I woke up recognizing a significant need to formulate a plan. One of the nice things about my hotel room is that it had a lovely little walk out terrace attached which I used to enjoy the view of the streets below for a bit. It made me wish I smoked cigarettes so I had an excuse to linger a bit longer.
It turned out they had wireless internet at the hotel though you had to pay 10 Euros extra! I negotiated 5 and proceeded to make good use of it. First I called my airlines to see what they could do to reroute me (I’d learned that my flight out of Heathrow for the morning had been cancelled - big surprise). I spent a long time on hold and then finally got through to Joe who was very pleasant and did all he could to help me out - at least that’s what I believed.
He almost had me on flight out of Rome on Thursday that would’ve gotten me home on Friday which sounded perfect but for some reason was unable to do it so I sat on hold for another half hour or so until he had me on a Saturday evening flight out of Milan - to Amsterdam, where I spend the night and then leave for Detroit at 8am, arriving in Burlington at 3:30 pm on Sunday. Not ideal but I just took it. At this point I figured it wasn’t worth being too picky.
At least the knowledge of a scheduled flight helped me gage how much time I would have before returning home and feel a bit more settled into my surroundings so that I might actually try to start enjoying them rather than just lament the fact that I had absolutely no control over the situation.
I searched for a new hotel on-line and found some good options. I tried to book one that sounded great (and only cost like 35 Euros) and then headed out into the sunny Milano streets to explore until check out time arrived. I stopped by the hotel on the way to see if they’d gotten my reservation but they had yet to receive anything and the concierge seemed like he wasn’t all that eager to take me on as a customer there.
I checked out of my hotel at noon and headed for my new hotel. I had still yet to receive e-mail confirmation from the booking agency on-line and the guy behind the desk told me he had no availability so I was out of luck. It was pretty demoralizing to be back at square one, with my luggage on my back and a whole new search process ahead of me. To keep a long story short, I extended my range considerably and did what I could to enjoy the search though it got very very old. After another hour and a half or more, I finally found a place and it only cost 40 Euros though I have a feeling that was an inflated rate. It smelled a bit funky and was not partiularly nice but it was functional and at least relatively affordable so I hopped on it.
Feeling landed at least temporarily, I set out to explore the city a bit. Not really all that much to say except that I seem to have an incredible tendency to completely turn myself around here - the streets, while well labeled, are very circuitous and I’ve gotten more lost here than I have any other place for quite some time.
One drawback to the hotel was there was no internet and I was really needing to check in with friends back home about projects slated for Sunday - a lawn to garden conversion workshop I was going to have to cancel and the Burlington Permculture grant funded fruit tree giveaway that I didn’t want to have to reschedule. I spent my meander, perusing the city, looking for an internet cafe with wireless and I couldn’t find one anywhere. It was absolutely astounding. I was in the eastern European nation of Macedonia just a few days before and there seemed to be one every few blocks. The only explanation I can think of is that the high brow Mianese cafes really don’t want to encourage web surfing at their establishements. If you’re not drinking espresso, smoking a cigarette and looking like the newest trend in fashion, they’d rather not have you there browsing youTube. I can appreciate the desire to keep their spaces free of web surfing ‘culture’ and the isolated walls it creates, but I found it hard to believe that in a city of millions, I could not find a single internet cafe.
Until I made my way back home. On the way, I passed a computer accessories store stopped in and asked if there was an internet cafe nearby. The man told me just up the street and low and behold, the cafe nearly next door broadcast wi-fi. Later that evening I headed back there to try to make some phone calls and plans regarding my change in travel. Walking there from the metro stop, I was asked by a few young travelers for some help. They were looking for an internet cafe. I told them they’d found the right (and possibly the only right) person in the whole city.
This young couple had just been dumped off in Milan - same story of botched travel - and needed to make plans for their return to London. We stopped in at Bianco Latte - our cafe - and were suddenly treated with a sensual delight. Very nice staff with whom I spoke in Spanish after they gave me a hard time when I asked if they spoke English (it was the best I could do). I got coffee and ice cream (gelato - one thing I can say about the folks here is they sure do appreciate damn good ice cream. It’s amazing and there are gelateria’s on what seem to be every block. That’s one thing about this city that I think could help me fit in quick).
So everything seemed perfect - I’d met some nice new people, we had a bright space to work in and good snacks, - but we couldn’t get on-line. It was murphy’s law set in motion. I won’t get into the details but they were reluctant to ‘cycle’ - turn off and on - the modem, which is all they needed to do, so it meant that we were unsuccessful after all. Well, it was a good experience nonetheless.
They still needed a hotel and anticipating the search I’d experienced, I brought them back with me on the train and fortunately the proprietor had a spare for them. I didn’t see them again in the morning but I’m guessing they made it off safely.
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