Bologna, Italy
As a man gently kisses my neck in the basement of an unmarked building hosting an anti-fascist concert, I try to figure out what series of decisions I made that led to this highly unexpected situation. Let me rewind a little.
I had heard about couch surfing way before leaving for Europe, probably from reading up on travel blogs about cheap travel. My mom also suggested it. I kind of wrote it off for a while, thinking, there has to be some catch. Also, I didn’t want to try it alone and had never met someone who had actually experienced it. That is, until I met Ross in Monaco. Ross raved about his experiences with couch surfing. He loved it and actually got me excited about it. I always recognized the merits of couch surfing, you get to meet somebody who loves interacting with travelers and they can tell you all the great things about their city (not to mention the money you save), I guess I was just hesitant. Well, I finally thought I was ready and dusted off my old Couch Surfing profile and started contacting hosts. I tried to get hosts all through Spain and Italy, but we were only lucky enough to be accepted in Bologna and Milan. Disappointed with Spain, we were very excited to start our experiences.
To be entirely honest, I had no idea what to expect from my first surfing experience, but as a large bearded Italian man approached us in the Piazza de Nettuno, we were about to find out. Four of the seven people who lived in the apartment we stayed at walked us back to their place. We chatted about ourselves, shared short stories about our travels as we wound through streets lined with arcades and red and yellow buildings. We made it to their apartment, which was admittedly much like many other college places. It was dirty. It was political. It was cheap. If frats cared more about anti-facism and spoke Italian, perhaps that is what you would get.
Well, Merko, the aforementioned large bearded Italian guy, guided around Bologna a bit, showing us this beautiful library and parts of campus. He brought us inside his faculty building to introduce us to some of his friends. One of the people he introduced us to was my new, heroin addicted friend. Although I never caught his name, I did find out a few interesting things about him. Introducing himself, “Hi. I used to teach at NYU… That is, until they fired me… Because I did too much heroin.” Oh god. “Yea, but now I am attending lectures put on by Johns Hopkins. I hope that if I show interest they will hire me. So I can make lots of money… and buy lots of heroin… just kidding.” No, no you are not joking. You want to do heroin.
Anyways, we leave our new acquaintances and walk through Bologna. We were told that there could be a protest going on, so we go buy some gelato and head towards the square to watch the scene go down. Not much happens so we head back to the apartment.
The next day we get all of our site seeing of Bologna in. We climb the tower that Bologna is famous for. We walk through a market and relax in the park. We even climbed all the way up to San Luca’s Cathedral, like 4 kilometers uphill, to find out that it closed a half hour before. Oh well.
On our way back to the apartment we pick up some makings for an Italian feast. Bread, tomatoes, mozzarella, pesto and wine. I cannot get enough of this! We ate like kings for like three euros. I could get used to this!
After dinner and killing the bottles of wine, we meet up with Merko. This was the start of the adventurous night. First, he takes us to a poetry reading in this bar/café. Everything was in Italian (expectedly) including the anti fascist posters on the wall and the ramblings about the pope and the terrors of capitalism. Finally a guy starts to play guitar and is actually pretty good. Apparently that is our cue to leave. Damn, I was getting into this.
Our next stop of the night is the previously mentioned basement. We enter through an unmarked door guarded by two guys. We head directly into the basement where they make us fill out paperwork. I think I may have joined the anti fascist army or became part of a cult. Either way, just a bit strange. In the other room there is a concert going on. The band is actually pretty good. They are play very upbeat rock and crooning their Italian, getting the crowd pumped up. Eventually their set ends and a DJ starts taking over. It is some time after this point that my friend the heroin addict shows up. All of us are dancing and enjoying our time. Then, the heroin guy picks me up, lifting me and spinning me in the air. Okay, strange, but nothing to be concerned about. Later, he tells me and the girls that we should come over later.
“Ah, no we can’t, we have to catch a train early in the morning.”
“That is okay, I could drive you.”
“No, they are hosting us, we should stick with them.”
“Come on, just for a little bit.”
“Um, no, thanks, we are tired.”
