In search of Madaripur!

Well .. after a nice tasty dinner and dessert, during which I watched the extra time to some soccer match (ended in a draw 2-2) at baldassarria and enjoyed heavenly tiramisu with beer and cigarettes (good combo for me I realized), I decided to call a taxi to go to my hotel far far away.

First I thought I will get some groceries, cigarettes etc for the night. Searched for a local tabacchi.. searched Google and got a store called Madaripur Mini market (or something like that). Hmm ... The Bangladeshi guy at the station said he's from Madaripur - to which I nodded as if I know the place. Madaripur again? Googled. It's a place/region in Bangladesh as expected. Maybe the guy was in a train with me from Turin to Milan to come to this store to work, or maybe family of the owner of the shop! Had to find out.

Biked around at 1130pm in central Milan to find the shop. Found it. Got to speak in bangla with the owners and bought my stuff.

BTW, I'm confidently speaking bangla to anyone who seems 40%+ desi to me now. No misfires yet. Saying to hawkers selling knickknacks "na dada .. chai na" (no brother, I don't need it) etc and getting very good response so far.

No, that random guy at station has nothing to do with the shop owners. But I got my closure (and groceries)!

Called a taxi. It showed something like $70 to go there. 40 minutes by car! Hotels.com 🤬🤬🤬🤬!!! That means I have to spend something similar to come to the city center again tomorrow. So much for biking around the city center for me. Will try to call and fight with hotels.com but Pooja advised not to since I didn't check the distance ... they won't refund.

After talking to Pooja decided to check in to a hotel nearby. Saw this one called hotel Paradiso. Seemed nice to look at ... At least the signs were all properly lit (no missing letters or flickering neon sign). Walked in, he said $70 a night and found myself the tiniest hotel room I've been in. Very happy so far (it's been 5 minutes in the room). It even has breakfast and has 4 stars!!! I should have checked all this before I paid for the room, but still .. I checked (after paying)! So that's the end of my adventure tonight.

Maybe I open a beer (Ceres pronounced CHeres, my new fav beer here), plan tomorrow's activities, smoke and sleep off. Gnite!Read more