Mon 08/08/05
After I finished packing my stuff and making my sandwiches (two nights and one day changing trains! Gosh!) I picked my backpack up and my journey started!
I went to the railway station of La Spezia to get my ticket to Milan, doing the *special* ticket from Milan to the border. But you know how things work in Italy, don’t you? If not I'll tell you: Italy is the most unorganised Country in which I've been! Don't know, maybe I can say that because I live here. I've never lived abroad, just been there as a tourist, I believe that you have to live in a place to really notice how things work… >so maybe Italy isn't the most unorganised State in the world! Let's deceive ourselves...<

Anyway let's go on!
Having the interrail you can purchase a ticket to reach the Italian border with a discount of 50%. So I told the ticket collector that I'd got a two zones inter-rail ticket and I asked him to have a discount ticket from Milan to the border passing through Verona. I also told him which trains I was going to take, showing him the reservations. He looked at me...
...and then said:«I don't see any kind of inter-rail discount on my computer»
-Mmm?- «It should be 50% of the total price…» I said…
«You don’t pay for tickets in Zone B (Sweden, Norway, Finland) and Zone C (Denmark, Germany, Switzerland, Austria, Lichtenstein) but you have to pay in Italy.» he replied.
Me:«I know, but for 22 days from the day my ticket becomes effective I have a 50% discount for trips in Italy, as well as for transit through Countries which are not part of the zones I’ve purchased. In my case, I need a ticket from Milan to the Austrian border.»
-It's not so difficult, honey!-
He said:«I’m sorry but I can’t see anything here.» -God!-
«Don’t you have a brochure or something? I think it’s written there.»
-Why do I always find stupid people on my way? It’s your job! Not mine! Why should I know doing your job better than you?-
He:«No, I’m sorry, but if there’s nothing on the computer means that you don’t have any discount. I can sell you a normal ticket from Milan to Brenner, which is the last Italian station before Austria.»
-Fuck you!- «Well, no matter, how much is it?»
«17.40 €»
So I got it and took my train to Milan, it was 18:40, more or less. But on the train I kept on thinking about the ticket… not for the price (17 € isn’t that much!) ...but because I’m a stubborn person and when I believe that I’m right means that I AM right, and I must figure it out.
So I picked my ticket up and I started to read any single little note. And I found it!

When the tickets-controller came I told him everything and he also told me that the ticket that man gave me was incorrect not only because of the price, but also because it was a normal national ticket but it should have been an international one (don't ask me what it means because I don't know, seeing as the fare is the same) so double mistake!
Anyway he told me to go to the customer service in Milan and ask to have a refound but I didn’t go.
I arrived in Milan at 22:15 (more or less) and I took the underground to Lambrate, then I met up my friend Benedetta. She was there with her father and we chatted a little (he is an architect).
When it was almost 10 past midnight…

Oops this is another day!