Spontaneous trip

The plan

If there is one thing I like to be is organized with my time. But sometimes you’ve got to break your little bubble of comfort and challenge yourself. Missing classes and organizing your schedule and assignments ahead of time is very good thing, but it also requires a different mentality, enabling you to be in a rhythm so different from everyone else.

On a completely random day (literally), my friend Mariana messaged our group saying that she had found very cheap airplane tickets and AirBnB’s to Bergamo, an italian city very close to the famous city of Milan. The planed seemed good, and so we invested in the idea and moved forward with the plan. Me, Mariana, Tiago and Sara would go on a spontaneous adventure to Italy in the middle of the semester. My strict time management wouldn’t let me be too radical, so we planned the days so that we wouldn’t miss neither important classes nor evaluations. And so we went on the adventure.

The preparation

The tickets cost 15€ each, and the AirBnB a total of 180€ for the four of us. The prices were good! But of course there was a small catch: the flights we were taking were from Ryanair. And what does that mean? We could only bring one handbag wih us. Well… is that such a bad thing? For four days of traveling, maybe not so much. So the only thing I took with me was my old orange backpack.

The beginning

I’ve had the experience of going to the airport on my own, with family and colleagues (for sports and other kinds of tournaments), but not solely with friends. I have to say that the organization is a lot different. I wanted to leave half an hour earlier than the others wanted to, but it was three against one. So we arranged half an hour later than what I thought would be a good hour.

The time came, and without directing anything to anyone, we were all four at the planned gate almost 20 minutes after the scheduled time, which makes it 50 minutes after what I would think was a decent time to leave. The result? Everyone slightly stressed out with the time, although unnecessarily. But this was a group trip, so either everyone or no one at the plane.

After three means of public transportation, we arrived at the airport at the Ryanair’s recommended time. So we passed security, got ourselves some food (I got a very good burger!) and went for the gate. The flight delayed half an hour while we were already between the gate and the door for the taxiways. As it seemed, there were problems with refuelling the plane’s water tank. Eventually, we got in. The flight would take an hour and a half.

1st day: Bergamo at nighttime

We arrived already during the night. The airport itself was a little small, but it could do the job. To get to the AirBnB, we took the airport bus and had to walk a little in the city center. First thing we did right after leaving the bus was to take a look at a church in front of the bus stop.

Then, we walked to the AirBnB. It was a very neat place for the price: two rooms, a living room, a kitchen and one bathroom. It was fully equipped with whatever we needed besides food (obviously), and so we went on a quick exploration for places to eat. We ate at a pastry, then at a place famously known for their focaccias, and ended up eating at a somewhat random restaurant. That was it for the first day. As a surprise, it randomly started snowing on the tight streets we were walking by. It made for a unique experience.

Once back at the AirBnB, we would plan the next day: Milan! So we booked train tickets before lunch time, planning to stay there for around seven hours. We called the day off.

2nd day: Milan

After waking up, we went straight for the train station. It was a very cold day. I was dressed as if I was going to climb a snowy mountain, while the others had somewhat comfortable clothing. After arriving at Milan, the first thing we did was to… go to a Decathlon shop. So the group got themselves some more cozy clothes (besides me ☺). After that, we finally tried to embrace the city.

Surprisingly, I got to know that my uncles were nearby on a trip of theirs but, unfortunately, we were unable to meet them since their train got delayed. By the time I was leaving Milan, they were arriving from Bergamo. It was really bad timing, but nevertheless a funny situation.

After arriving back from Milan, we got ourselves some McDonald’s and groceries for the night. There was a little market in the center of Bergamo from which I bought a small wooden plane with 145 pieces. I am still in the process of building it as I am writing this post. After that, we got ice cream and a brownie and went back to the AirBnB. We watched “The Hangover” and decided that, for the next day, we would be exploring more of Bergamo, but this time during daytime.

3rd day: Bergamo at daytime

This day was more relaxed. We had to check out at 11am and so, until then, we did our routines in a calmly manner. After that, we went exploring the city with our bags. We visited some shops, churches, touristic buildings, and by the end of the day an archeological museum.

At night, we selected a restaurant far from the city center and which had a very good rating on TripAdvisor: Trattoria Parietti. Before that, we passed by the weekend church session just in front of the restaurant until it opened. The restaurant food was amazing, and after that we explored the city for a little longer, with some amazing sightseeing spots at night. We ate an ice cream at the place we had before and passed by the little market in the center again. Then it was time to go to the airport.

Coming back

Our plan was simple: got to the airport at around 11pm, get passed security and stay at the gate doors until they opened. This way, we could maybe get some sleep or even work on our little projects. As it seems, the airport logistics were against us, and the gates’ section area would be closed until 3am. So… we basically stayed near the airport’s hall entrance until the gates would open. Some managed to get some sleep in the meanwhile.

Once inside the gate section area, some of us got some more sleep and eventually we got inside the plane. Tip: do not carry hand bags with Ryanair if you bought the simple flight ticket without any add-ons.

We got to Toulouse before lunchtime and simply took a Bolt back to campus. For the rest of the day, I would rest.

Key takeaways

I’ve decided that these posts are going to also be for retrospection, so in the end I will resume what I have learned and what were the key points.

This small trip allowed me to be a more spontaneous person. Besides that, I got to make decisions for myself on what to do in a place which was completely new to me. My responsibility was put into test. While writing this post I realized I might have to be more organized with my pictures as I still have a lot of bad ones and others repeated in my phone’s gallery. I could have taken more pictures of the food I ate too, which is closely associated with the local culture. Additionally, I am finding the flow of writing fascinating since I am not really stopping from writing and checking for what I have written. There might be some mistakes and badly phrased ideas, but I feel like I need to start using my time more efficiently. So, I will use AI to review my text and rewrite it to find and fix these potential mistakes. I will try to keep the writing as close as possible to the original form, since I still want to leave the touch of my own words in the posts.

Next, I plan to work on a post related to the week I spent in the southern part of France with my parents. The dates of the posts are not accurate as I want them to reflect a date near the end of the experiences. This is another thing I want to work on: do things at the right time and not do them later.

Note: As it can be seen, the formatting is not quite pleasing. This will still undergo some maintenance.