Who in the sunshine, who in the night time, Who by high ordeal, who by common trial...

And who shall I say is calling?

--Leonard Cohen, "Who By Fire" 

Our trip was nearing its end. And I admit, I had gotten a little burnt out from the elaborate planning we'd done to get ourselves through five countries and many, many destinations in two weeks. So when it came time to book accomodations for our one night in Milan... I just... didn't. I kept meaning to. I looked on couchsurfing. I looked on Air Bnb. I considered various hostels. But at the end of the day, what it came down to, was that I was sick of planning. We were gonna wing it for our last night in Milan.

This was a stupid idea.

Our plane was one of those board-a-bus-to-go-50-feet-onto-the-tarmac-then-get-off-the-bus-and-walk-up-the-stairs kind of planes.

Hustlin it through the airport in Milan to catch a train.

By the time we arrived in Milan, around 10, we'd woken with the hot Mediterranean sunrise, (Jo even went for one more swim before leaving), driven about 4 hours on mountainous, narrow, oceanside highways, almost faced the prospect of being stuck in Krujë and missing our flight because our car was planted in the back of an expensive Mercedes, flown about 2 hours back to Milan, gone through customs, gotten our bags, found the train and only just caught one of the last ones going into Milan proper. When we emerged from the train station and gotten our bearings, I was completely exhausted. I hadn't liked Milan that much the first or the second time I'd passed through, and I didn't feel excited about being back for a long night without any place to sleep. But I had talked Jo into skipping the Duomo on her way in because I had been in a hurry to move on to Venice, so that's where we headed.

   

After bathing in the otherworldly majesty of this crazy ornate church we wandered over to the edge of the square where we found an outrageously overpriced restaurant and settled in to one more pizza and some well-earned alcohol. Afterwards we felt more relaxed and optimistic, so when I suggested we head back to Ostello Bello, where I'd had such good luck the first time around, we figured why not.

Dinnertime view with our companions, Big Boy Blue and Jo's pitifully unnamed pack.

The moment when Joanna realized she could no longer pretend she didn't need glasses: when I observed the statues at the top of the spires on the church and she remarked that no, there wasn't anything up there. I gave her my glasses and she had to admit defeat; couldn't see half the detail on the church. (These photos are mostly courtesy of Jo!)

This was a good idea.

Not only did they have a bed for me (which I didn't end up using, but I paid for just on principle, because I liked the place and because they were good to us), they let Jo and I hang out in the common room/bar all night and they gave us both their customary free welcome drink even though only I paid for a room. They also gave us free shots of Limoncello and t-shirts because it was their 10th anniversary. So we forwent sleep and spent the night laughing and drinking with like-minded wayfarers and the employees, and soon after the sun rose we rode the metro back to the train station, where Jo headed for a train to take her to the airport. Her flight was leaving bright and early but mine wasn't until late afternoon, so after as emotional a goodbye as we have ever had (I couldn't have asked for a better travel companion or all-around friend) I headed back to the hostel to shower, get some free breakfast and coffee, pack up my things, mail those stupid Albanian postcards, and head off to the airport myself.

There isn't much left to tell of the amazing adventures I had last summer. It was a long trip back from Milan: first to the Budapest airport, then on the bus to the closest metro station, then onto the metro into the center of town and Nyugati Station, where another train waited to carry me on my quiet, dazed way back to Göd. It felt like a lifetime and a half had passed since I'd left; I felt the way Bilbo Baggins did upon returning to the Shire. It's hard to explain the weirdness of waking up in one country, in a tent, by the beach, and falling asleep in another, 1300 km away, in (temporarily) your own tiny couch-bed. It feels so utterly alien and jarring that maybe for a couple minutes you close your eyes and you feel the warm Hungarian night's air rush in through the train's open windows and you block out the voices of the passengers around you and you feel completely dislocated from all time and space. You just are, without location, without age or past or future, just the purest present tense you will ever know. It's what it is to travel, I guess. Here's to many more summers like it.

