The Milanese Drift

Scenes from Milan streets

 I had to stop to Milan once more, but this time I was prepared to face Malpensa Airport and its deliberately (?) confusing escape routes. I had to plan my escape to the city,  and my fast return too, otherwise I could fail or even miss my flight home. First, I had to take the free airport bus to change from terminal 2 to terminal 1 (central terminal). The central terminal is the place where all facilities can be found, while terminal 2 can only offer a few thinks to the demanding traveler. For example, if you need a locker to leave your thinks, the only way to simulate that is to go to the “leave baggage” point of the central terminal, show some id and pay the 3.5 euros per day when you return to claim your stuff. There is a guy dressed in some kind of uniform guarding your stuff, so I guess it's safe. Then, you need a mean of transport. Train costs 11 epp per route (so 22 euros if you actually want to come back to the airport), while the Malpensa Shuttle Bus Line can take you forth (Milan) and back (Airport) for  a total of 8 epp. Some online travel guides indicate that a bus might be stuck in traffic, while the train is always in time, but If you have 5 or 6 hours to spend it’s quite safe. And that’s what I did this time: I took the bus to Centrale (the central train station). (A Malpensa Milan fact: if you need to go to the central train station, take the bus, because the train won’t go there).

Milan is a live exhibition of different styles of buildings

A list of all external links used in my Lisbon posts.

Related to Lisbon

• The Lisbon center: a detailed post with pictures, by Isabel, a teacher in Lisbon
• Rossio: a photograph showing the Lisbon central square
• Belem Tower: a detailed site with information and pictures
• Praca de Commercio: the English Wikipedia lemma of one of Lisbon central squares
• Bairo Alto: the English Wikipedia lemma for the area and some more spontaneous photos and comments and some google images.
• Gare do Oriente: a detailed site with information and pictures

Related to Portugal

• Portuguese cuisine: a post by Mary Mimouna and also the English Wikipedia lemma
• Portuguese beers: Super Bock and Sagres official sites
• Vihno Verde (Green Wine): The English Wikipedia lemma
• Piri piri: a hot pepper featured in some Portuguese plates
• Sintra: the English Wikipedia lemma
• Pena National Palace: the English Wikipedia lemma

Last evening in Lisbon: Santa Apolonia and Vasco da Gama at Oriente

I run out of time. I don’t mean I got old and I’m going to die. (we all are some day, of course). I don’t know if I’m going to die soon or not. Only He Knows and even His Knowledge is a posteriori. For you people who don’t know how to impress your friends with a few super-famous words from dead languages, I meant: He Will Know after my death. And when I say “He” I mean my cat, Bulukos, whom I miss each time I travel. But I think I somehow lost the point here, which is a very bad sign if it happens at the very first paragraph of the post.

Night shots of Lisbon at night. I would have more of them, but I don't have the right equipment. If you agree that I deserve a decent DSLR camera and you are willing to buy it for me, please let me now.

My point is I spent almost all of my 5 days time and I haven’t seen that much of the city. I expressed my concerns openly to a group of Japanese tourists, I met during "breakfast". They smiled at me, then asked directions to Vasco-Da-Gama-something (sorry, I know my English accent is not that good either, but that doesn't mean I can understand all other strange accents). Vasco da Gama what? Statue? Street? Square? There must be enough of all of them. If I was the major of Portugal, and one of them hadn’t been built yet, I would built it. Of course, I don’t know where any Vasco Da Gama statues or squares are located, but that’s why we have smart phones with Internet access, right?

They might not have free WiFi anywhere in the city, but the parks are quite relaxing. I'm sure those playing-card people at the park side appreciate that fact too.

Sintra and the Football World Cup Finals

After reading the responses on my previous posts I came to the conclusion that people don’t want stories about drugs and aimless walks anymore. Maybe in the ‘60s or the ‘70s that was exactly the selling point for a blogger, who would have to curve his posts on paper, put them in a bottle and throw it in the sea (actually by this method you can access as many readers as most bloggers have). This is 2010, and people want practical advice like power plug types, voltage levels and airplane ticket bargains. They don’t care about your photoshoped iPhone pictures, they would be as pleased with a few cart-postal pictures of the main sites, the ones you can find everywhere else. I’m pissed with you people, and that’s why I decided to punish you, by going to such a boring place as Sintra and writing about it. Actually, the reasons I'm going are not that clear, but we will come to that later.

The town of Sintra, Portugal.

Sintra is a nice village a few minutes by train from Lisbon, so I had the opportunity to use a train in this country as well. It stoped to some Lisbon districts, like Benfica (If you are not a football fun, this name won’t ring a bell - and by football I refer to the sport most people on the globe call “football” - since it is played mostly with feet and a ball: foot-ball, get it?). While at the train, I wondered why I’m going to Sintra. Maybe my friend, who is sitting next to me, knows the answer.

- Dude, why are we going to Sintra?
- I though it was your idea!
- Why should I suggest to go to a place I didn’t even know it exists?
- Is this rhetorical?
- Dude, I’m telling you, I didn’t suggest Sintra or any other place. The first time I ever heard about this was this morning, when you said “OK, get ready, we are going to Sintra”.
- Yes, but I thought we planed that yesterday, when you said “hey, let’s go to Sintra tomorrow”.

Was that true? I had to find out.