Thanksgiving en route to Milan

One of the least comfortable places to sleepMy Thanksgiving started a bit earlier this year. At midnight, more precisely, which is roughly when my “day” began. I had decided, with two of my close friends in Paris, to go to Milan over this past weekend, which happened to be Thanksgiving in the US. Unfortunately, the friend who booked the tickets accidentally chose the flight leaving at 6:45 AM Thursday morning. We’d have to get to Charles de Gaulle airport by around 5 AM, which is before the metros open and the airport buses and trains are running. We were, of course, not thrilled about this, nor about the thought of paying sixty to eighty euros for a cab.

Our French friend Justin suggested we call Julio: we don’t know exactly how the two know each other, but Julio is Spanish and working in France; at night, he becomes an unofficial taxi driver in Paris. Justin spoke to Julio, who volunteered to drive us to the airport for thirty-five euros. We’d still have to leave around four or four-thirty, but it was by far the best option.

Then, Wednesday night, Julio’s car broke down. (At least that’s what we were told.) Anyway, we ended up on a regular bus to Porte de la Chapelle, at the north-eastern edge of Paris, just before midnight, and from there, after near-desperate searching for the right bus stop, on a Noctilien (night bus) to the airport. We must have arrived around 1 AM, and spent the next few hours wandering around the cold airport, passing homeless people in sleeping bags on the floor, attempting to sleep first on the chairs (very hard, and with incredibly uncomfortable armrests) and then resting on our bags on the floor, until two airport security men and their muzzled dog asked us to move. I was still sick with a bad cold, but I think all three of us were pretty miserable.

Once we could finally check in and board, we slept through the entire hour-and-a-half flight and the hour-long bus ride from the airport to our hostel. The rest of our Thanksgiving involved a delicious lunch (risotto alla Milanese, colored gold with saffron), a much-needed shower and nap, an Italian pastry from a dessert truck parked near the Duomo, and a dinner of aperitivi (a buffet of appetizers, free with your drink in most bars in Milan) and a giant mojito. And I don’t think we could have been more thankful for our hostel beds that night.

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