#18 Frustrating Friday
On Friday I woke up and attended a rescheduled International Monetary Economics class. After class I bought my books for class and then went to the metro towards the central station. On the way, I ran into a street market filled with food and sales on clothes.
At the station, I reserved a seat for tomorrow’s train to Pisa, and then walked toward the metro. When I reached my pocket to get my metro card, my wallet was missing. I checked my backpack and my pockets and grew filled with a paranoia. I must have been pick pocketed. I ran to the ticket booth at the train station to see if I left my wallet at the counter. When I reached the ticket booth, I saw the wallet on the teller’s desk and he gave it back to me. What a relief!
Then there was a UC/Bocconi orientation about transferring classes for UC credit. I show up thirty minutes late, but I got the gist of the meeting. I then returned to my dorm and check my test schedule. I spoke with the international student desk to talk about taking the final early for Equity Portfolio Management, but they said it was Bocconi policy that the test can only be taken on the scheduled day. As a result, I will have to drop the class (I book and extra class beyond the standard course load to hedge myself for this) and I may just audit some of lectures because it’s an interesting class.
I then booked my flight home. Because of the ambiguous dates for the final exam (but I had to be back before the recommended day of the 23rd of December for reasons to be explained in a later post) , I had to book the return flight on a random date. When I tried to reschedule the flight later, they said my rescheduled date was too far int the future so I now have to buy a new ticket home. I got a good deal from Milan to LA for $700, but buying two tickets makes me really mad. This and the costs of living in the Best Western for a week has resulted in $1,100 lost money due to Bocconi administration bungles.
I then made dinner and waited for my cousin Roman to call on Skype. He never showed up and decided to take a two hour nap. When I woke at 11:00 PM, I realized I was not going to sleep tonight I decided to go out and see what Italian nightlife was about. I walked around the area and ran into six establishments. When I go out at night I tend to wander, because nothing nightlife related can keep my attention very long (I don’t drink alcohol or smoke, that is one reason why I tend to get bored when I’m out at night and can afford to travel, despite stupid setbacks).
1) I went to a Cuban bar as Cuban food is a rare commodity in the US. However, there was no food and it was filled with codgers.
2) I then saw some rock wannabes play “Wild Thing”. They were not very good so I left.
3) I then went to “Taxi Blues” and kind of just stood there frozen up. I tend to feel awkward at parties where I don’t know anyone and it doubled this when nobody spoke English.
4) I went to the Lime Light, a newly opened club across the street from my place. I had actually arrived here first, but the place was still not open (I arrived forty-five minutes after their opening time). Both times I was there most of the people there were actually standing outside on the sidewalk rather than be inside the club. This has to with new laws in Italy banning smoking in indoor public places (including tobacco bars). Nonetheless, I don’t understand if you wer just going stand around on sidewalk, why even go out. I then tried to walk inside and the guard said I needed my “Erasmus card” (Erasmus is an international student organization) which I did not have so I bailed.
5) I went to a tavern style place and heard some live Italian reggae. I left when a bouncer tried to charge me 11 euros to listen to them (no way they were even worth$1 to listen to).
6) I walked past a tobacco bar with a DJ. Only the DJ and a vendor was inside due to smoking laws and everyone hangs out on the sidewalk . Like the limelight, I don’t see any fun in standing around a sidewalk so my stay there was shirt. An Italian guy tried to bait me into a fight as I was walking through the crowd.
After all of this I got fed up and tired of walking around. I tried to take another nap, but could not fall asleep. At 4:30, I left to to go to catch my 6:05 train to Pisa. Since the metro was closed until six, I had to walk to the opposite side of town to the Central Train station. As I was walking it rained pretty hard and it felt kind of sketchy to be walking across at major city at 4:30 AM. Nothing good tends to happen when your out on the streets between 12:00 and 5:00 in the morning. After an hour and a half I reached the station and boarded the train. Off to Pisa and the homeland.
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