Crushin' It in Krujë

The next day we woke to the heat of late-August Albanian sunlight and the clamor of a hundred backpackers packing up and shipping out. We devoured our free toast, jam, and instant coffee with minimal complaints and after drinking real coffees we purchased at the bar, we hit the road. We still had about 4 hours of driving and we were determined to wring one more Albanian city out of our trip before heading to the airport: Krujë.

We couldn't resist stopping here to capture a few more shots of the seaside mountains. What I wouldn't have given for one more day, to sit around and just soak this in. Alas. It was at this stop that we thought to document our valiant chariot. Behold, the Opel Corsa:

Just a lovely country lane. Also a national highway.

Passing Fier, making progress, taking in some Albanian hotties.

Finally, in early afternoon we found ourselves in Krujë. We made it! Our timing was good! We even had time to wander through the famous-for-its-souvenirs bazaar in the town. We parked the Corsa facing downhill, wondered briefly if that was a bad idea, put on the parking brake (an absolute necessity in the Balkans), and headed off to shop.

The Krujë castle in the distance. After we'd done our part for the local economy we headed back to the car, ready to make our way to the airport. Once again we hadn't sent our postcards but otherwise we'd done almost everything we had set out to do in Albania and we were feeling pretty good about life. And then: disaster. Or: almost disaster. I'll let the email I sent my parents relate the harrowing tale,

I have one story to tell you guys I want to get down before I forget... Jo and I went to the town of Kruja, where the national hero Skanderbeg was born [edit: not true, and I don't know why I was laboring under this impression] and where there is a very impressive bazaar full of souvenir goodies, and when we parked we did so facing downward on a hill behind a pretty nice-looking Mercedes. We realized our mistake as soon as Jo pulled in behind it and we took a minute to wonder if we should move the car then but decided instead to go to the market with the hope that the car would move by the time we got back. 

It didn't so when we returned and Jo tried to reverse away from the car we found that our little hatchback's engine just didn't have what it took and we were rolling closer and closer forward, toward the car. We didn't know what to do so we thought maybe if we let it slide as gently as it could into the Mercedes we might be able stabilize enough to back away and so with a VERY upsetting crack, Jo let it roll into the back of the Mercedes (I was outside trying to give her an idea of how close she was). Thankfully both of our bumpers were plastic so there was no damage but we were pretty distraught to find that even resting against the other car the Corsa just couldn't get back up the hill in reverse. So we both stood there, kind of devastated and at a loss, until an old man who had been walking by and had turned to see where the noise of our collision came from, walked back around and very calmly picked up a big rock from the side of the road and put it in front of our front wheel. So simple. In retrospect, so obvious. But so completely crucial in getting us out of that bind. And so Jo was able to back the car up, let it rest on the rock, back it up, rest on the rock, until Jo could pull it out from behind the Mercedes.... 

For both of us it was just a very memorable thing because this old man who had no stake in our fates showed us such a simple but completely life-saving trick that got us out of a mess. We had several encounters kind of like that. People who didn't need to helping us in ways that completely saved the day.

This is why I'm gonna go back to the Balkans. This is why I'm not done with Eastern Europe, and it's not done with me.

We made one more terrible mistake that day: we returned our car to Hertz, which was in walking distance of the tiny airport, before we mailed our postcards. We realized our mistake when we got inside said airport, where I think it was totally reasonable to expect there to be a post office, only to find that not the case. We flirted with the idea of one or both of us tempting fate some more and taking the bus back into Tiranë to mail them, but we realized we'd probably just about used up that day's portion of luck. That didn't stop us from feeling a little bitter about our mistake, though, especially when the airport taunted us thusly:

It sure did have some fancy chandeliers, though. 

