Dear readers, after a week's hiatus in the beautiful land of Italy, yours sincerely is back to share about his experiences that has taken place in the past 8 days. In case you are wondering why the page has suddenly taken such a dull look, I have decided that I've enough of resizing my photos into the mini 359 x 240 pixels just to make my blog look neat. I figured that the thousands of photos that we took in Italy deserve more exposure than the small photos you have seen in previous posts. While the pictures might not look uniform in size, I can quite safely say that they are quite well taken and carefully selected for your viewing pleasure. Haha if anyone finds that this format makes you worse off, do drop me a comment/email!
I will try to recap the most intensive backpacking trip I've done so far in Europe. In many aspects, this trip is both unforgettable and memorable (yes they are mutually exclusive). Pardon me if my subsequent posts make you feel like you're reading a company's annual business report, or a boring pictorial, but its just all the small little things that I feel should be detailed for myself to reflect upon in the future. So without further a do, I'll start with where I left off in day 66!
Day 66 (continued)
The pillow fight was lots of fun. Nothing like I've experienced before, where everyone's armed with their own feather/cotton pillow and light-heartedly engaging in the pillow brawl! Here's a couple of pictures from the event, more on my fb.
We came across this really tall guy who was really unscathed from the attempts that others made while trying to attack him. I asked if he was Dutch and he said yes! My first encounter with a really tall Dutch! 34cm taller than I am!
After the event, we hurried back to make dinner, which was to be the last meal of rice we were going to have in a week. (We had pizzas/pastas/burgers/kebabs in Italy) What other nicer dish than my beloved?
We had some free time to spare after dinner, so 5 of us just spent time on the computer, finishing whatever was left of the curry, or doing some last minute packing. We left the house at 1045pm, since the Amstel station where we were supposed to board the bus to Bremen was just a 5 minute ride away. The plan was to make our way to Milan from Bremen (since Ryanair does not fly from Amsterdam).
As we walked towards the Eurolines bus terminal at Amstel station, and I was surprised that Eurolines buses have their steering wheel on the right of the vehicle (vehicles in European countries like Netherlands have steering wheel on the left), Seb suddenly blurted out 'Who said the bus was at 1145? Its 1115!' as he checked the printout for our tickets. Upon closer inspection of the printout, we realised something.
We had mistaken the 1115pm bus for 1145pm. The bus had left 10 minutes before us.
This was confirmed by the staff at the bus terminal, who continued by telling us that the next bus to Bremen will leave 8 hours later at 7am. Those words literally made my blood freeze, and as far as I can remember, there haven't been situations like this in my recent memory. Our trip to Italy threatened to leave us, just like how the bus to Bremen did 10 minutes earlier. The flight from Bremen to Milan was scheduled at 7am, so we would need to be at the Bremen airport by 5am. Since staying the the Eurolines terminal wasn't going to help us get anywhere, we rushed to go to the Central station, in hope that there would be an overnight train that would take us to Bremen. Of course, last-minute train prices are usually expensive, and the price we checked on the ticketing machines showed a 67 Euro amount. It did not, however show the time of departure.
In between the interval, I managed to phone my German friend, who comes from Bremen to check if there were overnight trains that go there. While he had said that there are overnight trains to Bremen, counter staff at the Central station showed otherwise, as what we gathered showed that the earliest train was only going to set off at 7 and reach Bremen by 1pm. I even checked with Lenny to see if taking a taxi was possible, to which his reply was 'Its impossible, that's way too expensive!' We were to find out soon enough.
As the seconds ticked away, we found ourselves at the taxi stand outside Central station, where dozens of taxis lined up, with all the cabbies standing together in groups, engaged in smoking or small chat. A few of them saw us with our backpacks, and gathered around us to see if they could strike a deal with us. It was in this nearly-2 hour search for a transport to Bremen that seemingly dead boring, theoretical economic principles sprung to life. All the demand & supply, the willingness to pay, the equilibrium of price and quantity reared its ugly head right here in taxis! We got a first offer to send us to the airport for 490 Euros, which amounted to about S$980. Mind you, this is a 371km journey by car, which is about the same distance as travelling from Singapore to Ipoh. Our willingness to pay, which was also affected by the budget constraint problem, meant that we kept looking for taxi drivers who were willing to drive us for less. Given that there were so many taxi drivers (akin to the perfectly competitive market), we got offers between 330-375. There was a taxi driver who had wanted to drive us on his rather small 5 seater Toyota for 300 Euros (to which other drivers told him off, saying things like his car was too small to fit all of us, or that he was 'spoiling market' for offering such a low price), it sounded good, since he also said that his family is in Bremen and he would not mind driving us there and going home afterwards. Seb and Weiliang decided that we would hold out for a better offer, which never came again that night. Other taxi drivers would also pretend to match the cabbie's offer of 300Euros, only to ask for a higher price when they tricked us to discuss the price at their cabs.
At around 1am, after haggling for around an hour, no deal was struck, we had been at the taxi stand for a considerable amount of time that the cabbies were starting to discuss amongst themselves that we were not going to match their price, or even questioning us why we wanted to leave for Bremen so urgently (which also gave them more reason not to give us a cheaper ride). Sensing that we were not going to get a taxi at the stand, we walked out of there, increasingly desperate for a taxi to Bremen. If we were not going to get a cab by 2am, we would not reach the airport in time, and just go home instead of Italy.
