Il Campo - Siena, Italy 

A journey through Europe in a Slovenian Volvo

Two years ago, the same year I was moving to Vienna, I made a quite memorable trip through Europe. I flew to Milan, where I was staying at a friends place a couple of nights, and then I went to Siena which I wanted to see during the summer, because I have visited it in March earlier the same year, and I figured that summer would be more of the prime season of Siena. And indeed it was, however I guess the most memorable moment was that I was kind of adopted to one of the district that has a champion horse at the famous Siena horse championship. From then onwards I am belonging to the “seashell”.
Since I was suppose to move to Vienna two months later, and didn’t had the intention to go back home to Sweden in-between I travelled quite heavily, which is a thing I don’t recommend to others who are travelling in Italy with train. From Siena I was going to Ljubljana in Slovenia where my girlfriend (now ex-girlfriend) lives. From Siena, I went to Florence, where I switch train to Bologna, where I switched train to Venice, where I switched train to Trieste, where I switched to bus to the Slovenian border, where I could take the train to Ljubljana. A lot of beautiful cities, only two problems I did not had any time to stop in any of them to watch the cities; secondly it was only Ljubljana that had escalators at the train station. With a 30 Kilo heavy bag (luckily there were only a few on the plane to Milano, so I didn’t have to pay any extra fee due to heavy luggage) and two rucksacks, one on my back and one on my front, I believe I retrieved some extra muscles that day.
After a couple of days in Ljubljana with my girlfriend, I was on my way in her car towards Vienna. I stayed over the Whit weekend in Vienna at friend’s place, making some interesting things, which I never did again during my whole year that I stayed in Vienna. One dumb idea however, was leaving the lights on at the vehicle. Being used on a little more modern cars, where the lights goes out when you take out the keys, I manage to forget the Volvos from the beginning of the 80s doesn’t work in the same way. Also Austria on Whit Monday is the wrong day calling for assistance. Nothing is open in Austria on Sundays or holidays. But on Tuesday I was on my way again. This time, Darmstadt, right south of Frankfurt was my goal. A journey that would last a whole day. My first stop was Passau at the border between Germany and Austria. It was an extremely hot day, and I was almost dying in the car. After a lunch in Passau, I went on. Somewhere on autobahn, I think it was nearby Nuremberg but I am not sure, suddenly out of nowhere there was a huge traffic jam, I couldn’t get anywhere. I stood more or less still for two hours, then as suddenly as it appeared the traffic jam dissolved, the cars disappear and I could continue at full speed (or at least as much as the old car could stand – around 130 km/h).
Darmstadt maybe hasn’t got a very good reputation as city. Already the name which means “intestine city” in English, lower a potential value, then telling that it is famous for its technical university which building were made in the 70s in concrete making it even worse. In fact I only now two technical universities in Europe that have beautiful buildings KTH in Stockholm and the University in Cambridge. Then you can imagine what I think of the Technische Universität Darmstadt. However there is something I like about Darmstadt, I don’t know really what, maybe is it because the charming woman Antje is living there… or was it just the nice (gemühtliche) time I had there. I also went to Frankfurt where I experience apple wine (appelwoi), with cottage cheese and musik (no not music, it is chopped onions in a vinaigrette sauce), and to Heidelberg, which I guess is the tourist city number one in Germany for American tourists.
