Translated from Mochilão na Europa: 1ª semana

Portuguese version written by Daniel Bender, visit his site

This is the first of a series of posts telling the story of my backpacking trip through Europe before the advent of the Euro and of Bin Laden.

Week One

I left my house on April 21, 2000 at 6 AM.

After arriving in Milan on the following day, early in the afternoon, I was extremely tired. I did not sleep the entire trip from Novo Hamburgo, Brazil. On top of everything I had forgotten my train pass (I will never forgive myself for this!). I had read on an Internet site that there weren’t many places to exchange money in Italy, and on top of everything they were closed on the weekends, especially on Easter Sunday. Because of this, I exchange a considerable quantity of money (dollars) to liras at the airport and I paid a horrible exchange rate. (which I only found out later).

I took the bus into the city even though the airport is almost 50 km (31 miles) from downtown Milan. When I got to the bus station in downtown, I was totally lost. Where am I? Where should I go? What’s happening? I bought a map of the city and started walking towards the hostel, which was very far from where I was. I thought that I could just walk to there from the station. I finally gave up and took the subway. When I got there I saw that it was closed, and there was a sign saying that it would be closed for a few more hours (it probably was siesta time or something) There was an Argentinean waiting at the front and I asked him if he would watch my backpack while I toured the city a bit.

I ate my first Big Mac in Italian territory, and then I checked out the stadium of Milan which wasn’t too far from the hostel. I got back even more tired than I was before. The hostel had reopened and the Argentinean was there to give my luggage back to me. I was so happy to see my bed (not that it was anything exceptional, but because I really needed it). I slept until nighttime. When I woke up, I walked around the hostel which was very well-kept, but it was very plain, almost like military barracks. I met up with the Argentinean whose name was Franco, and we started to talk.

I was not able to talk with him in any language, whether it be English, Spanish, Italian, or Portuguese; it was a mess and I had to repeat myself three times every time. We decided that the next day we would go to downtown Milan, and to visit Como, so we did. Lombardia, the state of which Milan is the capital, is one of the most developed and richest regions of the world. Since the Middle Ages, it has been a land plundered by all the conquerors of the continent. To look at the beautiful Sforzesco Castle in downtown and the architecture of Milan is like taking a trip back in time. After walking a few more blocks, we saw a beautiful Gothic structure, a giant cathedral, McDonald’s, Pizza Hut, and another gothic building.

So… Milan is the boldest and most modern city in Italy. Como is a city like Gramado, and that day, the Monday following Easter, was a holiday in Europe. Because of this, it was full of Italian tourists. There is a beautiful lake in Como, that reaches the foot of the Alps. On the next day, Franco left for another city to find his family and I went to Bérgamo to spend the day.

Bérgamo is a modern and old city at the same time, but it was easier to tell this than Milan because it had a historic district that was very far from the financial center of the city. At the same time, there were colorful houses on the narrow streets that was another trip back into time while a modern lambreta passed by honking its horn…

The city seemed really prosperous to me and also was a magnet for immigrants which could be proven by the diverse local population. Upon returning to the hostel, I encountered something rather unusual, I was wearing a Grêmio shirt (soccer team), which some say is not so popular in Europe. A guy came up to me and asked “Porto Alegre?”, “No, Novo Hamburgo”, “Wow, me too!” It was quite a coincidence that I would run into someone from my city again.

He went to the same school, same university, and was even from a neighborhood close by. We had agreed to meet in Florence on the following day, provided I could get that stupid train pass, or in Rome on Thursday, provided I could get that stupid train pass.

On Wednesday, my luck had not changed, so I started a pilgrimage to find a place in Milan with Internet access. There were rumors that there was one… but very far. But I wandered the entire city, and when I got there, I asked “C´è Internet?”, to which they responded “No, tutti i computer sono rotti”, “tutti?” “Si, tutti”. All of the computers were broken! I did not give up and continued my pilgrimage this time with no particular destination. I finally found a place that was rather expensive, but there was Internet. Some pages did not work, so I decided to go somewhere else, especially since this place was so expensive.

