Italy part 1: Bring clothes or take them from robbers
I found a suitably cheap plane ticket to Italy in the evening but the problem was that this plane was leaving early next morning, before the Spanish train system can bring from Ciudad Real to Madrid, so that meant that I had to leave the very same night at 9:30 PM.
- 7:00 PM: I am trying to figure out what’s the latest train to take and still make it to the airport on time, and figure out what to do in Italy for a day and a half before Kas gets into Genova.
- 7:15 PM: After deciding to run from Milan to Genova (see next post), I was frantically trying to map my route, to print all my necessary documents, and ran home
- 7:30 PM: Arrived home. Throw all my dirty clothing in the front loaded laundry machine with the exception of the clothing I was wearing, a pair of pants underneath my bed, and an extra set of underwear (this part becomes important later…).
- 7:45 PM:Cook supper, charge my laptop, my camera, making back-up copies of data, figuring out what I would need for my adventure, and shave.
- 9:00 PM: Washing machine breaks. It wouldn’t unlock… Limited to the clothing I didn’t put in the washer for the following days. Snagged an extra shirt from my roommate, and stated packing.
- 9:15 PM: Finished packing, and ran to the train station. No time for shower.
- 9:28 PM: Arrived train station
- 9:29 PM: Bought train ticket
- 9:30 PM: Stepped on train, doors shut behind me, train leaves.
The rest of the journey goes a lot smoother from here onwards. I arrived in Madrid, and decided to try the Los Amigos Hostel to see if they would let me take a shower before I head to Italy, without success. However, they were nice enough to tell me the directions to another hostel, so as I was walking there, I saw two groups of people sprint across the Puerta del Sol plaza. A bit odd that the second group were a bunch off police officers… Anyways, the sprinters in front dropped a bunch of belt buckles and Calvin Klein underwear. I picked a few up, and was hit with the dilemma whether I should try to return it or have enough underwear for the next few days (P.S. The underwear were still in their original boxes).
As I was staring at the underwear, two girls come up to me and say “Keep it”. So we started talking, and I found out that one had the same birthday as me, and the other was celebrating it that night in Madrid before heading back to Italy. Knowing that I was going to Italy the next day, these girls passed the “Good enough to be worthy hanging out with Marc” test. We went to a bar, and I told them about looking for a shower, and they offered to me to go back and shower at their hostel. Anyways, showered, caught the last train to the airport, slept at the airport and the next day, I headed over to Milan.
