I have spent the past two days in Milan. We took a bus to Seville and from there got a flight on Ryan Air (one of the cheap European airlines) which is such a pain... they have limits on everything which is part of the reason they are so inexpensive I suppose. We finally arrived to Milan/Bergamo in the evening and the directions to the hostel were the WORST... so after being lost for a good two hours we found our way to the hostel and it was actually pretty nice... or so we thought! After getting some yummy italian food, I got a pizza and yup basically ate the whole thing since it was the first thing all day and a 1/2L of wine for myself, hey it was a stressful day and it was only 3euro. We called it an early night to get some rest. Well I wake up the next day and am in the shower and I feel a massive lump on my back of course Im freakkkking out and go into the room and have Neddy look at it, shes all ohhhh damn girl something bit you and I can still see the fang marks! WHATTTTTTT?!?!?! Thankfully I didn't die or have some crazy allergic reaction... but its still there now and itches ughhh. We made our way to the bus station to meet Jess and Micah and of course their bus was late which is expected but it was really exciting when they got here. After getting to the new hostel and cleaning up, we met Jess’s sister and her Italian husband to have them show us around Milan. The Duomo, and the castle which were pretty impressive, and we walked all the expensive shopping streets and checked out all the fashion which is what your supposed to do in Milan right? We had a nice dinner on this boat on a river and our waiter was hysterical! He was giving us a photo shoot and we just made fun of his English all night. After a 4 hour dinner we headed back to our hostel (with a 2 toothed doorman) which was just a room with 4 beds, so we totally had a slumber party which was so much fun! Then we finally decided to head to bed when I notice a massive bloddy booger hanging out on my “freshly washed” bedset. EW! First I get attacked by some creature, and then I get the bed with booger sheets! What great luck! I took it upon myself to go down the hall and find the linen closet and change my sheets. Quick fix.
We got up early for a day trip to Como di Lago and Bellagio which are both really cute towns with little cobblestone streets, cute shops and amazing views. Its really close to the Switzerland border, and there are all these gorgeous mountains surrounding the lake. We rented these little petal boats and went out on the lake and played bumper boats..shhh don’t tell the guy who rented them to us. We actually had to take an hour long bus ride from Como di Lago to Bellagio and what an adventure that was. It’s pretty obvious they don’t have the same seatbelt laws we do our fire codes for how many people can fit on a bus at once. The entire bus was filled, all the seats were taken, the entire aisle was packed to the point we weren’t sure the door would close. Micha and I found ourselves sitting on the steps of the bus and Jess found a comfy seat on the dashboard. While whipping through the tiny streets of Lago di Como I saw my life flash before my eyes. Not only was there no guard rail between the bus and the cliffs we were driving up, all that was keeping Micha and me from plummeting to our deaths was a mechanical bus door. I think the bus driver was whipping around the curves in hopes someone would pee their pants. After our day up there we just went back to Jess’s sisters house and she was nice enough to let us sleep there for the night although it wasn’t the most comfortable sleeping sitch. I got the floor with Micah, Neddy got the couch, and Jessica found herself a comfy spot in the bathtub using towels as blankets and a pillow haha.
Next we hopped on a bus to Siena which continued on to Rome. We got these Eurorail type of bus passes that go from city to city for 15 days as many trips as you want and its relatively inexpensive to get around. Great concept, but unfortunately the plan that we have is switching up a bit since we thought we could go from Rome to Naples see Pompeii then to Florence and Venice… but today we found out that’s not really going to work out for us, so our plans will be switching up a bit. Don’t know where we are going to go yet, and weve had SO much trouble getting on the internet (which I am sitting here right now putting in this “code” that is like the 5th theyhave given us to get on the internet and still not working.. so maybe we will get on one day to know where we will go after Rome?.
We arrived to Rome lastnight a bit before midnight.. it was Saturday and all we did was sleep on the bus all day so we decided to get ready for a night on the town. This is a good hostel to meet people so we walked in the door and already had a place to go out. We got ready fast and went downstairs where the front desk guy re-opened the bar for us, made the other girls some sweet drinks (that I cant drink) and gave me a bottle of wine.. yup just gave me the whole bottle with a cup that ended up coming with us for the walk to the bus which I think is pretty bizarre that it is legal to carry around a bottle of wine, but yup When In Rome. He also gave us shots of Sambuca which he lit on fire and we drank out of straws… Not a bad welcoming right? We then headed out and it was alright, late night but nothing too exciting, I was sleepy.
