Milan Life

Alright...so I have been here for three weeks now! It doesn't feel like that long, and my holiday before i came here feels like it happened last year...
It has taken some time to adjust to the Italian way of life, it is all so different from Canada. Milan its self is a very grey city, there is no grass any where unless you go to their parks, animals roam the streets with no leases and do their "business" where ever they please - and no one cleans it up. The people here don't smile as much as we do in Canada, everyone i have met from Canada or America will tell you that. The other day,i saw a man trip up a curb and then superman dive on to the concrete, and NO ONE stopped to help him..I did obviously, gotta represent the Canadians! BUT as much as there is all that, it is still pretty amazing. No matter how many times I walk past the Duomo, it still fascinates me, and even though I can't afford all the amazing milanese clothes i certainly am enjoying window shopping! Every one here is so well dressed, all the men wear suits and all the ladies are looking top notch with their Louis Vuitton/Prada/YSL/you name it hand bags...although the other day i did see a lady wearing a lovely pants suit with a LV lap top bag, just full our dressed to the nines...except she was wearing crocs. I thought Italy of all places would have banned the "croc"...i was wrong.
The language barrier is a lot harder then i thought it would be, so to fix it, i signed up for an Italian class...which consists of a Italian lady talking Italian and you trying to guess what she is saying. Very little English is spoken in that class (except from the students). But i am enjoying the class, and i am meeting lots of people, and they have a coffee machine that only charges 25 cents for a cappuccino. Heaven.
My job is very easy as well, i work for a half hour in the morning - walking the kids to school with their mum. Then at 5 i start work again - i play games with the children (like monopoly, trading cards, watching them put on "theater shows" which is a lot of fun actually), drawing, writing, or reading. Then we have dinner and they go to bed and i'm free the rest of the evening as of 830. So i only work 4 hours a day (basically 3) plus i have weekends off. Its amazing. I fill my free time with going to the gym, going to school, walking the city and meeting up with people. Also visit the local coffee shop a lot, where they now know pretty much who i am and what i order. Its great!

Now for some random pictures!

Italy's version on trucks...

The Duomo that i get to see everyday!

Street signs in Europe..

Shop for my brother Chris! Found in Paris

What Jodi and I thought of the "great" Italian spritzers. Not good.

Mama loulou, found in Paris.

Jodi and I in Lake Como!

Any way folks, that's all for right now. 

Ciao :)

Long over due update!

Alright, its been a while, but i am back in a wireless zone! I am back in Milan and have found a cafe that serves excellent coffee and fast wireless! hurrah!
So i left you guys in Paris...since then I have been to Ireland, and England. Ire land was a lot of fun, i spent the week with my cousins and we went to a weekend long concert/festival called Electric Picnic. It was so much fun! minus the lack of sleep and a deflating air mattress. We saw so many bands, and i do have a list of the ones we saw but not on me so i will post that tomorrow. The concerts started at about 12 in the afternoon and carried on till about 2 am, and then there were raves and different parties that went on till about 6 in the morning, but i didnt get to go to any of them...not that i would of lasted any way, i was exhausted by  the time i got to Ireland. The final band that closed the weekend was The Killers, who were amazing, i didnt expect to like them as much as i did, but they were so brilliant live! All in all it was a great weekend.  The monday we came home, we spent recovering and catching up on some sleep. Tuesday my cousin Hannah and I spent the day in Dublin city, we bought tickets for the hop on hop off bus tour, so basically its a bus that when your on it it tells you about all the city and the history but you can get on and off it when ever you want and not pay again for a ticket. It worked out great! we saw all the major Dublin attractions, and then finished our tour with a tour of the Guinness Brew house. Well it wasnt where they actually made the Guinness, but its where they tell you about how it is brewed. You go up to the different levels and it explains how it started and how they make it etc, and then once you are at the top you get a free pint of Guinness! I have to admit it isnt my favourite drink., but i finished it any way, just so i could say ive had a pint of guinness! Plus at the top of the tower it over looks all of Dublin, and it was beautiful!
I did something stupid, and forgot my camera when we went to Dublin, so i have no photos to post from there until Hannah emails me some from her phone. But here are a few from the concert:

This is Lorcan, Hannah and I at the beginning of the concert.

I wore knee high socks and wellies/riding boots the whole weekend, and secretly loved it. Everyone was wearing wellies! 

The Killers, we were right at the front!

Hannah and I!

Next i went to England and stayed with my Best friend from Secondary school, Amy. It was a nice relaxing week, I had a couple trips to Bluewater, went out to dinner, went to Thorpe Park, and saw some old friends! one of which i hadn't seen in about 4 years. So it was a really nice break before i got back to Italy and started to work.

