Hot-Horse

I arrived in Slovenia’s capital, Ljubljana, midafternoon and had a few hours to kill before my couchsurfing host could meet me. I stepped off the bus into the central station and my head started to spin. Just a few hours before, I had finally been enjoying the comfort of understanding people and signs (in Italian), and now everywhere I turned there was nothing but nonsense written on every billboard. It literally looked as though someone had strung together random letters of roughly word length, and replaced everything with gobbledygook. Consonants were smashed together in unholy unions with no respect for vowels, and accents floated above, below, beside (thank you Mr. Pineda) at least half of the letters. Having never been so utterly out of my language league, my bewilderment verged on hysterics.

I began to understand what illiteracy feels like

I wandered into the center ville, following surprisingly loud traditional alpine music. When I found the source, I was not surprised to see an accordionist, keyboardist, and singers all dressed in knee-highs and vests dancing to a polka of sorts. Asking around, I found out it was Slovenia’s national spring-cleaning day, and the 8 hour concert was a celebration for everyone who helped out. I listened to a really cool percussion band called Stroj Machine and wandered through the fairy-tale quaintness of the city center. The buildings were straight out of the Sound of Music and the castle on the hill overlooked the sleepy-feeling capital.

Traditional music gets the blood flowing

I finally met my host and we headed out to a thai bar and then to a swing club to while the night away. The next morning she brought me back into the city to have some unique Slovenian cuisine. It started with a little streetside stall famous for serving only one item: hot horseburger. I indulged my curiosity and on a bun with ketchup, mustard, lettuce, and tomato, I had my first taste of horse meat. Needless to say, thinking about it too much made my stomach turn over, but if I didn’t pay attention it just tasted like a slightly gamey hamburger. For dessert we went to a touristy place where all the waiters dressed in national garb, and I had essentially a log of raw pastry dough wrapped around a sort of creamy cottage cheese. The sauce, however, was absolutely delicious: a local red-wine reduction turned syrupy with so much sugar. Heavenly. And it helped take my mind off the cheesey dough…

Hot-horse.

I then took my leave and jumped on an afternoon train for the Croatian capital of Zagreb. One last stop before Budapest!

Napkins

I absolutely detest Mexican napkins. Small squares of tissue paper that fall apart under their own weight when wet can hardly be considered useful when enjoying all the variety of fingerfood they have to offer. However, I am afraid to say that in the grand international ranking of paper napkins, Italy takes the cake for the worst. When chowing down on a delicious piece of greasy pizza, the only napkin offered is more like wax paper than anything else. Instead of cleaning your hands, it actually worsens the situation by slathering it all over and providing neat little valleys for the shirt-staining juices to run down. A true travesty, but it reminds me to be thankful that Mexican napkins at least have some sort of absorbant qualities.

Moving East

I met with an old friend of Toby’s: an expert in museum exhibit case design. Sandro sent a car to meet me, and he gave me a personal tour of his workshop. The work they do is like magic: enormous sheets of glass swing effortlessly open, seemingly weightless, to reveal air-tight mechanisms and environment-controlling devices. Like seamless pieces of art, they are beautiful themselves and virtually disappear when an object is placed inside.

After showing me around a little, we went out for lunch in a tiny restaurant where he had once treated Toby. We had a leisurely meal, chatting with owner, cook, and sole waitress, as well as the only other customer lingering after lunch. It was a pleasure to catch up after so many years, and I was able to share Toby’s final escapades around the world.

Later in the afternoon, we parted and I grabbed the next train headed east. The furthest I could get from Milan was Trieste on the Slovenian border, so I would have one last night in dear old Italy. Unfortunately, I didn’t have any contacts or hostels or couchsurfers in that city, so I decided to have my first urban-camping experience.

I hiked around the city for a while, scouting for parks or well-protected spaces. Eventually I settled on a commercial mall’s entrance area that had wonderfully large but low-hanging bushes with little light. Sheltered from wind, sight, and the cool morning air, I crawled into my sleeping bag. I was up and out when the cleaners started to make their rounds.

