Don't go asking for change looking like a beggar

All I wanted was to do my laundry.  My socks were potent, and I was fearing scabies.  I had worn all of my clothes for a rotation of weeks, and there is a CHEAP laundromat next door (3.50 euros).  But you need exact change.  I assume this will be a simple task of finding.

Now in the States, my flowing locks and flowery skirts with chacos make me something of an exotic in Boise.  A blossoming hippy.  Here in Milan, not so much.  Add to the image a very rainy day when everyone has on layers of scarves and jackets.  And, of course, umbrellas.  I have no such protection thinking that finding change will be an easy task.  It is turning from Fall to Winter here, and my otherness is all the more apparent today. 

So, having just showered, I am walking the street with wet hair and my sandals (because the socks are unwearable and about to be laundered).  To boot, I am also carrying a little plastic bag with my kebab doner in it and a Kiki Smith art book for some light reading.  People keep looking at me as if I am disordered, and when I realize that I look like a fucking "gypsy (sorry, there is no PC here)," any number of Jewish, Romanian, Lithuanian women who  beg the streets of Italy with long, black hair, thick eyebrows, and long skirts, I start smiling to myself, which adds to my strangeness.  Sorry, there is no PC here.

Italy has been known for its friendliness, but this is not so when you go into a bank looking like a wet, homeless person and ask for "Cambio," which may not even be the Italian word for "change" (I think it is Spanish only). 

Bank No. 1 declines me and hurries me out the door.  Bank No. 2, which I have broken into as it is only open for clients with a card (the woman who is a client looks a little pertubed that I am crowding her entrance as we enter the bank on her card), also declines me.  When people say "Go to the bank for change," don't listen to them.  Mind you this would not be such a chore (I walk everyday here) if it were not pouring rain.  And even the rain is not too bad.  So really it comes down to the fact that I look especially strange.

I finally admit that I am going to have to buy something that will leave me with exact change for the machines.  There is a great restaurant nearby that sells Turkish food, so I buy a stuffed pepper, put it in my little plastic bag to accompany my kebab doner, and head to the laudromat. 

My clothes washed and hanging in the room at the hostel, I fear another Amsterdam "drying," which will not entirely dry my clothes and leave them damp and slightly molding.  So be it.  I have heard Venice is warmer, and I am headed there tomorrow.  Enshallah.

It is a little thing, but I am really missing the convenience of one-stop shopping.  Having to go to one place for one thing and another place for another thing is a bit of a nuisance to my spoiled American sensibilities.  I know it's spoiled.  Still, what I wouldn't give for a change machine today :)