picture it......italy......2006

a young man arrvies in milan full of wonder and nervousness at being in a country where he doesnt speak the language. the route the train arrives on doesnt show milans best side, but i digress.

Alex met me at the station, so there were no problems. we found me a hotel 1 block away from Centrale so i couldnt really get lost. (famous last words)

Hotel Bernina !! picked it in honour of brett.

wandering around milan i am stunned at the beauty of the buildings. they are all so old, and so italian (naturally..what did i think they would be?) Alex speaks great english, solanguage isnt a problem. Hey i even went in several times to buy ciggarettes on my own. (mind you how hard is it to say buona sera, una marlborough lights por favor, and grazie)

The food here is wonderful

we caught a tram to alexs house later on, on the first night, and typical of the full moon, all the looneys were out. the first one we came across on the tram was deaf a litle crazy i think. we were not sure he was italian. anyway ended up saying a few things to him in sign language, and he was impressed that a hearing person could sign. besause sign language is different in every country, i think he either said he liked me or he loved me.

and at one stage you woudl think we were in asia, not italy, as alex and i were the only non asians on the tram. then this other strange man started speaking to me on the tram.. i think saying something about how i was speaking sign language to the deaf guy and it seemed he liked it. but we didnt know what language he was speaking. (waroum ich??)

i got to see where alex lives, and then at 10.30 at night we went to the shopping mall. here the shopping mall was open until about 1 or 2 am. makes germany seem 3rd world with the sunday trading thing, and the italians are more religious.

its so hot here but at least im getting a tan. (you can probably see it in the pictures ive uploaded.

the 2nd day in miulan we did a lot of walking. we climbed to the top of a church in the centre of milan and i had no idea how huge milan was, as doesnt seem that way from the ground.

time to sample the italian mcdonalds. hmm.. it was ok.. better than australia, but germany is still in the lead.

that night we traveled to a county town about 2 hours from milan. a freind of alexs has an abandonded house there, where no one lives, but he is creating a garden there. there for 5 of us there for a BBQ. wow, to see italians and their way of life. they are so passionate, and a little crazy (crazy in a fun and good way) i was made to feel very welcome, even if no one would really speak english. i woudl have to say that the italians are the friendliest people i have come across in europe so far.

turns out Andre, a friend of alex, had taken a bit of a shine to me, and was flirting a bit. (mostly via alexs wonderful interpreting skills. english is not spoken a lot here. everyone learns it at school, but nearly everyone is scared to speak it. but surprisingly i did understand a lot fo what was being said. maybe not every word, but the main jist of it. which is strange because i dont speak italian. although it is amazing how many italian words i know.

much wine was drunk, many laughs had, and i felt so happy to have met such a nice group of people. it was truely a great night. although i was extremely tired when i fell into bed, i only managed to get about an hours sleep before waking up again and unable to return to sleep. needless to say i was very tired the next day.

i did manage to get some shut eye on the train to venice though, even if the italian woman next to us didnt seem to want to stop talking, about anything and everything under the sun.

we arrived in Venice. WOW !! oh my god what an amazing place. despite being tired i was alive with excitment. Thanks to Joseph who said this place was a must....it certainly is. what a unique and romantic place this is. we got totally lost going to the hotel, but eventually found it. we are lucky to be minutes from the main bridge. but its costing a fortune. (lucky its only 2 nights.)

we walked around the city for about 5 hours, before my feet were ready to drop off. around every corner is another surpise. i think i took dozens of photos...im such a tourist. i seem to have this thing for windows here. am taking heaps of pics of them.

got to fulfil my italian dream of having a real italian pizza and red wine in a piazza.

the 2nd day in venice was very very hot. well it was only 28 degrees but the sun was biting and the air is very still. explored more of the city. amazing how it was all built back then. its easy to forget that tghe canals are not rivers but are actually the ocean, until you come to the edge of the city and see the sea. we returned to the hotel at 2.30 for a bit of a siesta, to let the sun go down a bit.

one thing i did notice in the difference between milan and venice is that i think the guys were sexier in venice. funnily, the cute guys in milan were all police, and in venice they seem to be the guys who drag the delivery carts around.

there isnt much to do in venice, except wander around, which despite the occaisional waft of piss or sewerage, is like walking through a wonderland. in every nook and cranny there is something interesting to see, and we have already clocked up 15 hours in 2 days of walking and you never get bored. the one thing about venice is that with its little lanes and tiny streets and multiple squers and piazzas its hard to know exatly where you are at any given time. if you want to get somewhere specific you have to constantly check the map. but wandering aroudn with out planning too much was more fun.

i didnt come across any internet in italy..and i was getting anxious as hadnt heard from my friend in rome. he had sent me his phone number via email, but as i thought i would have internet in italy i didnt store it on my phone, but had emiled him mine.. since i didnt hear from him i had to make the decision to head back to zurich rather than go to rome and stay in a hotel.

it was fun to surprise marius, who i think was actually speechless. it was lucky that he had the next 2 days off. yesterday we went to a mountain where they have the world longest bobsled on rails. kind of like luge meets go karting. lots of fun.. i was so nervous about doing it but ended up havinga ball.
am in zurich for a few days before going back to germany.

in the mean time, check out the pics.