Vi faccio entrare nel mio disordine – prima puntata

Non ho idea per l’intro. Andiamo vai vai vai vai.

Day 1

Barely had an hour or something of sleep. I ended up waking up earlier and could never really fall back asleep. I suppose it was the excitement. I was never gonna have a lot of sleep that night, seeing as Sanremo ended late and I had to wake up very early for the bus, but it sucked to not fully use the little time I did have for sleep. Oh well.

As I headed towards the bus station, I was filled with excitement, smiling. And drinking a protein yogurt. This will be relevant, I swear.

The bus started. The music started. I believe the first song I played was Un ragazzo Una ragazza, perche it certainly has late night/early morning vibes, and this was still very early morning so I thought it fit.

Fino a qui tutto bene.

But it got worse. And at one point it became too much. I won’t describe it in detail cause you don’t want me to, but I had to make a quick decision to take the things out of my small plastic bag meant for toiletteries and use it for v-wording. Was the yogurt a bad choice before the bus? Whatever it was, as soon as I got off I bought some medicine against nausea in order to not have a repeat. It was certainly not the way I wanted things to start. It was quite an early low, but I knew it could only get better from here. I regrouped and soon it was time for the bus towards Italia (Trieste). The excitement quickly took back over, and the nausea was fading away.

I happened to be assigned the first row panoramic seat on that bus. Now I know that it’s worth buying those seats. I was listening to the Sanremo 2024 songs, on a bus towards Italia. I was happy. Songs grew on me. In particular Click Boom! by Rose Villain. I started getting hooked. Later on noticed she has an anime header on Spotify. Irrelevant but something I absolutely loved seeing. It’s a lovely feeling when songs grow on you. Little things like that make the feeling around it even better.

It was overcast, eventually a bit rainy too through Slovenia. It feels like most of the time I’m on a bus through Slovenia the weather is similar to that. Then came the joy of once again entering Italia. It’s been some 17 months since the last time. This time would be the longest time spent there as well as the longest international solo travel so far.

Left the bus at Trieste. Had a bit of time to walk around before the train to Bologna. I was taking in the moment. Once again I was in Italia. And that thought brought me joy.

I saw a poster for an Ultimo concert in Trieste, and took a picture but it turns out it ended up being a bad picture so not really good enough to post oops. Quickly felt a sense of needing to adjust a bit to the road crossings. Both in the likelihood of cars letting me through, and respect for traffic lights.

I went to a pizza place and took a pizza for outside and walked around Trieste with the pizza box. The area around the canal stinked but nonethless it was good to be back for a bit to a place with lovely memories. Like the last time, rain was involved, this time to a lesser extent than at some moments during the last time.

Back around the station, I tried to navigate my way to the store that’s basically within the station. Needed to get some fluids for the upcoming train ride. Wanted it to be a “chin8neri”, in order to try something specifically Italian. Only to realize it was actually something I already tried in Torino, albeit from a different brand. And it was actually something I thought was fine, but nothing I’d get obsessed with or anything. In the end I didn’t get the drink again at any point, which I now kinda regret. For whatever reason I really wanted to find the specific “chin8neri” but failed to find it in any store so that was that. Oh and in the store I could hear Amadeus talking about Sanremo. How beautiful it felt that something I enjoy so much felt relevant in the place I was in and to the people around me.

Made sure to get onto the right train. The right class too. Didn’t think I was in the correct coach number however, but even if I wasn’t, in the end it probably didn’t matter. The tickets weren’t checked till a while on the ride. I believe it was the first time I was in a train with snack and coffee machines. The latter I actually ended up using later on when the lack of sleep started kicking in.

An exciting thought was the fact I’d be discovering Italy via train, to the extent I haven’t done before. And it would even go through Venezia Mestre.

Briefly got reminded of the mundane and kinda got zoned out of the moment with a message from wOrk, which wasn’t anything actually important. After making it known I won’t be doing anything till when I return (and I didn’t need to), I put my mind off it and refocused on the enjoyable things in front of me. Ofcourse played Sanremo songs, not just from this year but previous years too. I’d think back a bit to all the moments over the years of being immersed into Italy/Sanremo, and how I’m doing something special this year. I’d think of all the dusk moments of listening to Italian songs or learning Italian, and now during the dusk I was listening to those same songs in an Italian train. As Geolier’s song grew on me, I felt hype, probably both by the song and the things I was currently doing.

The night was approaching by the time the train was making it to Bologna. I left my seat at least 5 minutes too early. I left the train at what is the biggest train station I’ve ever seen and experienced. Loads of people around me as I try to navigate my way around. Someone asks me where is something, and I reply how I’m here for the first time, quindi (in Italian). The signs showed multiple exits. I couldn’t find the main exit at first, but eventually I made it after some back and forth.

Now it was time to navigate towards the apartment. The dusk was in its final stages. I quite liked “commemorating” it by walking around Bologna. I didn’t quite go through it beforehand step by step where I needed to go. Getting out of the station at the correct place felt like it could end up being harder than the “going around Bologna” part.

As I started getting a sense for what kind of place Bologna is, it started registering with me that I’ll spend the next few days here. Certainly a lot of portici. Definitely not an empty place, loads of people around. Positive first impressions and vibes of the city.

There were more people than these images give the impression.

I reached the apartment. The check-in and check-out was all self-service, a first time experiencing the concept. And I liked it. I had to enter a code to first enter a “lobby” room which later on also served as a luggage storage room. Then I used another code to get the keys to the apartment door from a safe (where I put the keys back inside at check-out). The apartment included, crucially for my purposes, a large TV in front of the bed, but also a microwave, washing machine, dishwasher, coffee machine. Fridge too ofcourse. Took me a bit of time to figure out how to plug in the appliances I’d want to use. I would’ve used the washing machine but there wasn’t any detergent or at least I couldn’t find it (not that I didn’t look for it). Buying a detergent for one wash felt like a waste so I gave up on the idea.

What I did go buy was food. My first full Sanremo back in 2017 was accompanied by milk and chocolate flakes as well as a store bought tiramisu for the final. I went back to my “roots”. I bought the same stuff but this time it was from an Italian store, for watching Sanremo within Italy. Oh and I got some bananas too. I wanted to go to a Conad store since apparantly one was near the apartment, but then when I got to where it was supposed to be, I couldn’t quite see the store. Instead I went to a Coop which was also relatively nearby. I had experience from Coop from the few days in Trieste.

Felt a bit of a shock due to the prices. The flakes were quite expensive, and the fruit prices felt pretty terrible. But if there was a time to splurge, it would be during this time.

Returned to the apartment, showered, ate the dinner. Went to the bed and watched Sanremo. Had no idea how I was gonna make it till after 1am with so little sleep, but I managed. Wondered if anyone from the other apartments/rooms could hear the TV still playing late in the night. I don’t think it was that loud anyway, but even if someone heard, surely they’d understand during this week in Italy?

Went to sleep quickly after the final competing song was performed. The classifice never bothered me anyway (yeah right but I did prefer just not thinking about them a lot so missing them was perhaps even a positive).