Jonny's blog and stuff

Finally got to rome after a shoddy time in Milan. I think the general phrase from Milan is:

Milan is rubbish

It’s just not a great place. I think we were definitely missing something but I have yet to find out what. We had arrived about 8am or so on Sunday morning and I think it was roughly 15 minutes before we figured it was crap. Did give it a chance though but it just turned around and slapped up in the face. Some bits and pieces weren’t completely horrible. Certain things in Milan that were cool:

• Had a coffee at Gucci (I appear to have started drinking coffee)
• Seen a ‘fast car’ rally or so, with loads of fancy looking cars. It seemed to either be young guys driving or else a really old guy with a young girl…
• There was a concourse thing (not sure if that’s the word) but it had a big curved glass roof.
• Some of the shops were cool too – we found loads of ‘temporary’ shops which seemed to mean discount. Though the fashion of Milan looked a bit crappy

The metro wasn’t that cool though but I think its still something to mention as the underground aircon system was actually just a system of what appeared to be desk fans with hosepipes that sprayed water every so often. Hostel wasn’t that fantastic either, we had decided pretty early in the day that we thought it was rubbish (like the rest of Milan) and that everyone was just grumpy old sod’s with the whopping great big bitch of a receptionist that told us that there was no more internet so we couldn’t even find another hostel online. Next morning we just decided to leave the hostel (they didn’t even ask why) and went to the train station and found a sleeper train to rome… our justification for it was that it actually worked out cheaper to do that than the taxi, etc would have cost.

And now we’re in Rome. We started off the day by doing a bus tour thingy which was alright – Will made friends with some Americans in the queue and we found that the whole thing about the sarcasm was true, when Will stated that ‘I find it really good that there are so many people in Italy that can speak Italian’ and they agreed. Tomorrow we’re off to the Vatican to see the pope… Should be fun. I want to high five the pope… but it probably wont work.

I’m hoping that this will save because knowing Italy I’ll try to post it but all the pushy Italians will jump in front of me for the bandwidth. I hope the Internet doesn’t cease to exist like it did in Milan.

Caoi caoi

Just sitting on the beach in Barcelona, after having some paella and sangria at a restaurant along the sea front. We were going to get some last night but got to all the restaurants too early (food gets served from 9ish) so ended up just getting a pizza. The hostel was really nice and very active with loads of people up around 1am (just after the night swim!). Chatted away to Brazilian Guy for a bit before going back to the room where we shared with the Germans: Mine and Yours (don’t mention the war). Had a conversation with them that spanned 3 languages (German, Spanish and English) but that was about it. Nice American girl and Moody American guy checked into our room whilst we were checking out. Did leave them a wee note that said we’ll miss them – hopefully Moody American guy doesn’t take it the wrong way.

Spent today going around all the concerts that appear to be going on around Barcelona with the millions of pigeons in the square. Then decided to find a big tiled lizard. Apparently it was only a few hundred meters from the metro but took ages and just had a dozen or so escalators for just getting up the hill. Did manage to get in a billion photos of others though, so well worth it. After that, got back to the seafront for the food (San Miguel so remembered us from yesterday) then dandered to the beach. And that’s where we are now. Don’t really have enough time to go see Maggie again though, which is a bit if a pity but it’s about time that we should be getting to the bus station!

Having arrived in barcelona earlier, we wandered around for a bit and got some lunch. Pushy restaurants trying to push paella down our throats. Went around the beach and stuff before getting the metro to our hostel which is actually really cool.

My phone battery has died for a bit so I’m no longer posting a billion and one things to the status update anymore. Found some WiFi though.

Update of the holiday:
Italy (Bergamo) – a million steps up to the hostel but at the hostel was a guy from spanish, Aussie guy and Nigel/vienna guy. Successfully got out of Italy with just ‘ciao’, ‘si’ and grazie. The airport was crap but the view was nice. Not much to do as we were only there for less than 12 hours.

Germany (Trier) – Don’t mention the war. No idea how to pronounce it, but it was a nice place. Seen the oldest and largest Roman something this side of the Alps. No idea what it was but we did find that German beer is quite nice. The fact that you also get table service in a bar was also good. We named our barmaid Jenny (think she took pity on us) whilst we were out in the evening. Went back and probably woke up loads because it was too quiet. Their own fault, really. Laptop girl probably deserved it.

Alright, I think I’m all sorted. I’ve my bag packed and all my bits and pieces printed out. All I have to do now is get to sleep for my 6.30am start in the morning. And, of course, make sure I don’t forget my passport!

I don’t usually write random bits but felt I should just because I can. Hopefully there’ll be enough fon spots around for the free wifi