'Duomo' just means 'cathedral', but the duomo in Milan is just something else. The first time we travelled in Europe, we started with Milan. That made it exciting in itself. We drank from water fountains. We ate real pizza and real pasta. We tried talking to real Italian people with real Italian accents, sometimes talking real Italian which was a bit hard.And we saw the beautiful duomo.The second time we went to Milan, we did not have any intentions of staying there. We thought we would take the first train out of Milan and go to Ancona or Bari to get our ferry to Greece. That was the plan. So we stood in the long queue at the enquiry counter of the railway station, talking excitedly about all our plans for Greece, everything we wanted to see, everything we had read, mythology...We are always sceptical of people at railway booths. They're usually grumpy. We were more than a little … [Read more...]
Walking in Varanasi
Varanasi, the immortal, eternal city, is one with narrow lanes and even narrower by-lanes. Getting to the hotel was like winding our way through a maze, where we had to walk in single file, lugging our backpacks and looking down to avoid stepping in fresh dung. I plodded grumpily at the back of the line. We were travelling with two French friends and being guided by someone from the hotel.We passed people at shops and at doorways nonchalantly brushing their teeth. In Varanasi, unlike in most other parts of the country, foreigners aren't a rarity to be ogled at. It was business as usual for them, calling out to one another across handcarts that looked as if they would never fit in lanes like that. They shouted off and on, and I ignored them as I wrinkled my nose to shut out the animal smells. "Ay, ey, ey!" One part of my mind did think that they were calling to me, but I was not … [Read more...]
A Night in Florence
"Is the station open all night?" In Florence with no hostel to stay at and frightfully expensive hotel options, we had no choice but to stay at the station."Yes," replied the lady and walked away. I wonder if she even understood the question.We made ourselves comfortable in the waiting-room, as comfortable as we could get. There were other people, thankfully, so we didn't feel destitute. Sitting in the waiting-room somehow bordered on the normal, even though we had not done it before. We lounged on chairs, hugging our luggage, trying to get the seats not to poke us too much. And then, at midnight, they chased us out of the waiting room. "Station-strike," they said.We groaned, picked up our luggage and went out. We were three teenagers outside a station in a foreign country in the middle of the night. Yes, there were others, but they spoke a language we didn't know, they were all … [Read more...]