Pizza, Pasta and Sheep Shaggers - Wales and Milan � 18 October – 3 November

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So I managed to get out of London! Have missed it like mad ever since I left but I escaped its awesome clutches!!! Now I promised myself that I would behave myself on my last night in London as I hate lugging the ever expanding Hulio from place to place when all I want to do is drink Lucozade, eat copious quantities of KFC, then curl up in the corner and die (: But it was my last night with the Hermits so ignoring good sense with a gentle arm twisting from my friends we headed down to Tesco to sample the fine local wines retailing at £2 a bottle… this should signal quite clearly its quality, or lack thereof but hey, you have to cut corners somewhere! You know when you get to that point where it makes more sense to stay awake than to go to sleep? Yeah… this was one of those nights! So at 6am I haul my drunk ass down to the train station, alllll the way to the bus station… to find out I booked the bus an hour later than I meant to… so found a nice little café that specialised in mega sized orange juices (which was pretty much the elixir of life at this point), curled up in the corner wishing for death and waited for my stupid bus…

FYI… my patience has not improved since I left home. Perhaps this is just one of those default factory settings in me – but I HATE waiting! The public transport is amazing in the UK so when you get used to trains coming every 3 minutes, 10 minutes seems like forever… an hour seems like an eternity!

But the bus… it came, the sleep… I had and Cardiff… I arrived! Now some of you may have heard me refer to ‘The List’ from time to time, for those of you who don’t know, the list is an imaginary book in my head which size would rival the complete works of Shakespeare. This list contains all the names of people who have pissed me off in my lifetime… not sure if I will ever exact revenge on these people, I just want them to live in constant fear (: It could be a minor offence such as walking into me (Jedward… so on the list) to the mega things which needn’t be mentioned… you know if you are on the list… mwwahaaaaa! I now have another name to add to the list… which ever mother fucker invented Google Maps!!!! When you are hungover, running on two broken hours of bus sleep, lugging the fattest Guatemalan backpack known to man around… I DON’T WANT TO BE TAKEN THE SCENIC ROUTE!!! When it’s set to ‘Walk’ you can take me straight through the pedestrian mall I don’t need to see the outskirts of the freaking city!!!! So yeah as you can see as I familiarised myself with Cardiff I found a much quicker route than the marathon fecking Google Maps took me on and I was NOT impressed… Ok I’m done ranting… for now… google fucking maps…

Needless to say I didn’t do much the first day (: I caught up on sleep, checked out the FB action, and tried to avoid the sleazy man in the hostel. One of the problems you can get in hostels is it is cheaper and easier than renting and people who only need accommodation for three months or so end up living in them, it makes sense and most of them are really nice… but some of the older “gentlemen” who have obviously scored a young drunk backpacker from time to time suddenly think they are god’s gift to women and my best ‘Emily Fuck Off Stare’ wasn’t enough to convince this person that I was not interested. The staff on the other hand were pretty good and telling him in less subtle terms to go forth and fornicate with oneself or will be evicted from the premises (: Bonus to this is all the other girls who had encountered this person came over to share their stories and invited me to hang out with them! I find interesting ways of meeting people…


Touristy stuff, touristy stuff, touristy stuff…. Let’s see… well I started off with the biggest and oldest; Cardiff Castle! The original bit (a chunk of Roman wall) is approx. 2000 years old! So despite the demolitions, rebuldings, bombings, rebuildings, fires…. rebuildings… you get the point, I’m still claiming that the whole castle is 2000 years old and that is freaking cool!

I partook in a walking tour which… I’m sure was quite interesting but the guides Welsh accent was so darn thick I could only catch every fourth word! I was the only person on the tour which was cool cos I got to ask lots of nerdy questions without having things thrown at me by impatient American tourists. Did however make the mistake in showing an interest in the ‘Dr. Who’ aspects of Cardiff so bless him he pointed out eeeeeeevery single thing that had the slightest involvement in the show, the cyberman in the church was pretty cool tho (:

I know for sure I’m definitely banning myself from saying the words “I’m not having a big one tonight”, “I’m just having a quiet one”, “Ok I’ll just come out for one” or any variation of this as it seems to be the kiss of death! Damn student pubs with £1 pints… my poor liver…

