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.