St. Patties Day, Milan, and swiss jail

So the weekend of St. Patrick's Day we had big plans.  We had rigged up a big system of planes, trains and automobiles to get us to Dublin for the big day and green rivers and beer and whatnot.  This all seemed great until we tried to fit others into our plans and waited too long until the plane tickets became outrageously expensive.  This needless to say was a fate too tragic to bear.  

So with our tails between our legs, Ryan and I decided to take the weekend and cruise to Milan and explore the city that we had just kinda walked through before.  We would see the Last Supper and some art and go shopping in the fashion capitol, and all sorts of other things, all the while drinking for Patty.  Sounded pretty good, so we truck off to Milan in renewed spirits and sporting our green apparel.  

We arrive at the church where the last supper is and prepare for one of the world's most well known pieces of art.  Then as we walk in to get our tickets, the woman at the counter pleasantly informs us that it is sold out for the weekend and that we would need to come back some other time having made a reservation.  BALLS.  We are crestfallen yet again.  We had missed the LAST supper.  So to pick our spirits up, we head to a bar and have a guinness or two or three.  So slightly happier, we head off to the big art museum in the area to enjoy some of what they've got.  Luckily they were open and welcomed us in with open arms.  We enjoyed meandering through the rooms of paintings and such.  Sadly, there was not as much modern art as we had thought, but it was good none the less.  

Then we had another round or two at a cafe just outside the museum and had a good time watching all the people go by in their fascinating get-ups.  Then we started off in search of the "fashion quadrilateral" where all the good shopping was hoping to laugh at some, and admire some of the designs.  It took us an inordinate amount of time to get there getting lost and sidetracked with another beer, but two triumphal arches later, we found ourselves surrounded by designer stores and throngs of glamazons.  We poked through stores and laughed and envied and all that.  In the end, I had bought a pair of shoes, and we called it a day.  

Then we needed some food, but unfortunately, we found out that nobody eats in Milan.  The once packed streets were completely vacant.  Not a soul was in sight.  The few restaraunts we found were reservation only and were booked several days in advance.  The people in them scared us as well with their insanely overpriced clothes and demeaning attitudes.  After 2 hours of unsucessful food finding, we called it quits and decided to cut our losses.  We took 3 trams on our way to the train station, and arrived to find that the next train left in an hour and a half.  The day was simply against us.  We sat in the corner as the floor waxer wheeled around the terminal.  

We boarded our train and in line with everything else, it was steaming hot in there.  Every car of the train was blistering for some unknown reason.  So the moment we sat down, we both passed out.   

We woke up in Chiasso Switzerland.

Without our passports.

This was not a good realization to awake to.  We headed down to the station thinking we could sneak through and just walk back to Italy unnoticed, but luckily, there were multiple guards there waiting for our non-existant passports.  So we got to be escorted by the Swiss police back to their office/holding cell.  We had a friend too.  On the same train had been an Iranian with no form of identification save a torn piece of paper with a photo of himself taped onto it.  He was also really drunk or on some form of drugs being unable to utter more than a few syllables in a row.  So our new Iranian friend, Ryan, and I took up residence in the Swiss holding facilities.  I explained that we were students and lived in Como, and had simply missed our stop having slept through it in what was fairly good Italian I thought.  The police seemed to think about it and talk amongst themselves, when to our surprise, we heard some yelling coming from outside.  The door flew open and a more beligerent Middle Easterner came in being pushed by the cops and joined our now blossoming party.  The police took out handcuffs and put on latex gloves, and took our two new friends out into some other rooms never to be seen by us again.  The Swiss apparently agreed with our story and walked us back over to the italian border and deposited us there.

It was now raining cats and dogs.

So Ryan and I start our, what we calculated at 8 mile hike, back to Como at 2am in the pouring rain.  We walked along highways, under overpasses, through parking lots, and thought we were lost a few times until Como came up on some of the street signs.  We followed our new guiding force back to Como arriving at our apartment at about 4 am.  What a day that had been.  And all we had wanted was some green beer.

The next day, we read in the news that a Middle Easterner that was arrested that night had been detained and was being held for causing a ruckus in the Swiss Police Station.  Apparently after we had left, he went beserk and flipped over tables and broke computers and eventually had to be physically restrained and held there for prosecution.  All in all a good St. Patty's Day.