I am now in Milan and started work yesterday, and so far its great! There isn't alot to do during the day, well thats a lie, i guess there is, but its very expensive over here so i am limited to what i can do! lol When i arrived on the Friday, they picked me up from the Train station and we headed in to the country side where their family owns a 16th century mansion, it has been in the family for about 600 years! it was beautiful and hige. The split the mansion in to smaller apartments (but still very big) for the entire family, brothers sisters cousins etc. There isnt any thing to do up there except relax, so i read a few books, and got to know the family. 

That is pretty much all to report right now! Milan is great, and my job is fab!
xoxoxo

Bonjour!

A wee little summary about our four days in Paris!

First off the weather was a lot more bearable, it was still warm but it had a breeze, one morning I even wore pants! I know...crazy.

Okay so what did we do...

We got there and headed straight to our apartment that we rented for the duration of our stay, which i might add was about 7 flights of stairs up...small, spiral stairs, with our huge bags...the apartment it self was really cute though, nice and bright and had its own washer/dryer (which was much needed!)..

We set our selves up and then headed out for some lunch, and then walked down to Notre Dame!

I am waiting for Malinda to send me the names of evey where we visited while in Paris - i know, its lame that i cant remember for my self...but i will upload some photos so you can SEE where we went :

This is us in front of the Canal, we did try to take a night canal trip to the Eiffel tower, but it didnt work out for us.

The Louve!

An Arch, not to be confused with the Arch de Triumph. The Arch above is much smaller, but still pretty.

In the Gardens we walked through on the way down to the Eiffel Tower.

The Eiffel Tower was a really fun day out, we went there during the day and climbed up stairs to the middle of the tower.

"hanging out" at the tower...hahah...get it?.... ps thats alot harder then it looks.

Beautiful view, with some beautiful ladies!

After we climbed the tower we went down to the lawn to have a photo shoot and a picnic! it was such a fun afternoon, one of my favorite days in Paris. 

When we were sitting having our picnic, sitting in front of us was a group of four people, and they were almost robbed! A group of kids came up to them and put papers and maps in their face and then on the ground, and when they picked the papers back up they grabbed on of the guys phones, luckily his friend was laying down and saw what happened. Pickpockets and "robbers" are very popular in Italy/France, you get warned about them everywhere you go. It almost happened to me in a train station, but Jodi came to my rescue and we ran away, plus i didnt have my purse on me so i dont know what he was planning on stealing....

Below are some pictures from our Eiffel tower photo shoot!

touching the top of the Tower,  no big deal.

Bringing a little busker to Paris

Our delish picnic!

The tower at night, it was so pretty!

We are currently sitting in our apartment in Paris planning our day, so I figured I would upload some random photos!

This is the Passport/credit card holder that Candace bought me, which turned out to be super handy and i love it! THANKS! I am standing in front of the mountains on Lake Como.

This is a great water fountain we found in Rome....

Standing on the Bridge in Venice, on our first day of exploring,

This was from our Milan day trip, we climbed up all the way up to the top of the church and were able to hang out on the roof and take some cool photos. We also spent quite a bit of time just sitting in the shade, it was extremely hot on the roof!

Again, this is in Milan on our way up to the roof of the Church.

Over looking Milan City on the roof of the church! We had a lot of time to kill that day because our train to Paris didnt come until 11, and we had to check out of our hotel in the morning. So we spent the majority of the day just wondering around the city, and spending as much time in restaurants/pubs as they would allow us! We spent a couple of hours in each restaurant and pub we went to, which turned out to be good because they would end up giving us free drinks and food!

That's all for now!
xoxox

The end of Italy

Hello everyone!
We have left Italy! We took an over night train ride to Paris, which turned out to be quite the experience. We had originally thought that we booked a four person cabin for us to sleep in, and were so pumped about not having to share with anyone, when in walks some random dude. It wouldn't of been so bad, but he had the smelliest feet in the world! and seen as there was not much we could do about it, we sucked it up and slept the whole train ride, 12 hours later arriving in Paris!
So this is a recap of our Italy adventure, so that you can see what we did, and so that i have a way of looking back and remembering too!


DAY 1: Rome
- Arrive at the Ivanhoe Hostel
- Visited the Colosseum/Palatine/Arco De Tito
- Spaghetti night at the Hostel!

