O/T A bleg. I have a Brasiliera been mugged in Milan. Lost her docs, cards & money. Doesn’t know anyone there, speak Italian or understand the place. (WTF she wanted to go to Milan in the first place? Shithole of a city.) Currently I have her roosted in a hotel in the burbs & I’m feeding her via plastic. Need someone there I can transfer money to for her. Some working money to get her mobile to do the consulates (Brasil for a passport, Spain for a visa, replacement NIE). I don’t fancy having to retrieve her, deported, from Brasil.
Any ideas? Nearest person I’ve got’s a Cubana in Naples.
From Bloke In Spain of these parts.
I’d love to help but I’m actually miles from Milan, so sorry, don’t think I can do much for her.
To add to the already unhelpful reply, no can do here either, left Milan 17 years ago.
Agree it’s a shithole.
What’s stopping her going back to Spain and do the paperwork there?
Good question, Bi1VR.
You try & get on any cross frontier transportation without docs. She’s on a Brasilian passport although she does have residence here. So also a Spanish ID doc. All of them nicked. And I can’t Western Union money to her because they won’t give it to her sans ID
I can see me having to go get her, at this rate. 4000 km odd, round trip. But I still have the same problem. Frontiers aren’t generally a difficulty but the highways are. Get stopped on the autovia & I’m carrying an undocumented alien. That’s serious fine territory & nobody is going to be receptive to complicated explanations. Possibly less problematic to travel in daylight, blend in with the traffic. I can do the outward in a day. The return could require 2 overnight stops. Papers for registering in hotels? Smuggling her into a room is exactly what’d get picked up on CCTV result in a call to the law.
I’ve just been telling her. The bag you carry in Milan is the disposable. You carry valuables on your body. The vindictive fix razor blades in it as a gift to the taker. It’s just that sort of city.
And thanx Tim. Yer a diamond geezer.
Surely there’s a Brazilian consul in Milan? Yes there is, I’ve checked.
The consulate general of Brazil in Milan is located at Corso Europa 12 and can be contacted by telephone on 02 777 1071 and 335 7278 11
Damn. I too am a long way from Milano.
Does she still have her phone? And any sort of ID? Though I am sure you have thought of Western Union…
Probably not relevant, but reminds me of blaggers begging in the street:
* Help, I’ve lost my money and I’m on probation and have to get back to Leicester.
* You’re in luck! I’m a local councillor, I’ll just take you to the local police station and we can arrange a travel warrent to get you… hello… hello…
Thanks for the suggestion, BF. I know the consulates in Milan. The Russian one I’m quite familiar with 😛 But they’re central & she’s out in the burbs. She needs to visit in person. Why I’m trying to get some working money to her. And I doubt it was open today. Most European offices aren’t. Phone didn’t get answered anyway.
Had my share of those jgh. They get & direct FO. However this one I know.
ToBiI I hate using WU. They’re a rip off. I can usually organise cash pick ups from specified bank with World Remit for far less. But that like WU requires ID….
Just to say that whereas Spanish hotels require everyone to show ID, French hotels tend not to, in my experience. Airbnb is an option. No private owner has ever asked me for ID
bis, buy her a plane ticket. Tell her to travel hand luggage only.
In the 1/1000 probability there is any doc check getting on the plane in Italy, she can get the train.
Or make her take the train as a lesson that you should only visit decent Italian cities like Lugano.
There are, (admittedly pre-2019 experience), zero cross-frontier doc checks on trains or planes. If you check in with a real person they may want to see one. Otherwise, get your boarding card on app or machine at airport and no one cares who you are. Sole exception: Sweden, where they want to see an ID on the way out on planes, and on the way in on the train from Copenhagen. Yes, I have plenty of experience in travelling while looking possibly Brazilian.
Now technically, you are supposed to carry ID when crossing a Schengen border, but 99 times out of 100, no one cares.
Incidentally, I used to go to Lugano from Milan regularly, often sans passport, in pre-Schengen days. It became a problem when I decided to go back to Italy on the same day as a brown British terrorist with Italian residency, having failed to bomb a tube train, chose to travel back to Italy across Europe by train. That was an interesting discussion at Chiasso station, and I had no idea why until the guy was arrested.
It’s worth a try, unless you want to fund an extended holiday in Milan…
Incidentally, there are probably unmanned check-in kiosks at Cadorna station, no need to even go to the airport to find out. Tho repeated Alitalia bankruptcies may have changed things. You can likely collect a boarding card with nothing more than a booking reference or ticket number.
Back in the day of course…
Not to mention a strong basic income?
No, this is that awkward moment when you realise a foreign country is a foreign country.
@? Is this that awkward moment when you realize open borders are a good thing?
It’s all good until someone flies a plane into you capitol.
Are you really that stupid?
Thanks for the advice, Bit4R, but I’ve had some experience of travelling around Europe recently. At the moment I’m trying to do this legally, not playing roulette. It’s the other side of Europe’s migrant crisis you don’t hear about. They’ve a tendency to stomp all over people with papers irregularities with big boots. And at the moment she’d have great difficulty proving she’s here legally. I don’t want to have to be digging her out of custody;. She doesn’t have the advantage of being an Albanian who’s burnt his papers & pretending to be a child of 14.
Maybe if she can get to a Brazilian or Portuguese ristorante in Milan, they might help and you could send them cash? Likely to be in the centre but at least they should speaka da lingo. Map of some Brazilian ones is here.
https://www.thefork.co.uk/restaurants/milan-c348156/brazilian-t454#geo_dmn_redirect=20210629AT100
Yeah. It was one of the things I thought of. The expat Brasilian community are great at helping out. I plug into it & it’s been great help to me, at times. But unfortunately my lass is right out in the burbs without a cent. A bit much to ask her to walk 15km in to ask around & maybe 15km back if she gets no joy. And it really would take a personal visit. You can’t do this sort of thing over the phone. You don’t know who you’re talking to & she needs the cash in her hand.
As it is we seem to have got something going with the receptionist at the hotel I got her in. I just got their bank details for a transfer. Amazing what effect a slim, tanned, mid 20’s brasiliera with legs & an ass would make subjects for poetry can have on the vulnerable. Why do you think I’m going to all this trouble?
There are, (admittedly pre-2019 experience), zero cross-frontier doc checks on trains or planes.
The last couple of times I’ve taken the Milan-Turin-Lyon-Paris TGV there was a border check by French gendarmes at Modane, which meant having to root around for my passport. I’ve see black faces lifted off Austrian-German trains, as well.
I did quite a bit of training work in Milan in the late 90s, and never encountered any problems, though I’m sure there were dodgy areas, as in any major city – it doesn’t compare with (e.g.) Naples. On one occasion my wife accompanied me and some tiny Roma girl (they’re ubiquitous across tourist areas of Italy) tried to get their hand into her handbag. I shouted, gave chase and grabbed her hoody, which she wriggled out of. I could have grabbed her, but the thought occurred as to what I could do with her? Since I didn’t want to spend a fruitless day in the cop shop (like all her ilk she was far beneath ‘age of responsibility’), I let her run off and stuffed her hoody into the filthiest litter bin I could find.
I hope your Brasiliera gets home safely, BiS.
This is of course a scam.
Any mention of Western Union makes that absolutely certain.
You do realise besmirching the reputation of a lady of negotiable affections is a serious matter Mr MacFarlane? You could get yourself in deep trouble with the Guild of Seamstresses & have the Agony Aunts on your case.
And no. I’ve known her for years.