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Published: January 24th 2008
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THE HILL
this is the hill I walk up 5 times a day, I'll take more gruelling pictures of it later, its very pretty though :D So I haven't really written in a while but I've just been getting busy with school and travelling and crappy internet and the like. But here I am to tell you of my travels!! So last week I just had school, it was pretty cold and gloomy and Italian is really startin to get on everyones nerves! It just goes really fast and its just really frustrating! But other than that all was well and good, on wednesday (16th) morning a couple of girls were leaving the hostel and I asked them where they were off to and they said "oh we're checking out stuff for this weekend, we're going to milan" and I was like oh thats crazy and they were all like "oh well ryan said u wanted to go" and I had not heard of this but I was really up for anything, so a little later that afternoon ryan comes into my room and is like so I bought u a ticket to Milan. It was just really funny and random cause I didn't plan anything or really even have conversation with anyone really about going so it was just a silly chain of events.
So on
Angela and I
Kristin on the vino that friday we went on a feild trip to Rome and went for a walk through the ruins, it was pretty pointless to be honest with you, plus I had been there before, so that ended at 430 and we had to catch our train to Milan at 530. So we were thinking, no big deal we have an hour. We get directions from the proff about where the nearest metro station is and we head out. Turns out, as per usual her directions were extremely vague and we couldn't find anything. Some girls told us that the station was accross the street from the colleseum which was no where near us so we said boo to that and when we were all lost and frustrated someone suggested that we cathc a cab instead of missing our train. So we go up to a van cab (cause there was five of us) and ask the guy if he can take us to termini(which is the train station) he doesn't speak a single world of english and he just shakes his head and points to a couple cabs ahead of him. Living in edmonton this was a big WTF? moment cause
I have never been turned down by a cab that was in service and told to take another one! Apparentley what happens is that they make a line up of cabs and there is some sort of cabbie ettiquete that they follow which REALLY isn't helpful at all when u are in a rush. So we go up to the next cab and I said "there are five of us" I used a little italian and hand gestures and I was FAIRLY sure I made myself clear that we would not fit and we would have to squish(cause a cabbie had done this before so I wanted to see if they'd do it again, besides the van cab turned us away). So he shakes his head and points at the cab in front of him so we go to that cab where we are again turned down and then the previous cabbie yells at us and makes a shooing motion with his hand, but was nodding with his head, so we were so confused about if he wanted us to come or go. SO we went up to him again and he started opening the trunk and then he looked
at us and counted and said NO. I was soooooooooooo frustrated!!!!! We had to take a train in 30 minutes and we weren't even remotley on our way to the train station. So we asked a man who was roasting hazelnuts on the street where the nearest METRO was. And he tells us to take a bus, he spoke perfect english and I told him we didn't have time we needed to get the the METRO and he said oh yes the bus stop is around the corner, it was really very un helpful, then we saw some other people from our program and they didn't know where the metro was but wanted to have a chat with us. All of this really really was flusterign hha, so we eventually decided to speed walk to the colleseum and take it from there! OH man! So after more confusing with validating tickets and the like we got on the train. Haha I'm sure u can all understand the type of fluster and panic I was feeling! haha WHOA. Anyways, so tehre was a couple of men on the train that eventually started talking to us cause they spoke english and they
Duomo!
It was under construction or something but it was still really cool! helped us with our homework a little which was cool. One of them is doing a study on canadian students about binge drinking, I thought it was absolutley hilarious, we could be his case studies! But we played it off like that wasn't really our thing. It was funny.
So we got to Milan on friday night (I saw prostitutes! :O ) and we ate and then on saturday we went to the Duomo and shopping. OMG I had never even heard of the Duomo before and it was absolutley insane!! Its kind of cool not having expectation cause everywhere I turn I am just like blow away by all this cool stuff. The inside is so cool, (I like it better than the vatican actually) and then we climbed on top and it was a pretty crazy view!)
-Side note, ok u are all going to think I am so lame but I think I went into at least 5 different macdonalds that weekend, not only does it have cheap, familiar food, but it is SERIOUSLY the only place u can go to the washroom without buying anything or askding for a key. But the washrooms are
soooo weird, they are all like Unisex haha its sooo strange!
Anyways so the Duomo was cool and I took pictures and then we went shopping. everything was so ridiculously out of my price range it broke my heart, I did however buy a pair of jeans and some stilletto boots (how odd of me!) haha anyways it was excellent and good and I fell inlove with every purse I saw and I asked (here is my italian for you) "Quanta costa?" and they would say "700 euro" OMg that is ridiculous. I could by a car! there was some pretty cool stores, guicci and prada and LV and D & G and armani and Deisel (where I bought my AWESOME jeans :D ) and Versace and stuff. it seems kind of silly that we went just to shop, but seeing the stores alone was like sightseeing, it was really cool. And I've learnt something, being snubbed a universal concept haha, it was pretty funny acutally! Haha we went into the chanel jewelry store that u have to be buzzed into and I accidently pushed the door WAYYYYY too hard and it made a really loud noise and the
lady scowled and I felt stupid and then we left in 2 seconds! haha! Oh also there was one ATM machine that you have to scan ur card to get into and apparentley there is only supposed to be one person in tehre at once cause when the people in front of me left the man said something and all I caught was the word 2 and him making his hand into a fake gun and shooting me with it! Haha so I think its so that people don't rob u I guess! haha us foreigners! lol which is straniero in Italian, and I totally have heard people make fun of us because I hear that word and they look at us and laugh, haha its pretty funny actually! So then on sunday we went to la scala which I guess is a famous opera house haha I did not know this, it was pretty cool, I dunno I couldn't take a picture or anything cause all the stuff is old but the place is bitchin :P haha! ANhyways thats all for now. I'm going to Perugia this weekend, I'm staying in the hostel that is owned by a the
boyfriend of a girl that works at the hostel (she just amkes shure we're happy and taken care of) haha it looks so random, its out in the middle of nowhere and it should be awesome haha! So if no one hears for me for a couple of days I'm out in the country and I'll be back monday! :D love you all tah tah
Kristin :D
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