I Heart Tomunk
Did some travelling and saw some old friends this past weekend. Spent time in Geneva, Lausanne, and Milan with Scott and Eda. Good times.
The weekend's stories include finding the 7 Duomo's of Milan, walking up and down the 7 towers of the Milan football arena, some bird turd, and Tomunk.
Landed in Geneva, and was greeted as I exited the main train station by a man passed out in the middle of the road leading to the main entrance of the station. Someone was kneeling over him, and I had no idea if the man was alive or not. My French had collected enough rust that there was no way I was going to find out what happened. Had he been hit by a car? Passed out? Eventually the ambulance came, and five long, confusing minutes later, I see the man sit up and then stand under his own power. Welcome to Switzerland.
Spent a few hours in Geneva, and got a small feel for the city. Can't comment on much, nor with much authority, but I will say that I found the city to be modern, diverse and clean. The only negative I encountered was the absolute lack of people respecting personal space. This was certainly noted walking down the street, when it was constantly a game of chicken with people refusing to turn sideways to let people pass. That certainly struck me as odd. We did see some folks in the park playing some giant chess, and laboring over each move.
Lausanne was gorgeous. On Saturday, we did very little, save walk around Lake Geneva (which, I was told, is only called "The Lake" there, or even "The Lake Lake"). One of the quotes of the day was Scott saying, "See those mountains there? That's France."
The Alps were really amazing, and add in Lake Geneva, and the small beach around it, truly incredible. We ate some real good food that night, and then we combined forces on a 5-liter tube of beer before heading home to get ready for our one-day trip to Milan for an AC Milan football match.
Beautiful train ride in the morning provided us some real nice shots.
So we get to Milan around 12:30. We have some time to kill before the match. How much time exactly, we're not sure, because we don't know what time the match starts. I'll leave the obvious questions unanswered for the rest of this story.
Other than the match itself, the only thing we've collectively been told to see in Milan is the Duomo. Now, it's important to note that none of the three of us have ever seen a picture of the Duomo. Nor do we know what it is. So we're walking around Milan without direction, without a schedule, and without any idea what we're looking for. What could possibly go wrong?
After our (now in retrospect) hilariously frustrating and unsuccessful attempts to understand the metro ticket machine, and communicate with the man in the information / security booth, we realize we need small euro coins to make it work, which we don't have. Forty-five minutes and two incorrect "this has got to be the Duomo" sightings later, we have small change, full stomachs, and metro tickets. Finally make it to the stadium. 30 minutes late.
Upon entering the gate of the stadium, we are in search for the proper ramp to our section. No luck. After more unsuccessful and confusing attempts to communicate with the ushers, we head up what we think (in this case, "we" means "Scott") is the right ramp.
We get into the stadium and are clearly one tier too high. Not a problem, we think, because, well, we're in the stadium. Yet, if only it were that easy.
We're now instructed that in order to get to our seats, we must exit the stadium down the same ramp we just went up and go over to another ramp. We do.
We reach a roped-off ramp, and hand our tickets to the attending usher. He looks at them, nods, and takes the stub he's supposed to. Super.
Yet this isn't the right ramp either. Go all the way back up, and then all the way back down, again outside the stadium.
More conversations in Italian (mind you, all these "conversations" we're having are using every one of the 12 Italian vocab words we know as a group), more looks of "What the hell are you doing out here? The game is going on inside!" from the ushers, and many more steps later, we make it to our seats.
After the match, we decided to see the Duomo for real, which was pretty neat. Got there just as they were closing, so we didn't get inside. Bummer. We decied to get some food and then head to the train station for the ride back to Lausanne. Now, for the couple weeks heading into this trip, there was much discussion about staying in Milan for the night, or taking the train back. We decided to play it by ear, but to err on the side of caution, we (Scott) would check what time the last train was from Milan.
We eat an amazing dinner - real, fresh mozzerella cheese (very likely the best I've ever had), great Italian wine, and outstanding desserts, and make our way to the train station, arriving around 10:30. Only to find out the last international train for the day left two hours earlier. No more trains. No busses. We can't rent a car, since we don't know how to get to where we're going, only one of us can drive stick, and there's a 500 euro drop-off fee inside Switzerland (for comparison, the car rental itself was 150 euros).
So, with my flight scheduled for 11:40 the following morning from Geneva, and the first 3-hour train ride to Lausanne leaving at 8:25, there was no way I was making my flight. So, a frustrating couple hours later, we ended up at a hotel for the night.
As it turned out, though, staying that extra day turned out to be great. We were able to buy some mozzerella and some wine to bring back with us, and we took part in the Milan Mayday parade. Quite a sight to see and take part in.
Made it back to Lausanne that night, and then made my flight the following morning. Only missed a couple classes, which turned out to be no big deal, and certainly worth it.
I think the best story of the weekend has to be about Mr. Tomunk. Scott and Eda's friend, Carolina, has some French friends, and they were all talking about movies and movie stars. These Frenchies asked if Carolina liked Tomunk.
"Who?"
"Tomunk."
"Tomunk? Never heard of him."
"I'm surprised, he's really famous."
"Tomunk?"
"He's been in a lot of movies."
"Like what?"
"Apollo 13, Big, Castaway..."
"You mean... Tom Hanks?"
"Yea, Tomunk."
Two last pictures to share. One is a little hard to read. It's the awning of a newsstand. It's supposed to read "Get News From the U.S." News was changed to "BOMB" and the "Today" from "USA Today" was changed to "KILL." The second is pretty self-explanatory. It's from the metro. And as I paused to take the picture, I laughed to myself, wondering how I looked to the average Milan commuter.