Having exhausted Cardiff and its sights, which took all of about five minutes (tee hee) I headed up to Brecon National Park! Time for some nature and hiking and seeing something other than bloody castles and cathedrals (: The bus ride up was beautiful winding up the mountains I saw lakes, waterfalls and beautiful fields it was incredibly zen… I had to change buses in Brecon as the hostel was located about 15 minutes out of town in a village (I know! Village! How cute is that??) called Bwlch… pronouncing you kinda just say the ‘Buh’ noise then clear your throat (: I had to wait an hour for my bus but after about thirty minute this lovely old lady comes up to me asking where I was going, I told her a place called ‘Bwulch’ (yeah learning the pronunciation took time…) laughing she offers me a lift to the hostel as it was on her way! Now had this been a bloke with tats all over himself with a shovel, rope and lime in the back of his car I would have politely declined but this lovely lady takes saves me from the freeeeeeezing cold and takes me right to the front door! Bless little the little villigians (yes another new word, roll with it…). The hostel is behind a tiny little authentic old school pub, which has a fire place, couches and is just lovely! I check in, dump my stuff and meet the staff; who by the end were more like family! The pub is the only one in the village so I get to meet actual Welsh people – not just other backpackers! We spend a fair amount of time in front of the fire and they tell me about living there, their history and helping my plan my itinerary! They told me about a hike I should do which seemed pretty straight forward… now walking down city roads and pretty paved footpaths with park benches and water fountains is kinda where my walking skills finish – no exceptions! But as the ever intrepid adventurer I sample the local activities and set off on a 20km hike! I’m advised this should take about 5-6 hours. The first forty minutes is up… and up… and up and up a little more… I’m seriously considering swallowing my pride, turning around and curling up in front of the fire with a hot chocolate… and should have! I completely lose track of where I’m supposed to be going, wander around, up and down some more, keeping the lake in site which was ultimately where I was trying to get to… finally I get to this frikken lake which is the halfway point… to find I have already been walking for five hours… so it’s 2:30 by this point, I have no credit on my phone and am very, very aware that if I lose my way on the return journey I could rapidly become food for the wild carnivorous welsh mountain bears (they could be real…). So at this point I don’t just swallow my pride, I scoff it down like a fat kid on cake – and call a taxi (: My knight in shining armour (aka taxi driver) drops me back at the hostel (picture hostel with glowing light shining down on it and angels singing in the background… seriously so happy to see this place!) and sneak in the side entrance… only to be greeted by gales of laughter by the staff and afternoon drinkers who saw the poor ‘flashpacker’ rock up from her hike in a taxi… yup didn’t live that one down for the rest of the stay… buggers (:

I start to work out where I want to go next in Wales and find…. every single hostel in Wales is booked out! It’s the bloody half term school break! I have a little freak out as my ‘book at I go’ plan falls in a heap and I really don’t know what to do! Bwlch is empty so they are able to take me for another night so I can figure out a plan. After hours of searching and searching I feel myself going a liiiiittle crazy and feeling for the very first time – what am I doing? Forrest Gump the shit out of this and Run! Run home! This lasts a few minutes before I mentally slap myself – remember this is MY bloody dream! What do I want to do? I want to fly somewhere – so I jump on the Ezyjet website and book the cheapest flights to somewhere I’ve not been – Milan!

I’m quite sad to leave these guys they were all so sweet and really treated me like one of the locals, I still miss my chair by the fire! But I promise to come back one day (: I have two stops on the way to Milan; one night back in Cardiff just for sleep, I meet a woman who tries to get me to come to Scotland to join her church… I get a very ‘Jonestown’ vibe from her and stop the conversation before I drink the coolade… then one in London where my Hermits are still lurking and make me pull another all nighter… yup.. made me… it’s all their fault… (: But after two very eventful ‘transit’ nights I finally make it to the airport (:

Milano! So I arrive in Milan and head to… wait for it… HOSTEL EMMY! YAY! The hostel is on the fourth floor and after my epic journey I was NOT climbing four flights of stairs with Fatty Mc Hulio, so I get into the ancient lift which only just accommodates the two of us to find when I stopped at the fourth floor the exit was now behind me, and the doors opened inwards so I couldn’t get out! After trying some moves that would baffle the most experienced contortionist, I throw off Huilo, step over the fat bastard make it out. On first sight I hate this hostel! There is no common room, no kitchen, doesn’t seem to be anyone else staying here and after the wicked night I’d just had in London with all my friends I just wanted to run back to the safety and comfort of the motherland! Pouting and sulking I headed out to dinner, ate some pasta by myself, grabbed a bottle of wine and plodded back to the hostel feeling very sorry for myself… then epic amounts of awesomeness happen… I meet my soul mate!

As I walk into my dorm with the bottle of wine, I see this blonde chick sitting on the bed also drinking straight out of her own bottle of wine! Introducing Miss Courtney from Perth, Canada! If she was a man, or if was drunk enough to swing that way, I would marry this girl! One of the first things she said in response to me was… “That’s what she said!”… yeah pretty much lost my shit with excitement, we had practically everything in common from movies to music, TV shows to making up and laughing at random shit. We clicked straight away and were inseparable for the next few days!

We all headed out to have a bit of a gawk and make our way into Chinatown so she and her travelling buddy could do some shopping… and I would look on in despair at all the shoes on sale… sigh… we wandered around stopping at every opportunity to sample gelato… which happened a lot (: Sure that Chinatown was ‘just up that road,’ or ‘just around this corner,’ after a few hours of this we found an information desk and found out it was actually a few stops away on the metro (: Once we finally got there we discovered…. Chinatown sucks balls… to the extreme… no cute little stands selling weird food, no pretty lanterns anywhere, just boring old shops! After the three hour effort it took to get there – needless to say we were slightly disappointed… so we grabbed an espresso and had a good ol’ chat in a lovely Italian café!