After 3 hours of sleep we got up to re-book our room for another day and tried to have some of the free breakfast, nope not good so we just went down the street and got some proper espresso and were ready to go for the day. Jess and I went our own way since we have both been to Rome before and didn’t want to do all the same things as the other girls. We just walked around casually and acted goofy… sooooooo many tourists here, which is way different than the last time I was here. I don’t like it, you cant really see anything. I highly recommend coming during the off season if you ever want to come to Rome. We had pasta carbonera, umm and gelato again J Good thing Ive been walking a ton for the bad food Im eating here, but ohhh it is soooooo yummy!! As we were eating lunch the waiter comes over mid bite and grabs my hand, and just holds it. Im like dude really Im trying to eat what in the world are you doing,?!? literally just holding my hand and then he lets go and boops me. Pokes my nose and goes boooop, is this for real? Then another waiter comes over like 10 min later and holds my hand too, I don’t understand.. what are these crazy Italians doing? After an interesting lunch we saw more sites for a while, and then it started pouring so we ran home, good excuse for a nap. Except instead of napping I’m writing this and trying to get on the internet. No luck, and she looks so comfy asleep, so I am going to do the same until Pizza in an hour. More healthy food, cant wait!
So still haven’t gotten on the internet properly to post this so now Jessica and I are sitting in the middle of Termini train station on our packs with a janitor sweeping up French fries and cigarettes around us waiting for an expensive train to Venice when we thought we were going to be sleeping on a bus there right now. Yes our plans are not working out as expected. So lets start from the beginning. We wake up from our nap in search of free pizza and internet, apparently the free pizza lasts approx. 5 min because we got down there at 8:35 and it was gone… and the people with extra slices didn’t even share… but our favorite hostel bartender Marcio gave us rice balls, which were gross. We finally got to the Eurolines website to properly map out the next leg of our journey. A couple other travelers were chiming in about where we should go and mentioned how Budapest was a must see. We were all about it since neither of us have been there before, and in the past have heard great things. So okay we got it figured out it leaves tomorrow 11am stops in Venice (for us to spend one night, which was great since no other bus would get us there) get to be all romantic for a day and then leave the following night for an overnight bus to Budapest arriving 7am PERFECT!DONE! Now is where decide to be proactive and book a hostel in Venice and were good to go. After all that planning we feel great so we grab a discounted bottle of frozen white wine to celebrate. It was only 3 euro and hey, we’re traveling on a budget here. We ended up chatting with almost every other traveler in the bar that night. I learned a little bit of samba. At one point a group of Swiss boys entered the room starting a dance off on the tables, pretty interesting. They looked about 12 and after the conversation I had with one of them I proved to be right. The night was coming to an end and after 4 bottles of frozen discounted wine it was time for bed. I have to admit we were a bit tipsy and while walking by the closest pizza shop decided to duck in. This was probably not the smartest idea he asked us our names and we told him they were Hungry and Pizza. He wasn’t impressed. So back to the reason we’re sitting at the train station. We were on our way, all ready for the journey to Venice. When we reached the bus station we waited patiently in line to get our ticket. After all the planning we did last night we thought we were all set and would be on our way within the hour, how wrong we were. The lady at the counter told us that we would not be making the journey today due there being no buses to Venice on Mondays. How could this be? We told her about the website and all our planning and she non saliently told us the web site must be wrong. Oops sorry! So once again we decided to be pro active by grabbing our tickets to Budapest from Venice and just taking the train. There could be no way that the train would cost us more than 30 Euro right. Wrong! We got to the train station to find that the only train that cost even close to that was 46 euro and had left an hour ago. So now we have a hostel booked in Venice, a ticket to Budapest from Venice and no way to get to Venice. We had to get there today there was no other possibility. We gave up the college tuition of our first born for the ticket and here we are. Oh and we left Neddy and Mica in Rome.. they still have more to see.
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