June 12th, 2007

Ciao Italia – Dobrý den Praha!

Ahh, the last day in Milan…

And what a day it was. Beautiful weather greeted us every day of the trip, with temps in the mid 70’s, but this day was the most spectacular of all. It was the absolute perfect day to get on a train, head for Lake Como and sit in the sun all day long. Any outdoor activity at all would be enjoyed to the fullest on a day like Tuesday.

In other words, it was the WORST DAY EVER to have to sit inside a TV truck for fourteen hours. Which is precisely what I did.

The beautiful day crept by outside the audio room door, and before I knew it, the show was over. (Not really, but thankfully, the human brain doesn’t actually record truly traumatic events, like a car crash, having mortar shells fall on you, or mixing Smackdown in Italy.) That is the reason I didn’t take any pictures, I didn’t want to jar those horrific memories loose at a later date and trigger a flashback.

In any event, my vacation in Milan drew to a close, and it was time to take a cab to the train that would take us to the plane that would take us to Prague!

But before that, I’d like to share a few things I learned about Italy:

1 – The Taxi Trick. Every time I took a cab, the meter started with a random amount – from three to eleven Euro – already showing. Strange how drivers that spoke perfect English when I got in suddenly forgot the entire language when it was time to argue about the meter. One cabbie (I dubed him Mr. Eleven Euro Richer) made sure to drop me off right next to a police officer, just in case I felt like bitching about the fare.

2 – Good night – Sleep tight – Don’t let the bedbugs bite does NOT apply to the Jolly Hotel beds in Milan. The first morning, I had at least five bites all over (and I do mean ALL OVER) that weren’t there when I went to sleep. One of the audio crew, Greg Rudy, had three bedbug bites on his right eyelid which was so swollen it looked like he had wrestled and lost a ‘Last Eye Open’ match.

3 – Red wine is good for your heart. It has been said that even though Italian cuisine is loaded with fat, the fact that red wine comes with every meal keeps the instance of heart attacks down. That’s why many Americans drink a glass a day to keep the cardiologist away. Well, it might help, but the main reason that Italians are in good shape is they do a little thing called WALKING or BICYCLING to get from place to place. And they also eat reasonably small portions of food, compared to what American restaurants serve.

4 – Be careful! That bottle of water just might be ‘sparkling.’ Not bad if you expect it, a little shocking if you aren’t. Speaking from experience, sparkling water burns as it comes out the nose.

5 – Speaking of shocking, be very careful! 220 European volts are much MUCH more powerful than the United States paltry 110. US electric razors plugged into European outlets will almost immediately self-destruct with a very entertaining explosion. Also, if you touch the prongs on a European power adapter – as one crew member we’ll just call Frizzle Fry found out the hard way – you may just explode as well.

6 – A good sense of humor, a little patience and a big smile go a long way toward muddling through language barriers. A working knowledge of Charades doesn’t hurt either. Everyone I encountered in Italy was much nicer and far more patient than I expected. If I listened hard and watched the wildly gesturing hands closely, I could usually pretty much figure out the general idea of what was being said.

6A – Mennagio sounds – and mimes – the same as Bellagio.

7 – Italian graffiti artists aspire to be the next Da Vinci, and the entire city is their canvas:

OK, with those little nuggets of wisdom safely out of the way, on to Prague!!

When the WWE announced this two week, work-related European Vacation, they told us that we’d have three days off between Milan and London. Most of the crew opted to stay in Italy to see Rome or Venice, head directly to London, or go trippin’ off to Amsterdam. Abi and I decided to travel to the Czec Republic instead, mostly because it offered the smallest chance of running into anyone else on the crew.

The easiest way to get from Prague to Milan? No, not motorcycles…. (NEXT TIME) Obviously, the easiest way to go is…