I started to look for another place, and as I was coming up to a plaza, I saw a little store full of computers, “it must be a cybercafe,” I thought, and when I entered the store, a guy came up to attend to me. He said- “prego”, and I asked “accesso all internet?”, “Internet?” he responded suspiciously, and then we started to talk in Spanish because my Italian was not much more than mozzarella. The language barrier and the linguistic confusion was very difficult. Finally, he let me us an iMac that didn’t work well enough for me to do what I needed to do.

On my way back to the hostel, I stopped by a DHL office that wasn’t very far from there, and then I met another Brazilian on the street and said “Where are you going?”, “To buy dinner”, he responded. We went together and bought a whole chicken, and six 2-liter bottles of water. After this banquet, we decided that we were going to Rome on Thursday anyway possible, and if I hadn’t received my pass yet, I would pay for my ticket, I was already tired of Milan.

On Thursday I was hopeful that my pass had arrived, but it still hadn’t. I left the hostel and I kept calling DHL to see if it had been delivered. By noon, I was at McDonald’s- again- and I met two people from my region that were going to play soccer nearby, so I went with them. After awhile, I called DHL again at 2 PM, and I asked them to deliver it Rome, and I decided then I would go! After four days in Milan, I was very tired of that city.

I went to the train station and bought a ticket to Rome. There was only a line to Rome in the afternoon and it was more expensive. A little before nine I was already in Rome. When I called the hostel asking for directions, I asked if they could speak English, not Italian. Well, I didn’t really understand them, and I went the wrong way and found myself going the wrong way and in a bad area. Well, I decided to return to the station, I passed it, walked about 50 yards and turned right, and there it was. I was right next to it and I went totally in the wrong direction.

I entered the hostel and checked in, the receptionist seemed Canadian to me, and since I didn’t speak Italian, I asked him why he had given me directions in Italian. He said because the person he was working with was an idiot. Haha. When I got to my room, someone was saying things I couldn’t understand because it was incredibly formal Canadian English (and despite what they say, I am only used to English that is spoken in Hollywood movies). I introduced myself, bla-bla-bla, I tried to have a conversation, but it was very difficult.

On Friday morning, I thought to myself “I don’t want to spend the day by myself, I need some company”, so I went to find some. There were three Canadian soldiers that were in Bosnia with the UN peace-keeping force, so I asked them where they were going, and I decided to hang out with them. We first went to the Coliseum and then the Palatino Forum- which really was a large archeological site. You can get an idea of the approximate size of the Roman Empire only here and in Pompeii. We then went on to Campidoglio- an impressive collection of buildings that serves as the political center of Rome, and then we went to Piazza Venezia that has the gigantic National Monument of Victor Emmanuel II (the first Italian king after unification). Just to the right of the plaza is the Palazzo Venezia where the fascist Mussolini gave his speeches.

We walked a little bit from the Piazza Venezzia, actually in a random direction which is the best way to discover the city, walking without aim. And what did we find? A traveling exposition of Salvador Dali, but I had no way of knowing this because it was all taken apart. After some tests of craziness and creativity, we continued our journey without a destination. We walked until we found a tourist kiosk, and we decided to get a decent map of the city. Armed with information, we went to the Piazza Navona, which to our surprise was just around the corner! The plaza itself is square with two beautiful fountains surrounded by historic buildings which today have the most expensive cafes for tourists.

For anyone who thinks that Italy is another world, in the center of the square there were market stands, and at one of them I bought a beautiful shirt that was a knock-off from Milan, but it was eight times cheaper than the original. Continuing our roam towards various tourist destinations in Rome, we then went to the Pantheon. This building has a history that spans two millennia, and it is impressive even today because of its architectural beauty on the inside and out with its classical, baroque and renaissance styles.

