Benvenuto to Italia!

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To this day, my trip to Italy, in my early 20s, is one of my most memorable trips. I traveled in Italy for a month after the Park City ski season in 1998. This was before the Euro when everything was still cheap.

Italian money before the Euro; Lire

I ended up going alone because none of my friends, at the time, wanted to go. I had the most spectacular and wondrous experiences as well as some scary ones. I didn't go with a plan except maybe the first few nights in Milan. I completely winged it the whole month and I don't regret it all and highly recommend it. I don't know if you could go nowadays with no plan since everything seems so completely overly crowded and booked. I'm so glad I did what I did at that time because it just seems like nothing is sacred anymore because of social media. Everything is readily available for the world to see and get to which means there will always be a crowd and more expensive. This Italy trip has so many stories that I'm going to break it up into different posts.

Side note: I, stupidly, only took one photo of Milan. I have more pics from the other part of the trip.

Let's just start with the first day I got there. It was an exhausting flight from Salt Lake City. I think maybe I remember a layover in London but flying from Utah to Italy sucked and I was young then. So, I can't even imagine that now. I've become such a softie in regards to flying with age. When I landed in Milan, all I wanted to do was get to the hostel I had booked and go to sleep. I was going to be there for a month, so, Italy could wait a day while I got a good nights' sleep. Unfortunately, once I got to the hostel, it was closed for the day. Sometimes hostels close during the day so they can be cleaned. This hostel was closed till 3pm and it was maybe 10am. So I decided to just go wait at a nearby park which was directly across the street from the hostel. I got some food, claimed a bench and made my space for the afternoon. As I was, minding my own business, eating and reading, an Italian man sat down on a bench adjacent to me. I didn't pay much attention to him at first. Just another person in the park, reading the paper. At some point, I looked up and over at him and he was seriously staring at me. Unfortunately, our eyes met and he smiled. I smiled back being polite. BIG MISTAKE there! He lowered his newspaper only to reveal himself. His whole self if you know what I mean! He had been staring at me and stroking himself. I kid you not. His whole penis was exposed in broad daylight! Once I realized what was going on, I started to pack everything up as quickly as I could. He started making catlike hissing sounds at me which I ignored. As soon as I was all packed, I started walking back to the metro train station. He got up and got into his car and started following me. I went down the stairs into the train station and hid in the shadows. Probably for about 30 minutes, he drove back and forth in the front of the entrance waiting to see if I would reappear. I could see him from my hidden spot. Eventually he gave up and drove away for good. At this point, I was so freaked out and beyond jet lagged that I went right to the hostel gate and just waited for them to open. Luckily, there were other people there waiting to get into the hostel as well, so I felt safe.

That was my welcome to Italy! LOL Benvenuto! As soon as that hostel opened, I picked my bed, took my shower and went to sleep and didn't get up till the next day to start fresh for my month in Italy.

My one and only photo of Milan with a disposable camera

I did not let that experience ruin my trip to Italy. It definitely left an impression and was a weird way to start the month but I let it go and embraced every day I had there. I'm not gonna lie, the men in Italy, generally speaking, are kind of disgusting and inappropriate. I learned very early on that being polite to men in Italy only leads to unwanted flirtations and suggestive behavior. As a woman traveling alone, I learned to be rude and avoid any of the older Italian men. It was especially older men that acted this way. Not so much from the younger generation. Maybe it's different now since that was over 20 years ago. But again, as I have said, it did not diminish my experience and I still love Italy and would kill to go back there. Stay tuned for my time in Napoli (Naples)!

Start planning your trip now! Check out Expedia for travel plans to Italy.

I will be posting about my dream trip to Italy I would like to take now as an almost 50 year old. So keep an eye out!