Day 2 - Arriving in Bologna

# Campari & Soda: 1, # Gelati: 1

Well, getting here was a bit of a saga.  The good news is my landlord is legit and my apartment is the one listed on Airbnb.  It is also every bit as pleasant as the photos you can see here.  It is in a great location.  It is in the historic centre, near my language school and also the University of Bologna.  So there are lots of shops, cafes and restaurants nearby.  The area is a bit of a cross between the student-y parts of Carlton and Fitzroy.  To actually get to the apartment from the street is a bit of a challenge for the jet-lagged.  First there is the door from the street (requires 1 key), this opens into a short hallway.  At the end of the hallway is a gate (another key).  Once through this gate there is a courtyard.  You walk through this courtyard and down some stairs into a 2nd courtyard.  The apartment is in one of the buildings surrounding this 2nd courtyard with yet another key to get inside.  Once inside the building, the apartment is up a flight of stairs with a 4th key to open the door.  Each key is colour coded but do you think I'm able to remember which coloured key opens which door?

Now for the less fun parts of the journey here.  When I got to Singapore I checked my email.   There I discovered that I am one of the lucky souls who had the personal info stolen during the Latitude Financial data breach.  My name, address, date of birth and ID numbers (driver's licence and passport) have been stolen.  All the info someone needs to pretend to be me and take out loans in my name.  However, I know I've renewed my passport since opening my Latitude account, so the number they had on file for me is now out of date.  I can't remember but I think I may have renewed my driver's licence since opening my account too, so I may be safe there also.  However, in the meantime I've contacted all three credit bureaus and put a ban on any new credit accounts being opened in my name.  When I get back to Melbourne I'll renew my driver's licence at Latitude's expense.  My photo on it was horrible in any case.

My flight arrived in Milan an hour late - 7am rather than 6am.  Not really a problem as I couldn't get into my apartment here until 3pm.  I got the to airport station just as the train to Milano Centrale was about to leave so I flung myself on, feeling pleased not to have to wait around.  When the ticket inspector came around I happily produced my ticket only to realise that in my haste I hadn't bothered to validate my ticket before getting on the train.  I know better - and the ticket had a reminder that it needs to be validated in both English and Italian written on it.  I got a 58€ fine.  The ticket itself was only 13€.  On the plus side, since I didn't validate it I can use it to get from downtown Milan out to the airport when I go home.

Lots of English speaking tourists sitting near me had also not validated their tickets, so fines were handed out all round.  The train company made a tidy profit from us today.  I shouldn't have sat so close to the doors.  The ticket inspector was so busy he didn't have time to check the tickets of people further down the car.  

The train wasn't an express from the airport to downtown but stopped at around 6 other stations en-route so it was also used by local commuters.  At one station an Italian woman got on.  She didn't even have a ticket, never mind an unvalidated one.  She got into a heated argument with the ticket inspector.  I couldn't follow it all - some of the words I suspect aren't the sort that are taught in language classes - however she seemed to think she ought to be able to buy a ticket from the conductor on the train.  He kept explaining he didn't have the power to do that and she'd have to pay the fine.  The argument continued until the next stop, where the woman got out - without paying anything.  Instead of being glad to have gotten away without paying, the woman continued to argue with the ticket inspector for the whole time (1 or 2 minutes) the train was stopped at the station.  She just didn't accept that the rules couldn't be modified to suit her.  Very Italian and very entertaining.

I got to Milano Centrale station without any more dramas and bought myself a local SIM card from a WindTre store.   The young man in the shop was very bored and busy chatting to a friend on his phone and didn't pay much attention to me.  I wanted to get a tourist SIM card with a prepaid amount of credit for calls and data.  I have a nasty suspicion he sold me a general purpose SIM card that is good for a month (plenty of calls and data) but then will need to be topped up again for next month.  Grr.  It will only end up costing me about 20€ more than I planned so not a big deal, but still.  It is getting to be an expensive day.

I bought my ticket to Bologna from a machine at Milano Centrale.  I hadn't booked it in advance as I wasn't sure which train I would catch and there is one every hour.  I checked with 2 different train people if I needed to validate this ticket and was told I didn't need to bother.  However, when the ticket inspector came round this train he frowned at my ticket and asked for further proof of purchase.  I was about to have strong hysterics but it turns out I really didn't need to validate this ticket.  His problem with my printed ticket was the margins were off.  While the train route and time were clearly printed the train number was cut off.  Fortunately, the ticket machine had sent a copy of the ticket to my phone so disaster was averted.  Still at $1/MB for global roaming I could have done without the extra check.

I finally made it to Bologna around midday.  Getting to the station was one thing.  Getting out of it was another.  The platform for the fast intercity trains is 4 floors below ground level.  However, to get out of the station on the historic city centre side of the station, you go up 3 floors, cross an underground car pick-up/drop-off area, go underneath several suburban train lines and then up one more flight of stairs to ground level.  If you first go up all 4 flights of stairs and out to the street you are on the wrong side of the tracks and there is no obvious way to cross them at street level.  Guess which route I took first.

I'm now safely in my apartment. I've unpacked and am desparately trying to stay awake until I can have an early dinner and collapse into bed.  For lunch I had a calzone (ham and mozzarella) at a random cafe nearby with a Campari&soda to wash it down.  For dessert I had a gelati from Il Gelatauro which is just a block or so up the street from me.  I chose the flavours of Regno delle due Sicilie (pistachio and other stuff) and Principe di Calabria (bergamot and jasmine).  The first was yummy the second just hmm.

For dinner I went to La Rustica Pizzeria.  It was recommended by my landlord and, best of all, is just down the street from me so not too far to stagger. I held out until 6:30pm and then went out.  Unfortunately, it was shut.  It is open for lunch but then closes and doesn't open again for dinner until 7pm.  Perhaps it is good that it keeps Italian hours rather than tourist hours.

I went for a wander, which proved to be further than I planned, and got back to the restaurant at 7:20pm.  I was still the first customer.  I've been doing all my conversations in shops in Italian but at this stage I was so tired I was forgetting words and was reduced to pointing at some things.  I couldn't remember the word for glass if my life had depended on it.  For starter I had a Caprese salad with buffalo mozzarella.  The cheese was good but the tomatoes were tasteless.  For main I had tagliette al ragu - which is absolutely not called a Bolognese sauce here in Bologna.  It was very tasty but perhaps having to twirl pasta around a fork wasn't the wisest choice for the heavily jet-lagged.  For dessert I had tiramisu (of course) - which was as good as mine.  I washed this all down with 2 glasses of the house red (a Sangiovese) which was very drinkable.

And now, finally, to bed.