Oh yea, and Eda got shit on by a bird.
Good times all around.
The weekend's stories include finding the 7 Duomo's of Milan, walking up and down the 7 towers of the Milan football arena, some bird turd, and Tomunk.
Landed in Geneva, and was greeted as I exited the main train station by a man passed out in the middle of the road leading to the main entrance of the station. Someone was kneeling over him, and I had no idea if the man was alive or not. My French had collected enough rust that there was no way I was going to find out what happened. Had he been hit by a car? Passed out? Eventually the ambulance came, and five long, confusing minutes later, I see the man sit up and then stand under his own power. Welcome to Switzerland.
Spent a few hours in Geneva, and got a small feel for the city. Can't comment on much, nor with much authority, but I will say that I found the city to be modern, diverse and clean. The only negative I encountered was the absolute lack of people respecting personal space. This was certainly noted walking down the street, when it was constantly a game of chicken with people refusing to turn sideways to let people pass. That certainly struck me as odd. We did see some folks in the park playing some giant chess, and laboring over each move.
Lausanne was gorgeous. On Saturday, we did very little, save walk around Lake Geneva (which, I was told, is only called "The Lake" there, or even "The Lake Lake"). One of the quotes of the day was Scott saying, "See those mountains there? That's France."
The Alps were really amazing, and add in Lake Geneva, and the small beach around it, truly incredible. We ate some real good food that night, and then we combined forces on a 5-liter tube of beer before heading home to get ready for our one-day trip to Milan for an AC Milan football match.
Beautiful train ride in the morning provided us some real nice shots.
So we get to Milan around 12:30. We have some time to kill before the match. How much time exactly, we're not sure, because we don't know what time the match starts. I'll leave the obvious questions unanswered for the rest of this story.
Other than the match itself, the only thing we've collectively been told to see in Milan is the Duomo. Now, it's important to note that none of the three of us have ever seen a picture of the Duomo. Nor do we know what it is. So we're walking around Milan without direction, without a schedule, and without any idea what we're looking for. What could possibly go wrong?
After our (now in retrospect) hilariously frustrating and unsuccessful attempts to understand the metro ticket machine, and communicate with the man in the information / security booth, we realize we need small euro coins to make it work, which we don't have. Forty-five minutes and two incorrect "this has got to be the Duomo" sightings later, we have small change, full stomachs, and metro tickets. Finally make it to the stadium. 30 minutes late.
Upon entering the gate of the stadium, we are in search for the proper ramp to our section. No luck. After more unsuccessful and confusing attempts to communicate with the ushers, we head up what we think (in this case, "we" means "Scott") is the right ramp.
We get into the stadium and are clearly one tier too high. Not a problem, we think, because, well, we're in the stadium. Yet, if only it were that easy.
We're now instructed that in order to get to our seats, we must exit the stadium down the same ramp we just went up and go over to another ramp. We do.
We reach a roped-off ramp, and hand our tickets to the attending usher. He looks at them, nods, and takes the stub he's supposed to. Super.
Yet this isn't the right ramp either. Go all the way back up, and then all the way back down, again outside the stadium.
More conversations in Italian (mind you, all these "conversations" we're having are using every one of the 12 Italian vocab words we know as a group), more looks of "What the hell are you doing out here? The game is going on inside!" from the ushers, and many more steps later, we make it to our seats.
After the match, we decided to see the Duomo for real, which was pretty neat. Got there just as they were closing, so we didn't get inside. Bummer. We decied to get some food and then head to the train station for the ride back to Lausanne. Now, for the couple weeks heading into this trip, there was much discussion about staying in Milan for the night, or taking the train back. We decided to play it by ear, but to err on the side of caution, we (Scott) would check what time the last train was from Milan.
We eat an amazing dinner - real, fresh mozzerella cheese (very likely the best I've ever had), great Italian wine, and outstanding desserts, and make our way to the train station, arriving around 10:30. Only to find out the last international train for the day left two hours earlier. No more trains. No busses. We can't rent a car, since we don't know how to get to where we're going, only one of us can drive stick, and there's a 500 euro drop-off fee inside Switzerland (for comparison, the car rental itself was 150 euros).
So, with my flight scheduled for 11:40 the following morning from Geneva, and the first 3-hour train ride to Lausanne leaving at 8:25, there was no way I was making my flight. So, a frustrating couple hours later, we ended up at a hotel for the night.
As it turned out, though, staying that extra day turned out to be great. We were able to buy some mozzerella and some wine to bring back with us, and we took part in the Milan Mayday parade. Quite a sight to see and take part in.
Made it back to Lausanne that night, and then made my flight the following morning. Only missed a couple classes, which turned out to be no big deal, and certainly worth it.
I think the best story of the weekend has to be about Mr. Tomunk. Scott and Eda's friend, Carolina, has some French friends, and they were all talking about movies and movie stars. These Frenchies asked if Carolina liked Tomunk.
"Who?"
"Tomunk."
"Tomunk? Never heard of him."
"I'm surprised, he's really famous."
"Tomunk?"
"He's been in a lot of movies."
"Like what?"
"Apollo 13, Big, Castaway..."
"You mean... Tom Hanks?"
"Yea, Tomunk."
Two last pictures to share. One is a little hard to read. It's the awning of a newsstand. It's supposed to read "Get News From the U.S." News was changed to "BOMB" and the "Today" from "USA Today" was changed to "KILL." The second is pretty self-explanatory. It's from the metro. And as I paused to take the picture, I laughed to myself, wondering how I looked to the average Milan commuter.
Oh yea, and Eda got shit on by a bird.
Good times all around.
posted by David at 4:02 PM
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