I bought a bus ticket towards Budapest, but it only went as far as Slovenia’s capital: Ljubljana. I fell asleep in my seat and so began my first experience in eastern Europe.

La vita Milanese

I spent the last two days in the care of the generous couchsurfer I met at the movie outing, and what a trip it’s been. He left his only set of keys in my hands so that I could come and go as I pleased, and invited me to share in his evening activities, whatever they be. Whether we were sitting on a tram or sipping Grappa at 3 in the morning, he always brought up really fascinating topics ranging from social politics to Italian bread.

I went to the National museum of Science and Technology, where I managed to loose 5 hours amid its myriad exhibits without seeing half of them! They were all really fantastically put together and were impressively current. My favorite, however, was the hallway filled with working scale models of Leonardo da Vinci’s crazy engineering drawings. Taken from his codices, they spanned his expertises from naval warfare to flight, from cranes to digging machines. What an amazing exhibit.

Scale models of da Vinci's designs

That night Phillipe, my host, invited me out to friend’s architect firm’s private party. I couldn’t turn it down, so I ironed my best shirt and pants and slipped on my fraying tennis/hiking shoes. I showed up a little late, but he had got me on the guest list as Mr. Jonathan, so there was no problem getting in. Inside the place was thumping. It took a few minutes to find Phillipe, but when I did he quickly directed me to the open bar
and introduced me to a bunch of well-dressed friends. They also turned out to be excellent dancers. We whiled the night away shaking to American and Italian hits from the past 30 years.

The architecture firm was throwing the party for the artist that makes these ghosts

 

Me, Phillipe, and *loud music*

The next day I woke up leisurely while Phillipe was working and headed into town. With a delicious piadina in hand, I walked around one of the more well-known exhibitions: ThinkTank. It featured many artists’ and design firms’ installation pieces, each of which brought the observer into an egaging and intimate space.

ThinkTank showed several artists' works

Phillipe got off work a little early and suggested that we explore an even more famous section of the city-wide
show: Zona Tortona. This kilometer long street was made up of  one design firm after another, each one with open doors and reception
inside. There was food and drink and modern dance and furniture galore. We spent the most time in the Temporary Museum for New Design,
seeing pieces created by some of the biggest Italian names.

At the end of the evening, someone suggested that we go out and grab pasta or
something cheap from a local place. We set out in search of some inexpensive grub.

Ti voglio, Italia!

Oh it’s good to be back on Italian soil. I am so excited to be able understand what people are saying again! Now that I am here, I am encountering so many things I missed that I have started creating a photo journal of things you find in Italy that I love.

My first day in Milan was not so bad. Even though there were no couchsurfer’s available to host me, I was in touch with one active member who put me in contact with his current guest. I met up with Tobias, from Germany, and we wandered around the city. I found the museum that houses the last supper, but unfortunately all the entry reservations are filled up for the next two weeks. And the Da Vinci museum was closed for work (it reopened the next day).

Tobi and I wandered into Milan’s main museum of design, and found ourselves in the middle of preparations for a grand reception. It turns out that this is Milan Design Week–the largest design trade show in the world–during which public spaces all over the city become exhibition spaces and everywhere begins to buzz with the passion of thousands of designers from around the world. The city hosts many design events of diverse foci and media, and live music performances fill the streets as the whole place erupts into spontaneous block parties. Needless to say, it is difficult to keep all the events straight, and finding something interesting on any block is not difficult.

Unfortunately, Tobi isn’t too interested in design, so we wandered around the free exhibits before heading into the city center. On our way, I insisted we stop so I could become reacquainted with my old love: gelato. Oh god it was good. Un piccolo cono di cioccolato. Oh god. Add this to my list.

