A New Home and A Rescue Mission

A few days after arriving in Lucca, Francesco, our real estate agent from Sothebys came by our little Airbnb and drove us to visit our apartment, out of the city through the giant Porta Santa Maria gate and into the Borgo Giannotti, a cobbled street neighbourhood. It was lovely to meet him in person finally, and we chatted up a storm along the way. When we parked in front of our apartment it was unbelievable to actually be at the front door, right next to Vegrano the vegan restaurant. I have walked on google maps down the Borgo Giannotti towards the wall many times over the last few months and was pleasantly surprised to see that it is really is a hop skip and a jump away, and there are so many cute and interesting shops to explore.

We made our way through the long loggia, up the stairs and into the apartment which upon opening the door was as lovely as we hoped it would be. Mirko and Laura the vendors were there moving some last bits and pieces, and delighted in showing us around. Laura in her broken English that sounds absolutely divine, me in my fractured Italian, a bit of charades and a translation app when talking to Mirko who just smiles and smiles and smiles. We felt instant rapport, a lovely, warm couple. Laura works in events and Mirko in food and beverage industry. We chatted and I told Laura about my vegan gelato business in Australia and she felt that there was a great demand for vegan foods. Mirko, through Laura, said he had loads of contacts with all the local restaurants so there was definitely some common interests and synergies there.

As I excitedly looked around, hardly believing I was finally actually in the apartment that we had purchased online from Australia I made my way onto the balcony which was bathed in sunshine and the view was more spectacular than I could have hoped, with views to the mountains on both sides. There is an ancient building whose roof has caved within sight and mum reckons its an eyesore but I tell her just ignore it and look at all the other gorgeous buildings and the mountains! My mum has fallen head over heels in love with the bath tub which she felt was so huge that our guests could sleep in it! She reckons it would easily fit a single mattress!!

It was such a relief that the gamble paid off, that the apartment purchased all the way from Australia is so nice and will be a lovely place to make a home in. An amazing added bonus is that Laura and Mirko live next door, and we are so lucky to have such lovely new neighbours.

THE RESCUE FROM CARGO CITY

Later that day I booked my train ticket to MiIan as Pandy was due in the next day after her three day journey from Melbourne to Sydney to Dubai and then onto Milan. I had been so worried about her, wondering what on earth she was thinking, worried that she thought I had abandoned her, and also feeling so sad that she would be scared by the noises of the airports, planes and strangers. Thankfully, my worries for Pandy were allayed a little as the company I used for her travel, Pet Traveller sent me little updates and videos along the way. Nevertheless ever since I had landed in Italy I had felt that little furry someone missing from my life. So, with excitement and some trepidation as to how I would actually navigate the whole clearing customs saga and eventually bust Pandy out of Cargo City and into my arms, I planned my trip.

I was going to set off to Milan on my own, stay the night at the airport and return with Pandy the next day as with a same day trip, the train would have got me in back to Lucca at midnight and I really wasn’t sure how long the clearance process would take. Just before midnight, mum decided to come along for the journey and so more tickets were booked. I was worried it would be too much for her but she insisted, and in hindsight, thank goodness she was there with me. We had barely slept the night before and the jet-lag had finally kicked in. I’m frankly amazed I had my wits about me at all to even make it to Milan in once piece. I could easily have fallen asleep on the train and ended up goodness knows where. So after grabbing some fortifying coffees in Lucca we hopped on the train and changed in Firenze at Santa Maria Novella station. We had a wander, picked up some panini, marvelled at the trains, art, fabulously dressed people and waited for the beautiful Freciarossa fast train which runs at just under 300km an hour to whisk us to Milan.

Every time I have ever been at Santa Maria Novella they wait until almost the very last minute to announce what platform your train will depart from and then two minutes before the train is due to depart they change the platforms, and without fail, usually to the furthest platform from the one you were originally sent to. This time was no exception, so mum and I had to practically sprint across the length of the station to get on the train on time, me awkwardly running carrying Pandy’s little travel cage, and making sure mum was close by in my jet stream.

Before we knew it we arrived in Milan and then hopped onto the airport express to Malpensa, then the little airport bus that goes around the terminals which took us to Cargo City. It is honestly like arriving at some cargo space station from “The Expanse”. It is absolutely massive and the buildings are labeled A,B,C, etc. There are giant trucks driving everywhere and some even parked on the pedestrian walkway, the one and only safe place to walk and the walk between buildings is staggeringly huge.