We saw a few taxis parked in front of a hotel, which was about 100 metres from the Central station. There was this balded cabbie resting in his Mercedes taxi when we approached him. While we could not agree with his asking price of 450 Euros, he was generous enough to phone his friend/colleague who agreed to drive us for 300-350 Euros in a Hyundai Santa Fe. (If you don't know how the Santa Fe looks like, its a 7 seater Korean car that would be able to carry 5 of us and our luggages comfortably) I would like to think that luck was finally on our side, considering how unlucky and careless we were to have incurred this humongous deadweight loss in the form of a taxi fare. Shortly after, the taxi arrived and this smartly dressed middle age man walked out of his cabbie to open the boot of his car. Before we handed our luggage to him, we confirmed a final time on the price, which settled for 330 Euros. He checked the GPS module in his car (all cabs in Europe are armed with this), and by 2am we were finally in the taxi on our way to Bremen!
The taxi driver turned out to be a Turkish who had been residing in Amsterdam for the last 20 years. Although he doesn't speak much english, we could feel he was sincerely friendly, trying to engage in the typical touristy conversations and offering us sweets. It was also my first experience sitting in the right side of the vehicle without the steering wheel in front of you. Dozed off for two hours, and I woke up amidst darkness, with only the headlights of the taxi illuminating the road in front of us. It was after a while that the signboard by the road which I caught sight of telling us that we were in Germany. I remembered Lenny saying that there is no speed limit in Germany and I was beginning to see why. There was no a single car on the road for at least 50km, and the taxi was comfortably cruising at 140-150kmph. Although my heart did skip a beat or two when the taxi tried to overtake a car which was in front of us minutes later(I think that was the only car we saw in an hour) , he had applied the brakes rather late and the car in front was less than 50cm away!
We finally managed to get to the airport at 5am. The taxi driver had tried to ask for more money, citing the fact that the meter (which he turned on for the whole trip) came to 546 Euros. We just pretended we had some coins left and paid him 339 in the end. Check-in was smooth and the Bremen airport staff were really lenient about the bag sizes. (Ryanair, or rather all budget airlines have this metal 'cage' where you will have to put your baggage inside to determine if you needed to check-in your luggage) However, while we were queuing to board the plane, a second set-back came about. The plane had some technical problems, and we were not going to depart at 7am as scheduled. In fact, they were going to send a replacement aircraft to take us to Milan, but only at 1pm. Yes, 1PM. We were going to be stranded at the airport for another 6 hours, which made all the hassle of taking the taxi from Amsterdam seemed like money flushed down the toilet really. Oh well, so what happened in between was us trying to get some sleep on the hard chairs. There was also some food vouchers given by Ryanair as compensation for the delay, and we spent time eating sandwiches and daidi-ing the time away.
Finally at 1pm, the queue for the flight started forming up, and we were Milan bound!! Probably I was too tired, I fell asleep even before the plane started flying, and we arrived approximately 90 minutes later.
(I guess you've probably grown sick of my neverending wall of text, as much as I would like to babble more on my adventures, I can hardly afford the luxury to write more. Will try to 'length' the entry in subsequent periods.)
Anyway, given the fact that we arrived in Milan on a sunday. The first impression this city gave was that its quiet and peaceful. Cars drive slowly, and people walk slowly too! The pace of life felt relaxing, the architecture felt distinctly different from Amsterdam as well!
On the bus from Milan airport to the Central Station, it was a 45 minutes ride. Milan is big!
Typical buildings in Milan.
I have this fondness of a balcony overgrown with flowers. Too bad the weather wasn't too good (in fact it was raining) if not it would have looked nice.
A truck-convertible which sells popular Italian snacks and sweets. It is very common to see trucks that become makeshift snack-bars in Italy.
Milan is without a doubt one of the cities reknown for its fashion. Speak to anyone about Milan and one of the first things they'd tell you will be Prada. I did not even realise that this Armani store is a TEMPORARY one. I can't imagine how a newly renovated one will look like.
The highlight of the day would be a trip to the Milan Cathedral. As well as the Galleria Vittorio Emanuele II, the world's oldest shopping mall.
The Cathedral, built some 150 years ago, is considered to be one of the greatest churches in the world. Italy is full of churches, and this has got to be the grandest of all (The one in Vatican City and Venice do come close). All the statues on the building are crafted in such great detail I wonder how they even did it in the first place!
In the words of Mark Twain (author of the Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, one of my favourite childhood read)
'What a wonder it is! So grand, so solemn, so vast! And yet so delicate, so airy, so graceful! A very world of solid weight, and yet it seems ...a delusion of frostwork that might vanish with a breath!... The central one of its five great doors is bordered with a bas-relief of birds and fruits and beasts and insects, which have been so ingeniously carved out of the marble that they seem like living creatures-- and the figures are so numerous and the design so complex, that one might study it a week without exhausting its interest...everywhere that a niche or a perch can be found about the enormous building, from summit to base, there is a marble statue, and every statue is a study in itself...Away above, on the lofty roof, rank on rank of carved and fretted spires spring high in the air, and through their rich tracery one sees the sky beyond. ... (Up on) the roof...springing from its broad marble flagstones, were the long files of spires, looking very tall close at hand, but diminishing in the distance...We could see, now, that the statue on the top of each was the size of a large man, though they all looked like dolls from the street... They say that the Cathedral of Milan is second only to St. Peter's at Rome. I cannot understand how it can be second to anything made by human hands.' (I totally agree with him on that last sentence)