DAY 2: Rome
- Pantheon
- Spanish Steps
- Fountain De Trevie
- Museum to unknown soldier

DAY 3: Rome/Pisa/Florence
- Vatican City
- Sistine Chapel
- S. Pietro Basilica
- Leaning Tower of Pisa / Duomo

DAY 4: Florence
- Walked the Cinque Terra

DAY 5: Florence/Venice
- The David statue
- Duomo
- Train to Venice
- San Marco
- Rialto
- Gondola ride

DAY 6: Venice
- Lido Beach day!
- Ferry on the Grand Canal
- Fancy Dinner night

DAY 7: Venice/Lake Como
- Approx 6 hours of travel to Como!

DAY 8: Lake Como/Milan
- Ferry on Lake Como to Menaggio/Bellagio/Como
- Train to Milan

DAY 9: Milan
- Duomo
- Walked to the "Last Supper", but viewing was booked up



- Began train ride to Paris!

catch up.../

So we have been with out wireless internet for a few days, so that is why i havent been blogging! I dont have much time right now...im about to be taken...just kidding, we are about to leave and go out for the day!
so to catch ya'll up....after our cinque terra walk...
The next day we went to see the David statue that Michelangelo made, and it was so much better then i had expected. It was huge!!! and so well crafted, it was so cool to see...not gonna lie though, i had no idea it was David from David and Goliath...but hazzahh thats what it is! After that we went to see the Duomo, which is another church, and we climbed about 450 stairs to get to the top of the building and was able to see all of Florence which was pretty to see. It was so tiring to climb those stairs though...our legs are gonna be jacked when this trip is over, we have climbed sooo many stairs this holiday lol
So after florence we headed to Venice! Venice is a huge couple city lol everyone seemed to be on a honeymoon or at least with a significant other. But it was still so pretty! the first day in Venice we went exploring to go see the San marco and the Rialto..basically a bunch of cool buildings in this square..all the old buildins have so much detail and are made of all different colours of marbel. We also went on a Gondola ride, which was nice, the guy even let us have a go of rowing...i didnt go up because he was super touchy, and that just aint cool! 
The next day we went to Lido beach, and it was so hot!!! we tried to have a game of volleyball, but the sand was so hot that it literally burnt our feet so we had to stop, plus we got kicked off the volleybal court because it was owned by a hotel...so we swam and tanned! it was a nice relaxing day after a week or so of stressful running around! we went out that night for a nice dinner and to a british themed pub, where we met some really cool spanish people where so much fun!
Sorry that this is a really rushed entry, but i am running short of time! i will come back and edit this and add photos, but for now i must run!
miss you all a lot!
ps sorry for the bad spelling

Pisa/Florence

continuing from my last post...
After a very long/hot/uncomfortable train ride form Rome to Pisa, we got to see the Duomo and the leaning tower of Pisa! We only stopped in Pisa for maybe an hour, because other then those two things there isnt a whole lot to see. Which is fine, minus the fact that we had all our luggage with us. It is such a surreal feeling being able to say that i have seen the stuff most people only see in pictures, I highly recommend traveling to any one that wants to see the world! We got pretty lucky with our hostels so far, we met some great people in Rome, and our hostel in Florence is more like a hotel then a hostel which is great, we even get our own room! Our hostel in Rome was a 12 bed room, but it was fine because everyone was awesome and really easy going. 

The Duomo

The leaning tower! 

Me doing my best to hold up the tower..it was really heavy...thats why i look so awful..it had nothing to do with 2 hours sleep no food and a 4 hour train ride...

After Pisa we got on the train for another hour, and came to Forence, where we proceeded to go straight to bed. The next morning, aka today, we took the train to Cinque Terra which is hiking trail that takes you to 5 different costal towns. So we hiked 1km to the first town, which was more of a walk then a hike, and took the ferry for the next 5 k because one of the trails were closed and we wanted to be able to see the coast line. Which was such a good choice, because the coast is so amazing. It was exactly how i picture Italy, all the colourful houses in the hills. After the ferry we went swimming in the ocean, which felt so good seen as it is still so hot out, and then ;proceeded on our walk! The pamphlet said it was 3km, but it tookm us a good two hours of walking so were thinking it was longer then 3km. And for the firsr part it was all steps up hill, and they are normal steps either, they are like brick/boulders and some are small and some you almost had to climb up. We had to take alot of breaks, it was such hard work. It was so worth it though, it was so so pretty, and we got to swim and cool off in the ocean again which felt great on my aching calves lol

Now after another almost 3 hours of train rides (one of which we almost missed, and had to run like mad women to catch) we are back at our hostel in florence and relaxing! Today was a really great day!!!!

The start our our treck!

Classic group photo

One of the small towns!

An amazing view of one of the cities, while on our hiking trail.