As the saying goes, "Maybe God is trying to tell [yaa] something..."
MIlan, is the love we once had gone?!
Remember the blog post where my travel partner and I got kicked out / had to GET OUT of our cutesy Milano Airbnb our very first day abroad?! Well, after taking a break from Milan and traveling to Germany and Croatia, we returned to Milan after exactly one month. We really needed a vacation from our vacation, so that was the plan in Milan. But Milan, once again, seemed to have a different idea.
Cue the drama…
After arriving to our new lovely! (& legit) Airbnb, we decided to take a stroll around the neighborhood. Everything was going smoothly until my travel partner’s mobile phone fell into a tiny crack in the sidewalk.
And this was no ordinary crack. This crack, which probably has a special architectural name, was just the width and depth for the phone to fall inside of but not wide enough to reach inside of and too deep to actually reach the phone. The phone even had to be exactly in line with the crack for it to fall inside. It was like the perfect storm. Unbelievable! I mean really Milan . . . here you go again! Can we not have peace at least the first night?!
Pictured: the little c "crack" 🙃
We immediately began looking for any and everything to retrieve the device. It seemed like we tried everything! After several curious looks by passersby, two Albanian gentlemen stopped to help. Well, they really wanted to know why we were on the ground shining my cell phone flashlight over the tiny crack. They were kind enough to try to assist before one of them decided that the job required extra tools located at his home. While he went to get the items, there we were: three people hunched over a tiny crack in the pavement . . . with a phone flashlight . . . two twigs, one paper plate, and a purse strap.
Suddenly a lightbulb flashed in my mind: make a "paper plate boat." So I did, and it worked!
Utilizing the items we had available, I constructed a “boat” by folding the paper plate in half and attaching the purse strap to each side to create a pulley of sorts, lodged it into the tiny crack, scooped the phone onto the “boat” with the twigs, and slowly pulled the purse strap up to lift the paper plate boat through the crack with the phone in tow!
After all the contemplation and effort, this simple contraption allowed us to retrieve the phone within minutes!
💭 C'mon inner engineer! Won’t sHe do it! ✨
Special thanks to our new Albanian acquaintances, one who is a chef, for stopping to assist! Although the phone was already retrieved, "the chef" eventually returned with a crowbar, screwdriver, pliers and wire. He wasn’t playing! lol
Pictured: Yaa x Albnanian "Good Samaritan" who waited with us while his friend went to get tools.
Overall this was a 30-45 minute incident but it felt like hours. #dramaticmuch
Hopefully, Milan gets its little act together asap! Or perhaps Milano — not so low-key — is trying to tell me something. Hmmm…
See Yaa Milan, perhaps...if you get some "act right"! #NoMoreDramaPlease 😘