My instructions for how to get Pandy cleared went something like this. Go to building E second floor to pickup some bit of paper, then go to building F second floor, pay some money, get a receipt then go back to Building E second floor. Go to building D 3rd floor (lift was broken) Customs department then back to Building E 2nd floor admin desk then back to building F to pay the duty and then finally to building E ground floor. Sounds straightforward enough, and yet it took me almost 3 hours, because there was no clear signage anywhere in any of these buildings and the corridors were miles long. Since I am in Italy, and am often mistaken for an Italian everyone spoke to me at 100 miles an hour. I was so exhausted I could barely string 3 words together in English never mind in Italian, so I just showeed them my paperwork and they would point and tell me walk for 10 minutes in that direction until you reach this window and then come back and so on. My mum rightly so, decided to park herself in Building E to rest a while at the last stop on my marathon Amazing Race to free Pandy.

When I finally finished all the clearance steps, (which nearly got derailed because I had thrown out my physical boarding pass and they were not going to let me clear Pandy. Miraculously I found it on my phone, which had about 2% battery life left, before it carked it literally moments after I got the approval), I rescued mum from the Building E waiting room. I looked so bedraggled, my legs were aching, I was feeling sweaty, dying of thirst and needing to go to the bathroom. My Fitbit was almost smoking as I had walked so many steps. We found our way to the ground floor and spied a ladies bathroom in some abandoned hallway and popped in. We laughed deliriously at the space where a sink should have been and just felt that it perfectly summed up the whole Cargo City experience.

Finally the moment had arrived, and we made our way to the loading dock desk, and there sitting all by herself in her travel crate on a pallet surrounded by men driving by with pallet movers and all kinds of racket going on was my beloved little furry bestie Pandy, who to be honest looked a bit bedraggled herself. The poor little thing just yelped and barked when she saw us and frantically was trying to escape out of the cage. I got sent out of her sight to yet another desk and could hear her yelping and barking and struggling so much that she knocked the water cup which was strapped onto her cage clean off. I finally got back to the counter where she could see me, but the guy behind the desk was non-communicative when I asked if I could take her now. I finally lost it a bit because I was so distressed by her distress and eventually he threw the bit of paper at me. and laconically motioned to a man to move Pandy’s pallet to another part of the dock on a forklift.

With only a bit of metal separating us, she was within my reach and I tried to open the cage and realised it had been cable-tied in several places so tightly I could not open the door. I was yelling asking for a knife , or anything to cut them off but no one was listening but mum eventually found a kind man who came and helped us. The poor thing was sitting on her blanket which was soaked and was absolutely beside herself, but when she was finally free, it was the greatest reunion ever as she jumped, yelped, licked and wagged her tail and ran between us sharing her love equally. I was so happy and also felt so sad for her, wishing I could know exactly how she was feeling and wishing she could know how loved, special and cared for she is.

With Pandy back with us, we made our way out of Cargo City and headed to our pet-friendly hotel the Moxy Malpensa where we promptly ordered a drink from the bar and thought finally we can put our feet up. Now I hardly ever drink but after that whole experience I just needed one and we wanted to celebrate having Pandybear back with us. We got settled into our room, fed Pandy and I got my phone plugged into recharge as I needed to check our train times for the next morning. Phone recharged I turned it on and it asked me for my SIM password. SIM password? What the heck is that? I tried my regular password, nope, tried to visualise the SIM card to see if I could recall four numbers from it, nope. Then it hit me that I could not access my train ticket because it is on my phone!!!! I went to the hotel front desk, and they kindly let me use their laptop to see if there was some way to access my train tickets another way, but of course google security kept sending codes to my old phone number and the OMIO travel app could not access my tickets without the reference number, which was on my phone. At the same time, their internet was dodgy and it took forever to realise I was actually up the creek without a paddle.

The extremely helpful and quick-thinking girl at the desk suggested the solution was to find a Vodafone shop nearby and see if they could decode the SIM. The nearest Vodafone shop was a 15 minute taxi ride away and was about to close, and so the hotel called up Daniele a wonderful driver who chauffeured me there. That car and Daniele smelled absolutely divine and I thought OMG I should not be setting foot in that car looking the mess that I was. Anyway, the very cool young guys at the Vodafone shop sorted it all out for me and allowed me to create my own password and all was well with the world. Daniele sped off back to the airport and while getting back onto the freeway had to take off suddenly as a truck appeared from nowhere, the car engine was so strong that the G’s hit me when he took off and I actually almost passed out. A couple of seconds longer and I am sure I would have. 40 Euros later, I stumbled out of that car back into the hotel sure I was likely going to drop dead any minute, but thinking at least my whole family was with me, and should I survive, at least I could finally access my train ticket and make my way home to Lucca with my fur baby in my arms.