We met a Uruguayan priest inside, as well as a nun from a place I just don’t remember. The nun translated what he said into English, not that I needed it because my “Portunhol” was very good! But the Canadians did not same knowledge in Latin-based languages that I had. The nun said “he likes boys”. We looked at each other and we said goodbye to them thinking that the priest was gay. Mike was a Filipino and naturalized Canadian (his real name was Miguel) went back to take a picture with the “homosexual priest”

We continued on, and at this point exhaustion was already knocking on the door, and we decided to return to the hostel do do something else or do laundry like before. We went to do our laundry, and while the machine did its work I went to visit the vicinity, this time by myself, and I ran into my favorite kind of stores, a music store on the corner. I went in by myself, and the salespeople and people around me asked me where I was from, and I told them. Ah brasiliano, molto bene, samba, women and a tremendous communication difficulty.

There was a drummer there from a local band and he offered me a CD which I ended up taking and I got a second CD free with his autograph. Well, everything is worth it. That night we went on a Pub Crawl in Scalinata de Spanga (Spanish stairs), and it was nothing more than a group of people who went from bar to bar all night. We went to six of them before midnight! To get an idea how much people drank, apart from myself, first they charged me per drink, and I was still able to get a discount. The group was very diverse, there were many Americans, Canadians, Australians, and New Zealanders.

To sum it up, they all spoke their own language there. The result is that I picked up an incredible fluency in English. I bought a round of Caninha 51 for the group and they loved it, it can’t be the same one that they sell in Brazil. But anyhow, it was a big party.

The Irish there were drinking and even started to sing in the middle of the street, were hugging and kissing each other (to give you an idea, they didn’t even know who was who and they hugged and kissed whoever, except for me of course.) The Australians were so drunk that they threw up, the Americans drank so much that they got lost in a square plaza, the Canadians lost their famous civility and started to fight and beat on cars (yes, even they know how to be vandals), the New Zealanders and Brazilians that didn’t drink a lot (in my case, nothing), led everyone back to the hostel trying to egg on the drunks even more: “You Canadian soldiers are a bunch of pussies!”

That Saturday I woke up at nine and I was going to go touring with the Canadians, but I lost them, I am not sure how. So, I went after my train pass. The DHL headquarters was at 1010 Via Tiburtna (one of the longest avenues of Rome), and I got off the subway next to 350. The problem is that in Italy, the numbers are actually in sequence (that is that one building is 871 and the next one is 873, irregardless of the size of the lot) so I walked almost two hours trying to find the damned DHL building and I still had to demand that someone help me because it was Saturday and no one in Italy works after one (it was already 1:05), but I was able to get the pass. I got back on the subway next to 970 on that street (I almost killed myself doing this), and then I went to the Vatican.

Those damned Vatican museums closed at 12:45, so when I got there everything was already closed. I thought to myself then “I’ll go to St. Peter’s Basilica.” Bad idea. It was full of people and it was raining a lot, after that I was soaked. I reluctantly bought an umbrella for 5,000 liras (I was able to bargain for it because the guy wanted 10,000), and from there I went to the Etruscan Museum that I thought naively that it was close to the subway, which it wasn’t.

I gave up and headed towards downtown, passed Piazza del Poplo, by Fontana di Trevi (when you throw coins into this fountain, people say that all the coins come back into the city). After getting back to the hostel, I changed clothes because I was cold after being soaked on this adventure. When I got to the hostel, I saw that Vinícius, the guy from Novo Hamburgo, Brazil was looking for me just as I was looking for him. Nice, I thought, some company.

I went to the room where he was saying and I greeted him in English (ugh!!). He had just got there the day before, etc etc…. One of his roommates’ names was Xavier, a nice Mexican, and there were also four beautiful Australians who only wanted to drink. Australians always drink. We went out that night to a pub near the hostel, it wasn’t much, and it was full of men (ugh!), not that I was needed sex or anything like that, but fights start in this type of atmosphere because everyone there was heterosexual, like me (not gay). We gave up on Saturday night haha… But at least I was able to be refreshed.