So after the visit in Germany I went down south again, towards Switzerland. Knowing a little bit about Swiss culture, I wouldn’t have thought that it was such a strange thing, but since I never have been stopped at the customs before, I actually felt a little offended when I was stopped at the border. It didn’t not make it any better that the petrol tank is leaking a bit when it is fully tanked (which it was at the moment) and when the customs saw that the owner of the car, my girlfriend, had an Arabian last name didn’t make the situation better. All the things in the car was thrown out, they went through all my belongings, and ask me for my “real purpose” in Switzerland. The hard thing was for me was that I didn’t have a really purpose I was just going round European in a car I had borrowed visiting friends. Hard to believe. Maybe. The best thing of it all was that the girl in Switzerland that I was visiting absolutely wanted to go to Germany the next day. Going into German was no problem, but then back, again the Swiss custom stopped the car, however having a Swiss citizen in the car made it much simpler.
After a couple of days my journey continued over the Swiss Alps safely into Italy. The only fear was when I saw how fast the petrol meter was going down, when I was going upwards the mountains, but I made it to a petrol station on the border, which took both euros and francs (the Swiss currency). In Italy I went to Milan again where I visited another friend this time. A study colleague from my university in Stockholm, who was making exchange studies in Milan. One thing being technology students in Stockholm is that you have to steal street signs. My friend was living just by Viale Enrico Fermi (Fermi is a famous physic scientist), and of course we had to steal it, and bring it to Sweden. In the middle of the night we went picking down the 20 Kilo heavy sign made in marble, put it in the trunk of the car. Reparking the car since it, there was a witness who saw us. The big problem was just that one centimetre in front of the car there was another car, and behind the car there was another one on the same distance. Trying to get out of such a parking lot, does not make attention less. However, I managed escape, potential police men chasing us, and the next day me and the car was on its way towards Slovenia again. However, I left the car and the street sign in Slovenia. Since my wisdom tooth, who has given me a lot of trouble through out the years was infected again (there wasn’t a dentist who wanted to pull it out, until one and half years later). I found a cheap flight to Stockholm the next day from Budapest, and I put myself on the train the same day.
Well there this story really ends. But one might ask what happened with the stolen street sign. Well my girlfriend (who then was my ex-girlfriend) transported it a few months later to Vienna, when we both were going to Prague. In Vienna I kept it for another few months in a found the perfect victim for “trafficing” the street sign to Stockholm. My female blond Swedish friend, who was flying back to Stockholm just before an important party, where the sign was to be delivered. The luggage became of course too heavy, but she is a good in flirting, and managed to convince the personal that if was essential things she had in the luggage. The only poor part of the history is that the sign was broken into two pieces. The story of my female friend was that the sign must have been broken in the airplane. The story of my male friend who retrieved the sign, was that they got so excited when seeing the sign, so they went on having wild sex on it upon its arrival. I still don’t know what to believe. The weird thing is that after the sign was delivered it disappeared, and I still don’t know where it is.