Next up came some church. We found our way to the city’s duomo–the largest Gothic church in the world. Construction of this towering building was begun in the 14th century, and its hundreds of spires and rooftop statues make it look like a strange hybrid of wedding cake and a bed of nails. Inside was just as beautiful as I’d remembered all the churches from my last Italian trip. I was reminded just how pitiful and dismal American churches are, and I found myself marvelling at the ability of human passion to create beauty. Not without slaves, of course. But you get the idea. Add real churches to the list.

We paid a small fee to summit the tower and gaze over the city of Milan from the rooftop of the church. Afterwards, we headed out in search of some sustenance. While looking for a pizzeria, we came across a cool looking cafe, and so stopped in to prop up the bar for a while. #3 is my favorite Italian breakfast: un cornetto di cioccolato e un cafe macchiato.

We eventually found a small place that served pizza at non-exorbitant prices, and went in. Well they almost served pizza… It was really more like pizza toppings on an extra large tortilla. I decided to hold off and instead went with #4: un panino con crudo, mozzarella, e rucola. Mmm-mm. Damn it’s good.

We continued exploring for a little while, and then we received a text inviting us to dinner and a movie with the local couchsurfing crowd. We said yes, and headed back to Tobi’s place to sit for a little while. On our way we passed so many, and dodged so many more cute little scooters. Yet another thing I associate so strongly with Italy.

Dinner was at an all-you-can-eat sushi bar with free cocktail for 10 euro, and I swear I must have put away 30 of those delicious morsels. There we met several other couchsurfing community members, and heard some exciting stories from young but full lives. One of them, an extremely cynical but wonderfully humored Belgian, mentioned that a business trip he was going on might be delayed, and so I might be able to stay with him for some time. At this point I am still waiting to hear, and might have to leave Milan today if I can’t stay on his couch!

The movie was Alice in Wonderland, which I must admit I was disappointed by. It seemed rather short and too focused on special effects. I heard that it was rather good in 3D, but as we were watching it on a regular screen, it was unfortunately full of obvious gimmicks. For instance, the falling down the rabbit hole scene goes on and on, and the whole movie is full of epic scenes that only feature an animal running from one place to another from various angles. Oh well. I then caught the last metro home.

Tobias and I hit the town

 

Gelato makes my heart beat

 

Italy earned the pope

 

Part of a complete breakfast

 

Single-occupancy torpedoes

Carpool!

I found a website in France that ended up being my #1 preferred means of getting around. Very similar in objective to the American company GoLoco, www.covoiturage.fr is a carpool-organizing site that encourages cost-lowering ride shares across the whole country for trips of every length. The website is free to use, and members create profiles similar to facebook that give an idea of who the person is that you’ll be riding with.

The cost of a ride is on average about half the cost of a train ticket for the given locations. It is a great way to travel cheaply for hitchhikers and to cut gas costs for long-distance voyagers. You also meet some interesting people…

Driving the car to Milan was a French couple that did furniture design, and beside me in the back was a French architecture student studying abroad in Switzerland. They were all interesting to talk with, and everybody shared knowledge of Milan before arriving.

Architect and designer at the Italian border

Au revoir, France!

While staying at the hostel in Nice, I had to make a very difficult decision: would I move south via ferry to Corsica, or east via carpool to Milan.

I had a keen interest to see the Design Continuum offices in Italy, and the allure of Italian food and language was strong. Staying in France would mean solidifying my currently unstable language skills and seeing more than just the Frenc Riviera in this beautiful country. It was not an easy choice, especially since I had no plans for what to do after the first move to one of the two options.

Eventually, a plan started to form in my mind that was not all together unpleasant. I would skirt across northern Italy (doing what business I may in Milan), maybe even see some of the famously gorgeous lakes in the region. After that I would scoot up into Austria through Vienna to Budapest, where I would spend some time enjoying a culture that I am utterly unfamiliar with. Swinging back around through Prague, I would then head into Germany to see Berlin and visit Ollie in Munich. By that point, graduation would be nigh, and I would catch a flight home to see everyone else.

Not too shabby at all, so I booked my seat in the next car headed to Milan, and set out the next morning.