My strange and exciting New Years in Milan, Italy was an experience that I will never forget. One particular story that stands out was a train ride from Milan to Lugano, Switzerland. My wife Allison and I had arrived in Milan a few days earlier. We explored the beautiful architecture of the city and ate some wonderful food.

     Everything was fairly normal up until the morning of New Years Eve. We woke up in our hostel and ate a simple breakfast of toast and juice. After this we decided to go up to Lugano, Switzerland for the day and then come back for the festivities that night in Milan. From Milan to Lugano was only about a one hour train ride. We walked to the train station to purchase our tickets and we were on our way to Switzerland for the day.

      The scenery on the way up was amazing. It was very mountainous and full of huge snow covered trees. Lugano was gorgeous as well. The city is built around a lake high in the mountains which gives it a small mountain town ambiance. We walked around the steep sloping city and ate a nice lunch. Speaking with some of the locals was interesting, they were all very friendly.

     The day was actually pretty ordinary until we were set to go back to Milan. We went to the train station and just missed the 4:00pm train. The next train was not due to arrive for another 45 minutes. Allison and I went and sat on a nearby bench to wait for the train. Within a few minutes a group of 5 or 6 hippies approached us. They sat down next to us, two of them had guitars that they began to play. They played "By the Rivers of Babylon" in Russian. This is a great song and to hear it in Russian was intriguing. It may have been the only song that they knew how to play, because they played it for the entire 45 minutes that we were waiting. Allison and I tried to talk with them, but they spoke little to no English and we spoke no Russian. For the most part all that we were able to establish between ourselves was where we were from. The music was nice, over and over again though. The train arrived and Allison and I boarded. The Russian hippies stayed there and continued playing the same song.

      When we got on the train there were only two people on the car that we were in. One was a large man that looked like a professional body builder. He had a rottweiler on a leash with him that was nearly as big as he was. The other was a bald middle aged man. He was wearing old torn up faded jeans and an army green jacket. This man was not siting down in the seats. He was standing up holding a bicycle.

     He immediately approached us, and began loudly mumbling something as he did so. When he got a bit closer to us I noticed that he had a gigantic Rambo knife at his side. The man put his bicycle against one of the seats and began pointing at us saying "from?, from?". Allison and I looked at one another and we had that non-verbal agreement like "this guy’s crazy". I decided I better try to speak with him so I replied "the United States". He smiled very wide and I noticed that he only had 1 tooth in his mouth. I was relieved that he was smiling though. I mimicked his method and pointed and asked "from?". He quickly responded "Deutch". At first I thought he was saying "Dutch", and I said something about Holland. He looked at me in a confused way and I knew that he was German and had said "Deutch" not "Dutch".

     Suddenly his expression on his face changed and he looked very angry. He puffed up his chest and started pounding on it like you picture a gorilla doing. The man began speaking very loud and fast in German. Neither Allison or myself had any clue as to what he was rambling about. The only thing that I could think of doing was to respond with a smile and nod. This apparently was not a bright idea, it upset him more. His actions became more violent and he started pounding on his chest even harder and pointing at me. Allison and I had no idea how to react, so I kept smiling and telling him "I don’t understand".

     Then he quickly reached down and started pulling something out of his sock. It was only a few seconds but it seemed like a lifetime. I had many thoughts while he was fumbling around. Did he have another knife or a small gun he was reaching for? Was he going to attack us? Then the moment came when he found what he was looking for. He pulled it out, held it close to my face and smiled. He had a set of false teeth in his hand. He didn’t put the teeth in his mouth, he apparently just wanted to show them to us because afterward he just put them back in his sock and went and sat down. He didn’t communicate with us in any way after this.

     When we finally arrived back in Milan, Allison and I were both a bit weirded out by this. We got off the train and went downtown to watch the New Years firework display. There were many other strange things that occurred throughout the night, but those are stories all on there own.