Siena Italy 2

The year after 2003, I went to Siena my self. I flew from Stockholm, where I was living at the time, to Bergamo, just outside Milan together with a friend with which whom I was going to attend a conference in Siena (more about the conference later). We were arriving quite late, but still we were planning to catch a late train to Siena. At the central station another friend, who at the time was living in Milan, meet us. I had baked some Swedish buns, “kanelbullar”, for him, and opening my luggage to get them out. To my surprise I did not find my buns, instead, even more surprisingly I find a package of cigarettes and a bra. Surprisingly since I normally don’t smoke and I normally don’t wear a bra. I had taken the wrong luggage at the airport. I had to hurry back to the airport. Luckily the person whom I took the luggage (I don’t think that person will ever forgive me) hadn’t taken my luggage; instead I found it at the lost and found-department at the airport. Arriving back at the central station in Milan, I recognised that I had just missed the last train to Siena for the day. The next was at 5 a.m. in the morning. Only slightly more then six hours to go, I decided to stay at the train station over night. A good idea? No. At 1 p.m. the station closed and I had to move outside. Italy might sound as a warm country, however Milan in March during the night isn’t. Failing to find a night open café in the centre of Milan, I sat down on a bench in front of the central station – I was afraid of getting lost in Milan. During the night two groups of youth entering me asking for cannabis; I am not sure they wanted to buy or sell, however I answered no. Even more annoying was a man around fifty years old, who probably had drunken to many beers in his life, who wanted me to hold his hands, before he said “you me sex?”. However, I survived the night, without using drugs nor being raped by a senior alcoholic, and at 5 I was on the train.
In Siena where I was candidate for being the president of the European organisation, Erasmus Student Network, my wisdom tooth suddenly got an infection and my cheek swelled to abnormal proportion. In spite of that I still managed to get elected, and a few days later, after losing my visa-card (it was found again, however then I had already blocked it), I was on my way to the airport in Rome by bus. Or at least I thought I should have, because that was what the lady at the hotel told me. However, in last minute a guy from Siena who also had attended the conference, saw my ticket, and discover that it was not for the bus that were leaving at the bus stop 5 minutes away, instead it was for the train leaving at the train station, some twenty minutes by car outside Siena. Just 15 minutes to go before the departing of the train, he put me in his car, and going against one-way streets, and one pavements on the narrow alleys in Siena, and finally ending up on the stairs at the train station I managed to get on the train just one minute before it was leaving. I was supposed to change train once during the journey, however, after an exhausting couple of days, I lost my concentration for a while. However after standing still at a station I finally realised that this was the station where I was suppose to change train. I grabbed my things, and tried to step out, but I couldn’t open the doors. I felt how the train was starting to move and I felt the panic coming. After a couple of hundreds of meters the train stopped, and went back. It finally stopped ranger station and opened all doors. I could step out and see that the station was only less then hundred meters away. I went over some tracks, and I was well in time before next train, and I could make a safe journey all the way to Rome. However, it was here the bad things happened. Before entering the train that was heading for the airport in Rome, I asked three people if it was the going to my airport (Ciampino), a shop owner just by the tracks, the ticket lady from whom I bought the ticket and the ticket-collector who was waiting just outside the train, all of them said “si, si”. Arriving at the airport I discovered that it of course was the wrong airport. It was the Da Vinci airport. A taxi driver took me on my last euros (since I had blocked my visa card) on the highways outside Rome during rush hour, and just 15 minutes before the plane was suppose to depart the taxi arrived at the airport. Luckily for me they have had a computer problem at the check-in desk and they where still checking in the last person, when I was arriving. However, when they have checked him in, it was my turn, and of course they did not found me in their computer system. Luckily they have had made a print out of the passenger list, due the computer problems and there I was.
A couple of hours later I was back at Arlanda airport in Stockholm, without money and visa card, but at least home.

Siena, Italy 1

Italy is a fantastic country, in all aspects. Especially Toscana (Tuscany) and the city of Siena lies near my heart of several reasons. My parents visited the city together with our American relatives (of Swedish-Italian origin) in 2002. To this story of hospitality and warmness you have to now the geography of Siena. The whole Tucsonan landscape has variation with a lot of hills and valleys. The city of Siena is no exception, rather the contrary. It is concentrated on a relatively small area, which have made the city government to prohibit tourists to take their cars inside the city. Instead you have to park your car a bit outside and then take the bus into the city. This was with other words what my parents and our relatives had to do. They went strolling around the medieval city, until quite late, when they feel an overwhelmingly hunger for Tuscan food (understandable). The problem was just that in all the restaurants that they went to were full of tourist. At last they went in to restaurants which certainly also was crowded, but two of men in the must have seen the despair in their eyes, because they squeezed in a little at their table making room for my parents. The men showed out to be no other then the major of Siena and the head of the police. They had a wonderful dinner, which must have lasted for quite a while, because when the dinner was over, my parents recognised that they had missed the last bus to the parking lot. No problem though. The head of the Siena police, offered to drive my father and the husband of my father’s cousin (hope you understood how I meant that we are related with the Americans) to the parking lot, although, he according to my parents, already had drank a few glasses of wine during the dinner. This whilst the women went with the major to the major’s office in the middle of Siena, studying the impressive pieces of art he kept in his possession (or at least the city owned).
Such a prove of hospitality would as far as would believe only happen in Italy.