-packing to do as I originally thought. I crept around the apartment and had some breakfast before saying goodbye to Posh.

I hauled my rolling luggage (all >30kg), big backpack, Dakine backpack, and huge cloth grocery bag down the stairs and walked to the bus stop, catching the 7:46am bus to the train station. I arrived just before 8:00am and stood by the timetable, waiting for my track number to show up. It finally did around 15 minutes before my 8:35am train to Milano Centrale. I was worried about all my luggage (i.e. carrying it up and storing it all)--my fears were put to rest when a guy helped me with my heavy rolling luggage and when I noticed that I could leave it in the adjacent corridor on the train. But of course, I got on my coach at the opposite side of where my seat was so I held up everyone behind me as I tried to maneuver all of my stuff!

I was seated in a section with a mother and her two sons and two other young Italian women. I sat down with my smaller backpack on my lap, turned my iPod on, and conked out almost immediately. I love trains and cars over planes because I can actually fall asleep. And I loved this train because the headrests had protruding sides so that I could lean my head over without worrying about bobbing my head front/back or making new friends/enemies by dozing off on a neighbour's shoulder.

3.5 hours later, I arrived at Milano Centrale train station and the mother in my section helped me get my luggage off the train. I had really needed to pee about halfway through my train-ride but when I went to the nearby toilet, I was greeted by a bathroom that a) didn't lock and b) had a toilet that did not flush. This made me quickly decide to just hold it in. When I got to Milan, I first wanted to find a place to sit with my luggage and wait for my relatives to pick me up. Since it was a short wait, I deprived my bladder until we arrived home. It was worth it. [Was that TMI? TLN! (=too late now)]

It felt so nice to be in a new yet familiar place with family--and to have my own room and bathroom. And not having to cook anymore. And a really good wifi internet connection. And some peace and quiet.

I don't know if I ever mentioned it, but my room in Florence had a window onto a busy street, so not only did we have mosquitoes in the past month (since we had a window and all) but we were also privy to lots of car noises, loud Italian pedestrians, and music streaming from the nearby pizzeria. Here, I live in a small town 25 km north of Milan with not much to do nearby. I am planning a few weeks of repose, laziness, exercise, and studying before I go to Sardegna for a week with Oli.

In the evening we went to dinner at a Mongolian buffet restaurant in central Milan since my cousin/uncle (it's complicated) got a Groupon. We aren't sure how authentically Mongolian it was but we weren't impressed with the quality or selection. One thing I did like though were their pan-fried pork dumplings.

We were a short walk from the Duomo and I didn't have my camera with me since we didn't know that the restaurant would be so close. It looked beautiful though in the evening sky, even with tons of guys selling those multi-coloured lit-toys that fly really high into the air and then fall down menacingly-close to one's head. I must come back one evening to take some pictures!

Today's word of the day is riposo, or "rest". I'm taking a mini-vacation from vacation.