A little later I thought he was going in to whisper into my ear or shout to get over the music. No. As you know, he softly kissed my neck. Oh, I forgot to mention, he must have been in at least his 30s. Now, I was uncomfortable. We quickly found Merko and told him we were ready to leave. He told us to wait while he settled some things with his friend. Did I mention they had all been drinking since around 6 and his friend was completely trashed? He was belligerent, yelling at people in the street and walking in front of cars.
Well, we went outside to wait for Merko. Afraid our heroin buddy would follow us outside, we walked to a nearby piazza to wait for our host. On our walk back to the apartment my host told me, “Oh, the guy told me he wanted to invite you over to stay the night. But I forgot to tell you, I am sorry. But I don’t think it would have been a good idea. Because if you sleep there, for sure he fuck you.”
“Oh, don’t worry about it Merko, we gathered as much!”
The rest of the night I laid in bed praying to god that the man would not walk in the apartment and peek his head into our room (The previous night he was over at the house. Not only did he know where the apartment was, he knew which room I was sleeping in!).
Still in one piece the next day, we made it to the train station and boarded our train to Milan. That was certainly enough excitement for one city. I hoped the next couch surfing experience was different.
Milan, Italy
Right away we could tell that Milan was much different from any other part of Italy we had previously visited. Rome was big, but still had very old buildings and monuments. Milan, on the other hand, was modern and cosmopolitan. It had sky scrapers and a comprehensive metro (that was burdened by having to dig around Roman ruins at every turn). Our next host directed us towards the Duomo (arigato, Mr. Roboto) to meet up. We take the metro and upon leaving the station we are greeted with a spectacular, imposing white cathedral contrasting against the blue sky. I had heard from a lot of people the Milan wasn’t that nice. Well, I certainly was impressed so far.
We meet up with Andrea, our host, and he walks us to a great restaurant. We eat padines with his friends and after he tours us around Milan a bit, going inside the Duomo and showing us the galleries and the castle. In the galleries there is this bull tiled in the ground that if you spin around on his balls with your heel three times you will have good luck. We all gave it a go. He even bought us gelato! He was definitely feeding an unhealthy addiction.
Later we split up for dinner. That night we finally ate out at a decent restaurant, and the food was fantastic. I got some butter and sage ravioli. De puta madre.
After dinner we met Andrea and one of his friends at a bar for karaoke. Besides the 5 euro beers (seriously! 5 euro?) we really enjoyed ourselves. We even went up to the stage to sing a great rendition of Queen’s Don’t Stop Me Now.
The next day we went out to explore more by ourselves. A friend of mine told me we must go on the roof of the Duomo, saying the view was fantastic. We heard that you could see the Alps on a clear day. Well, it was not a clear day and we were turned away for mass (one of the girls was wearing shorts with tights) so we did not see the view from the roof. We did, however, see a good bit of the castle and its museums, including a temporary exhibit about Michelangelo and his architecture. One thing I noticed about Michelangelo, he did not finish anything. He would start construction on one building, get bored, and go start something new. Yes, even one of the greatest minds in history had trouble finishing things. I feel like that is a good sign if nothing else.
Fun fact about Milan, they have the Last Supper stowed away in some random building next to a church. The church does not own the painting apparently, but it does get a lot of visitors because they think it does (including us). Actually, it is quite difficult to see Da Vinci’s famous piece. You have to book months in advance, it costs 8 euros (for only one painting, come on, in Europe, all art is free!) and you go in at an allotted time (I think). Needless to say, we did not see the painting, but we did see the building where the painting is kept. I think that counts as at least trying.
Another fun fact about Milan (and perhaps Italy), many of the young people have had enough with the current government. They are upset with the image it gives the country. This was evident by the large number of people who gathered to protest. Apparently 1 million protested in Rome, and hundreds of thousands protested elsewhere around the country. So many countries protesting!
Well, we saw just about everything we expected from Milan, so that night we stayed in and watched a movie with a few of Andrea’s friends and one of his friends’ really nice apartments. We just relaxed, drank beer and ate pizza. What a great way to end the trip!
We flew home the next day and had a several hour layover in Madrid. Iona met us for lunch. It was fantastic getting to see Iona after six months and the Indian food we ate was equally delicious.
I believe this now catches me up to essentially the present.
