Monday, December 26 - Too many days to count

Last night was not a great night.  Let's just be honest, and call a spade a spade.  Bill is sick.  Mom is sick and tired of traveling.  I slept like crap, between Bill's cough, and worrying about a repeat train ride.  Stressed is a major under statement.

Now, the night before I had secretly gone out on one of my new scooters and stopped at the train station to ensure that we did, in fact, have tickets.  They printed them out, on paper, and gave them to me. So I was confident we were in the right spot.  We got to the station WAY early, because I wanted to make sure we had enough time to get to where we were going, mom included.  You'll note above, that Bill is wearing (kind of) a mask for our protection.  I think he was so stressed about coughing on the train that he opted to play it safe and wear the mask.

Thankfully we got on board, and found our seats without too much ado.  There was a group of people sitting in our seats, but when we mentioned our reservations for those seats, they quickly got up and found new spots.  In our "cabin" we had one other lady, who barely moved the entire trip from Innsbruck to Puerto Verona, which is where we elected to hop off the train.  I had originally purchased tickets from Innsbruck to Bologna, and then Bologna to Milano.  But, when we were on the train (for eons), I saw that Puerto Verona and Milano are like, at the same latitude, where Bologna was halfway down the country.  I refunded those tickets, and then bought new ones from Puerto Verona to Milano.  The added benefit to this was that we didn't have to try and run through Bologna on a 20 minute transfer, since we'd have a little under an hour in Puerto Vernoa...

While we were on the train, I did take a smidgen of time and updated this blog.  BUT - I also made a point of keeping track of the scenery, as we were crossing the Alps and/or coming out of them and into Italy proper.  The unfortunate part was that once we came down out of the Alps, we were stuck in this nasty soup that almost looked like fog, but was probably just clouds, and it was really yucky looking.

We finally arrived in Milano Centrale, and got off the train.  To our luck, the train "terminated" in Milano, and we could deboard at our leisure. This also meant that I got to take some pictures of the station!

Here is where I must disappoint you, my blog readers (the 3 of you that stuck with me this far...).  After I spent the train ride writing the blog, and reflecting on the trip with Mom and Bill, there were a couple observations that probably deserve an interlude.  In fact, I'll do that, after I finish out today.

After deboarding the train, we were in a throng of people that was worse than anything we'd seen thus far.  Mom was beyond done, and I knew that our hotel was "close" to the station.  I had specifically chosen it because of it's proximity to the station.  Like, on the map you walk out the front of the station, across the station's park, and cross the street.  There, you are on the doorstep of our hotel.  Hotel Atlantic, or something.

We got to the end of the trainway, and I was lost.  I couldn't find a dang exit to save my life.  We looked left, we looked right, we looked straight, up down, and every which way.  The three of us couldn't find it.  Bill went and asked the Police, who told him "that way."  Like it was obvious.  Freakin' Italians.  We finally found that the access points to Gates D and E are not, in fact, access points.  They're literally just funnels that channel people through a small opening.  Then you have to go down the ramp escalator, and then down another one.  I'm sure that anyone who knows mom, knows that at this point she has questioned her sanity, and whether she can join one of the hundred homeless, wait, I'm sorry, "unhoused" people that are sleeping in the station.  She wasn't having it anymore.

We finally found the dang street, and we only dropped the luggage twice.  We didn't drop mom, though I kept having to check my stride as we were leaving her behind.  We got to the hotel, checked in (thankfully it was already paid for!), and then we got our rooms.  Mom went into her room, locked the door, and said "wake me up when it's time to go home."  She was done.  I'm pretty sure that she was so far past done that she couldn't even see the done line anymore.

Bill was happy, as the hotel was much more modern than Innsbruck, promised lots of channels, and well, was a better spot for him to hide away until it was time to go home.