Milan day 1

I woke up and immediately headed to the nearest McDonald's. I had heard from the 2 Italians that McDonald's was promoting their breakfast menu by organizing a pajama party. It wasn't much of a party; just a really long que of people wearing pajamas waiting to get their free pastry and coffee. Oh my God, the McDonald's here is amazing! The place was so fancy, the service was awesome, the food was delicious and beer was on the menu! If I wasn't wearing a torn shirt and baggy clown pants then I would have thought I was in a 5 star resteraunt.

Next step was the university. I found my way to the mathematics department which looked like a beaten down shack compared to the architecture skyscrapers around it. I found a lecture running and looked through the window. They were learning projectile motion, which is a 1st year subject, yet the students all seemed aged around 25. Either the students here are very slow to learn or very fast to age.

Next I took the metro to Duomo which was a giant tourist hotspot because it featured a giant church. The line was too long to go inside, so I just took photos from the outside. The detail on the sculptures was phenominal; I'm no biblical scholar, but I think they made statues of every major biblical character - I couldn't find Jesus though, so I think they fucked up a bit.

I met Federica afterwards and we decided to head to the nearest pub.

Let me stop here and tell you about a few discoveries I made about Italy:

1) Milan has very few pubs in very inconvenient locations
2) in some pubs you need to pay for the beers (€5) and also pay to sit at the table (€10)!
3) you can legally buy beers from the supermarket and drink in public, but literally no one does it.

What the fucking fuck, Italy!?! You're in Europe! Where is your drinking culture?

At least their Nastro Azzurro beer is quite nice... It better have been :<

I was advised to go to Navigli for dinner, because supposedly it had cheap and awesome food. Whilst the atmosphere was enjoyable, the food definitely wasn't. There were only all you could eat beffets around and the food tasted artificial and packaged.

I was very disappointed because I missed a delicious pasta dinner I had been dreaming of for a long time and I had McDonald's for breakfast... What was I thinking? At least I had pizza for lunch.

All was mended though once I found out that chiao means both hello and goodbye in Italian. I had a lot of fun saying 'chiao chiao' to strangers I passed in the street.

Marseille day 2

I woke up super early and went for a walk around the town. Marseille is located right next to the ocean so the views were spectacular. There were seafood markets right by the dock selling fish, squid and crabs. The food was so fresh that most of the seafood was still alive when you bought it.

The architecture was pretty cool too. Years of playing the computer game 'age of empires' leads me to believe that its got a strong Italian theme to it.

I also really like the accent of the locals here; they speak French but they sound kinda Italian. As if I don't have enough language barriers already...

After i did the whole touristy thing I purchased 1 baguette with Bree and 2 chocolate crausants (how the hell do you spell that word?) And headed to the train station to finish my journey to Italy.

The train ride was unusually annoying. There was a guy listening to opera on his phone really loudly somewhere in the carriage. Also because of the nature of opera music, every 10 seconds it sounded like it was coming from a different direction - I felt like I was being surrounded. Personally I don't get why you'd listen to opera on your phone anyway, the only entertainment you can get from that genre is by watching little fat men dramatically waving their arms around on stage.

Oh and don't get me started on train taps in the bathroom! The "motion sensor" in each tap is like a blind tennis umpire. I was acting like Bruce Lee stabbing the air trying to get the water to come out, but it just wouldn't budge. Not cool Italy, not cool.

When I arrived at my hostel I messaged the two Italian girls I had met in Prague earlier in the month. Even though it was 10:30pm they were still keen to join me in a pub. We met up in this great place just around the corner and had a range of different beers. I had Salta-foss which I thought was an Italian beer until I read that it was a 9% Belgian triple. The girls had stouts (really strong and bitter dark beer) because it tasted more like coffee.

I really enjoyed talking to Federica and Beatrice. They're the least patriotic people I know, but that didn't stop them from recommending dozens of cool activities around town. They told me there was an Engineering and Mathematics university right by the hostel. I was about to make plans to go there until I realized its surrounded by the faculty of architecture - eww.

Marseille day 1

We all woke up and began to drive in the direction of Madrid. While in the car I looked at hostelworld & Google maps to see where I should go next. I didn't get very far though because Boaty gave me a riddle which occupied my mind.

I said my goodbyes to the Spaniards when they dropped me off at Lleida. At this point I was pretty devastated that 1) it might be at least another 2 years until I see pablo and Africa again and 2) my world trip was almost over. While I was in line for a train ticket I made an impulsive 'mid life crisis like' decision to go to Italy.

The train took me past Barcelona with a 2 hour layover. This turned out to be perfect timing because it meant I could try Paella and beer! I went to a cheapish looking resteraunt and didn't ask for a menu. The waiter tried so desperately to communicate to me in broken English that the serving size was for 3 people, but I tried equally as hard to convince him that I didn't care.

