NIGHT 1

It was high time to leave Italy altogether. Initially, Val! and I thought we'd slowly work our way up, city to city, through Italy and Switzerland until we made it to Zurich, where our wonderful cousin Rob would be waiting with Eurail passes. However, Val! and I have come to the conclusion that we are not cut out for sitting around in the cold with a lot of extra baggage and weight for exorbitant amounts of time with no place to go. Hence, we made it as far as Milan (the next major city on our hop from place to place itinerary) before purchasing tickets straight to Zurich.

It had been quite a while since Val! and I had eaten, so we thought it would be in our best interest to get a snack at the station. All they had was one crummy looking pizza (Remember pizza hut bigfoots? Pretend your elementary school made those.) and paninis. I am so sick of seeing paninis. Anyway, Val! and I agreed to split a panini. I wanted one with ham and veggies but they were out of that kind so I wanted to get just the veggie/mushroom/cheese one but Val! preferred the speck (bacon) and cheese. We decided to combine them. The stupid thing about a lot of places in Italy is that you order from one place, pay, then go tell the server at the counter what you bought/want. I did this, and they didn't want to put the two paninis together. In fact, they refused to even put lettuce or tomato on the speck and cheese panini. There was no compromising to be had. In a flustered and food deprived state, I explained to Val! what had happened. She encouraged me to get my money back. I went round and round with the cashier and counter attendant but they would not give me back my money.

Finally, Val! the Terminator was sent in to make things right. She got thoroughly pissed with the employees when they gave her the same run around. She didn't back down, however. Val! found police in the train station and had them come to the cafe and make the cashier give us our money back (I think it was about 6 euros).

After that incident, and getting on the train right as it was departing, we were both quite stressed out (not to mention hungry!) on the way up to Zurich. We couldn't manage to communicate with one another to save our lives. There was a dining car on the train that both Val! and I wanted to try. Unfortunately, we couldn't get along for enough time to stand up, let alone walk to the dining car. Finally, Val! pressed her fingers to her lips, indicating we move in silence from our seats to the dining car so as not to argue again, and we made our way to a table. After we got a little food in us, we were both getting along much better. Thank goodness!

The Milan train station was absolutely beautiful.	Here is a shot of the ancient looking station.	I also found the skylights unreal.
A nice view of the ceiling in the Milan station.	Aww! Val! snuggles with Rover in the dining car on the way to Zurich.	Looking sweet and innocent as I wait on my dinner to arrive.
Once in Zurich we got to ride on these cool trams. Here the one we're on snakes around a tram going the opposite direction.	A crappy shot of Val! on the tram, but the only one I have before the camera battery goes caput.	Go to Day 1 - Val!entine's day with Robert! Go back to Zurich index.