Sono a Milano: Getting There

Sono a Milano: Getting There

Ok as anyone can tell I've totally given up ever blogging about my North Island trip so if anyone is actually interested to know, I'd be most willing to talk about it. For now the "hot" topic would have to be my last 3 days in Milan so far...

Ok starting from the beginning, I was totally freaking out before my flight to Milan (and it was fully justified) but nonetheless I got on the plane where I was supposed to make a stopover for 4hrs in Frankfurt. Anyway my seatmate was this German guy who was heading back to Germany to take up a job as brand manager for Unilever after graduating not too long ago from a uni in Australia and he majored in marketing too, so it was really interesting talking to him (and he was kinda cute too, but that's besides the point). Unfortunately, after we landed and we parted in the airport I realised I don't know his name...he asked for my email address though and so I gave it to him and my name, hopefully he'll email some time. The Frankfurt airport is confusing and huge and not very convenient...I ended up missing my flight coz they changed the boarding gate and I didn't hear the announcement coz there was so many gate changes it wasn't funny. So I was waiting at the wrong boarding gate and when I finally realised something was "off" and I asked about it, I'd already missed my flight...so much for a good start. I shall blame it on fatigue from the horribly long flight and the fact that it was 5.30 in the morning... Luckily, they managed to get me on another flight, except that it was 4 hours later. Well in any case a much later flight is better than no flight at all. It also saved me the problem of wondering what to do when I arrived in Milan coz with my original flight I would arrive in Milan at about 10am and I could only check into the backpackers at 2pm...although it took me so long to get there it wouldn't have mattered anyway.

Anyway, I got to Milan and I discovered that it's really hard getting around when u only speak sparse italian and understand even less! I think I wandered around the airport for awhile trying to read the signs to find out how I'd get to the city...and I think I annoyed the person at the info counter asking her heaps of questions. I finally managed to get on the right bus though which took me to Station Centrale. Then came the horrible process of lugging my luggage (36kg in total) around the station, looking for the metro! It was awful coz they had no elevators and I had to lug my stuff up the escalators to enquire at the info counter which was on the 2nd floor. If that wasn't bad enough, when I did find the metro, to my horror there were only stairs and no elevators OR escalators!!! I ended up having to carry my stuff down 2 flights of stairs. Thankfully there was this nice italian guy who helped me carry my suitcase down after seeing me struggling with it. Unfortunately he spoke only italian and so he couldn't help me figure out how to buy a ticket for the metro and I ended up having to ask one of the station staff, who thankfully spoke some english. When I got to my stop, the darn station had no escalators or elevators and I ended up having to carry my luggage UP the stairs this time...which was worse of course and there wasn't anyone to help.

By the time I reached the backpackers I was truly exhausted, plus the temperature was pretty much like Singapore's...but less humid. Then I was trying to use the phone to call my mum when I met this other italian guy (who is now becoming somewhat of a pain...but that's another story) and ended up having dinner with him, having a conversation through my trusty italian-english dictionary (because of course he spoke only italian). Ok this has been a really long entry so I guess I'll leave everything else for parts 2, 3, 4.... 8p