So we settled in to one of the three cafes and ordered some mediocre sandwiches and whiled away our remaining hours in one of the most frustrating, beautiful, HOT, and incredibly generous places I have ever traveled to. Soon enough our flight appeared on the board and we headed towards the security check. I can't speak for Jo, but for myself, I felt that the trip was winding down and that surely our adventure in Krujë had been our last. Milan had other plans.

pa pa l'americano

Confession: I was not overly excited about coming to Italy, or Milan. I'm sure that makes me a bad world traveler. I guess the thing for me is that Italy is well-tread territory: by my friends, by movies I've watched, by general American pop culture. So while I felt some vague relief at the sight of the foggy, verdant hills and low, rainy skies surrounding Milan as my plane from Istanbul (layover) descended onto the city, I didn't feel any particular emotion about actually being in Italy. More of a, well, here I am, and here I wait until Joanna (my friend and travel buddy for the next leg of the trip) arrives. There was one thing I was very excited about: heading on to Switzerland the next day. I'd booked one night in a very highly recommended hostel in Milan, Ostello Bello, and then had a mid-afternoon bus to catch the next day up to Lucerne, where I would go see a statue that I have loved since the first time I read about it. But more on that later.

Milan. My first impressions were surprise at how the airport was a little bit run-down, a little bit shabby. Although I did fly into Malpensa, which is where a lot of the cheap-o planes arrive and depart, mine included (shout-out to Pegasus!). The system of shuttles into the city of Milan is pretty easy to navigate, and it drops you off at one of the big train hubs in the city. From there I made my way to the hostel, and although I can't exactly recall if it was easy or difficult, I don't remember any serious hardships. I wrote down directions the hostel gave, they turned out to be fine. Except the damn rain. It was pouring. Which is why a lot of my pictures look like this:

Grey skies! Have I mentioned my hostel? So the thing about carrying a big ass backpack with enough stuff to allow you to travel with ease for weeks on end is that it is HEAVY. You know that scene at the beginning of Wild where Cheryl has to basically lie down on her backpack, roll around, and arduously crawl to her feet the first time she puts on her pack? I had a similar, albeit less extreme experience, the first time I put on Big Boy Blue. I had to back up to the chair where B3 was resting, deceptively docile and cooperative, wrangle my arms into its straps, and pray for luck that I could stand up with the damn thing on. I ended up repacking twice after that first round, because I do have some faint notion of my own limits. So by the time I got to Italy I had already discarded some stuff (gifts for my friends in Georgia, my clothes for the wedding, a couple other items I sensed I wouldn't need) from my already lightened pack. And yet. I was in no rush to explore Milan while carrying that thing around.

I have to be honest, even though it's embarrassing, there's another reason I was so down on Milan before I even got started. When I got to the metro station, I was so tired and disoriented I was swindled by a person I'm going to refer to as a gypsy, based on the way she was dressed. Basically I walked up to the machine to buy a metro ticket and she started pressing buttons to "help" me (and actually bought me a much more expensive ticket than I needed), but the screen was in Italian so I was letting her help me. When the ticket came out, she handed it to me and then swiped the change before I could. She got about 10 Euro off me. I have to hand it to her, it's an effective scam to run on jet-lagged tourists who don't speak Italian. I was pissed at her, but also at myself for not even seeing that coming.

Anyway, after that I had about two hours of "fuck Milan!" while I was taking the metro and finding my way to the hostel. Between the bag, the metro scam lady, and the rain, I was not feeling it.

Then I got to my hostel, and they saved everything for me. Warm, cozy, friendly. You get a free drink when you check in, there's a free dinner (that, unlike the free dinner I will talk about getting later on in Albania, was actually extremely nice: a couple different kinds of salad, pesto and pasta, garlic bread, a few delicious sides, discount drinks during the dinner hour), the rooms are about 5/6 beds to a room so you're not in a massive 30 person bedroom, each with their own bathroom, they'll do all of your laundry overnight for 10 Euro, the staff were totally friendly, and there was a free breakfast with amazing coffee that was more than my free breakfast at most hostels (multiple cereals, yogurts, with with spreads, eggs, some kind of breakfast meat, etc). Seriously, this place was nice. Yes, it was 35 Euro a night, but it was worth it. They basically helped redeem Milan for me that afternoon. After relaxing and de-stressing from that morning I went back out and explored, came back to a nice dinner, got some gelato (which I don't get, as a phenomenon), woke up early the next morning to check out a few more things around the city, then got to the bus station.