The next day we headed off to Lake Como (aka Lake Titi Ka Ka... Canadians have some trouble remembering things...) so I could tick something off my life list… to marry George Clooney who has a villa there… now as this was my idea I kinda took charge of figuring out which station we had to go to. This research was done via iPhone probably a little too late in the evening (the best laid plans are not made after drinking a litre of €1 wine…) but I figured out the trains went every hour from the main station – can’t be too hard! We get over there with plenty of time to grab some food , book our tickets then cruise around trying to find the platform… but we couldn’t see Como on any of the departure boards! We wander around with confused looks on our faces thinking… it leaves in twenty minutes surely it should be on the board by now!
“Information lady! Where is our platform?!?!”
“You are at the wrong station, you need to go to Cadorna…”
….. FAAAARRRRKKKK!
Amazing race style we bolt out of the station knocking over anyone in our way! Children, old ladies, poor blind beggars (jokes), we jump in a taxi with fifteen minutes to spare – “Cadorna station and step on it!” Thank goodness the Italians drive like maniacs we got there with SECONDS to spare only to discover… the train had been delayed… DOUBLE FAAAAARRRRRKKKK! LOL, at least there was time to grab some grub before we left.
Finally on the train looking at the beautiful scenery, all of a sudden these mountains seem to appear out of nowhere with villas dotted all over them and our jaws just dropped… Lake Como is one of the most beautiful places I have ever seen! We literally just walked around the lake for hours! We’d walk for a little while… sit down… gawk at the scenery… walk around a little more… sit down for some more gawking… try and ditch the old Italian guys who insisted on following us around for a good fourty five minutes… succeed in ditching… gawk some more… (Hey Courtney… where’s the Lake?) then for dinner we grabbed some cheese, cold meat, pate, bread and a bottle of champagne and sat by the lake having a good old picnic listening to music (: This was something I never knew I wanted to do, if I knew about it, it would have been on the life list! Damn I’m so glad we did it! Really was one of those ‘I love my life’ moments (:

So stupid head Courtney ADBANDONS me and goes ‘back to school’ wah wah wah like that’s so important but I have met another cool chicky, Anna, and we head into town to check out the cathedral, Duomo di Milano, which is one of the largest in the world, climb to the top (what is the sick obsession with making tourists climb things?!? More importantly… why do we PAY for the privalige!) have some terribly inappropriate conversations while perving on the locals (totally acceptable right? I mean we weren’t INSIDE the cathedral!), check out the decomposing… I think they were priests… can’t read Italian… who are left in CLEAR coffins so we can view them and are at different levels of decomposition! It was morbid dude… still took some pics tho…

Carzonne, a famous artist has an exhibition in town so we check that out and pretend that we know a thing or two about art (: It was actually quite interesting they put the work in chronological order so you could see how he improved over time and the different styles he tried, not much of an art expert just yet but learning enough to appreciate what I’m looking at (: Also checked out the Science Museum which is home to some of Leonardo Da Vinci’s designs which was pretty freaking cool! Unfortunately being school holidays most of the areas were closed off for brat workshops and the little sugar fuelled spawn kept running into me, so instead of spending the remainder of my trip in an Italian prison for striking a child, I hastily bid my retreat to partake in the liquid goodness that is coffee (:

I had done some research to find some really amazing traditional pasta, as I do love my food and found a little place called Dongio. They make their own pasta and their prices were supposed to be very good. So off I go! Oooooohhhhhh mmmmyyyyyyy goooooodddddd!!! For starter I had prosciutto and cheese… the meat was WRAPPED in the cheese, then thinly sliced… this rocked my world… the main, spaghetti with spicy sausage and cheese, recommended by the chef and for a damn good reason! Then truffle & nougat ice cream in coffee for desert… oh my god if I never eat Italian ever again in my life it would be ok as this was the BEST Italian I have ever had!

Everyone I had buddied up with had checked out so I was kicking back in my room about to watch some ‘How I Met Your Mother’ (thank u iTunes for killing my boredom) when the hostel owner asks if I can watch the desk for an hour or so while he pops out… why not? Not doing anything else! He assures me it should be pretty easy just buzz people in and out… sure I can handle this! Do this for the next half hour or so… and then this Spanish man comes down all flustered and disgruntled about something, doesn’t speak a word of English and I’m trying to explain to him that I don’t actually work here! Google translate quickly solves this problem and I advise him to come back in a little while… crisis adverted! Then another fifteen minutes later four frantic backpackers show up saying they have a reservation… excellent! Luckily they speak English and I am able to explain I’m just watching the desk… however they are little concerned as they have just come from another hostel which had overbooked and sent here, they wanted to make sure they had a room for the night so I give the owner a call, he knows all about it (thanks buddy!!!) and I get the relieved foursome all checked in. I do score some wine out of this, booyah! And somehow get convinced by these guys that as it’s Halloween and their only night here that I should go out with them… goodbye quiet night!

So while my Wales effort was a bit of a fail I can always go back, I loved Milan, made some amazing new friends and saw some great things on this little adventure! And if the self-esteem is ever running low I can always return to Italy, scored five marriage proposals… just a shame none of them were under 50…

I only have eight more weeks before I need to re-join society and get some income… so better make the next two months count! Back to the map!

Thanks for reading, chat to y’all soon! xoxo

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