Saint George, hey! I was just in a country where he's a BFD!

Some shots from the area near my hostel, wandering around looking for the post office.

The Duomo di Milano, a structure so beautiful and intricate you could probably spend several days exploring all of the renderings on both its outer and inner walls, and still not be finished. I've included a handful from what must be dozens of photos that I took because honestly, after a certain point, it's hard to even look at it for its detail anymore.  There's just too much.

A VERY fancy shopping center to the left of the cathedral's square. I felt like a plebeian interloper even walking past some of the shops in this area.

Statue of Leonardo daVinci located nearby.

A series of bas-reliefs located outside a theater, also nearby.

Hilarious. Maurizio Cattelan's 'The Finger', located in Piazza Affari (Business Square), outside of Milan's stock exchange building. I can't say that any piece in recent history has so accurately and appropriately captured my feelings.

On the way to the castle I passed this structure, which you can see part of in the picture above and more of in the two below. It was for Expo 2015 which, at least for this year, seems to be focused on the relationships between technology, energy, plant life, and human health. Seemed interesting, I was disappointed it wasn't open yet.

Approaching and entering the Sforza Castle.

Obviously the best of a crop of pictures taken while attempting to get both the round corner garrison and the main front structure. No joke, I was basically lying on the ground while doing this and yes, people were staring at me.

So bad it's good. Look at all the pavement I managed to capture in this shot! Such a pro.

A slightly better although less artsy shot.

This was my favorite corner of the massive courtyard when you first enter the palace. They're a bunch of broken pieces of old columns, crests, and stone coffins. Some are more intact than others. 

Vines, on the outer wall of the castle. Surrounded by a moat that presumably was filled in at one time but now seems to be mainly used for housing stray (adorable) cats.

The castle, from the other side of the park. And in the other direction...

The lovely park behind the castle and Milan's own "Arc de Triomphe" (Arco della Pace) because apparently this style of arch is like the butt of nationalistic architecture: every country's got one.

So after this wonderful late afternoon/next morning exploration and postcard sending I went back to the hostel to pick up my bag and head for the bus station, to catch my late afternoon bus. With the help of the people working there I got to the closest metro station with relatively little trouble and then TOTALLY botched getting to the bus station because when I exited the metro, I turned left instead of right. That's it. Seriously. I turned left and headed out onto the street and walked about a half a mile in what I thought was the right direction until I was basically about to enter a major highway. So I turned around, tried a couple of side streets, and about 45 panicky minutes later returned to the metro station only to realize that the bus station WAS ON THE OTHER FUCKING SIDE, DIRECTLY BEHIND THE METRO STATION. Vai me, this is why sometimes I think I shouldn't be allowed to travel alone. Regardless, though I got there with only about 15 minutes to spare (at least at this point in my travels I have the foresight to realize I'm probably going to mess things up in some fashion and I give myself veeeery generous windows of time to do exactly that) my bus had not arrived. 

There was another 15 minutes of panic when I realized that none of the electronic signs worked, the ticket station was packed with a sea of people looking to buy tickets/get information so I wouldn't be able to talk to anyone at a counter anytime soon, and none of the depots were labeled and therefore I had no idea how I was going to identify my bus when it finally arrived. Thankfully an Italian woman saw me wandering around looking like a teary, anxiety-ridden pack mule and pulled  me over to where I was supposed to be and where, thankfully, there was a very nice college student who spoke perfect English and who explained to me that I was in fact in the right place and that this is just how things generally work in Italy. Bless you Rafaella, wherever you are! The bus left about a half an hour later, making its way north through the Alps into Switzerland. I got a couple of shots from the ride although they hardly do justice to just how beautiful it was, especially around Lake Como. Anyway I arrived at Lucerne safely around 9 or 10 PM and made my way to my hostel without too much trouble. I had a full day and a second night in the hostel in Lucerne so I basically showed up and fell asleep. The hostel in Lucerne was ridiculous, especially compared to the place I'd just stayed in Milan, but more on that in the next post.