Sadly it was a 24 hour trip by train with a 6 hour layer in Marseille, so I decided to stay a night in Marseille and head to Milan the next day.  

I walked from st. Charles station to the nearest hostel. It was getting very dark and there were drunk soccer hooligans everywhere. With my giant backpack, phone and innocent confused travelers expression on my face i was the perfect target for a mugging. At one point my GPS started walking me down an ally containing a few loitering black men - I'm not racist, I was just really scared because the men were naturally camouflaged.

I arrived at the hostel stabless and breathing. I instantly made friends with the receptionist and an American girl and a Brazilian guy. We all sat in a group on the balcony drinking bottles of wine from the bottle. Even at midnight you can still buy good wine for €2 - good on ya, France. Everyone had really cool stories to tell. The south African receptionist was an ex military special forces anti highjacking mercinary who (supposedly) had killed over 100 people. The Brazilian guy was a French sounding, musicially talented stonner. And the girl from Washington DC was teaching English to French kids in Paris for 9 months.

Skiing day 2

I woke up this morning covered with bruises. I gave Boaty (that's not his actual name, that's just what I call him) permission to punch me whenever I snore.

After 3 bowls of cerial and a shit tonne of water we headed to the slopes again! The weather definitely wasn't as textbook beautiful as yesterday but the mist settling half way up the mountain was an awesome sight to see. I felt like I was in Jurrasic park; which reminds me, they need to make another Jurassic park set in the snow.

I separated from the others for a while to see if I could find some more challenging slopes. Strangely what they label double blacks are extremely easy; about an equivalent blue in Australia. I still managed to almost fall over a few times though, so I can't brag.

We all met again near the top of the mountain for lunch. It had just started to snow so we all decided to have a snowball fight. It was cut short once I got a direct hit on Africa's face and gave her a nose bleed. I'm so sorry Afri, please forgive me :(

Afterwards we decided to go to a pub and get some beers. The local beer is amazing! En par to some of the best German beers I've tried. Very impressed!

I got talking to Boaty and he said he teaches high school maths, physics and chemistry with a friend for money. He also said he's very keen to branch off into online education. He is also a mechanical engineer so perhaps he can translate some of my educational videos and impliment them in his university. If this goes through, I would be so very very happy.

We drove into town to experience some tapas. I love the system here - you just grab food off the table and eat it wherever you want. Sooner or later some waiter will come by and count the number of toothpicks on your plate and know how much to charge you. I really admire that trust. The food is awesome too - they had everything from smoked eel to goats cheese on toast.

After the quick tapas appetizer we all went to grab dinner. Fun fact; the Spanish eat very very late. There were people entering the resteraunt at 12:30 at night. I love eating so late though, it's just a great way for me to escape the guilt of midnight snacking.

Skiing day 1

We woke up this morning after sleeping in by about half an hour. We all surfaced at about 8:30 and the ski rental place and lifts opened at 9:00. The atmosphere was electric; filled with an extacy of fumbling and Spanish profanities.

I decided to rent twin tip skiis so that I could practice skiing backwards! €90 for a 3 day rental - ouch. I shoulda just stolen them.

The skiing itself was outstanding. The snow was perfect, the view was perfectly complimented by good weather and the slopes were almost completely untouched. We all had pretty different skiing levels so we decided to stick to greens for most of the day. I got to practice my Spanish by saying small Spanish words/phrases to the ski lift workers as I passed them. Gracias por fe for! Half of them figured out that I was not Spanish just from my accent, the other half figured out by asking me simple things like "please move to the left" and watching my stupidly smile, nod and stand perfectly still.

After the skiing Africa's dad took us all out to dinner. I think his name is spelled Josse but I'm not sure, it's pronounced "hose-A". My stomache was grumbling for paella but sadly you have to order it in advance since it takes too long. I did one of my 'order the food which is hardest to pronounce strategies' and ended up with butifarra; a very tasty sausage with French fries. At some point this trip I have to try paella though!

Barcelona day 1

Today I woke up with only 1 thing to do; go on a walking tour that started at 3:00pm. Ironically, I got so distracted by walking around Barcelona that I missed the walking tour.

Fortunately however, I knew the rough route of the walking tour so I became my own guide and followed in the other guides footsteps.

First stop was the creatively named 'cathedral of Barcelona'. It was pretty pretty. I didn't go in though because the line was too long - sorry God, you'll have to wait.

Next stop was the pub. Not technically part of the walking tour, but it was roughly in the right direction. I enjoyed a beer and tortillas (its like Spanish fried potato cake)

I walked around the whole city center and then went to the beach. I don't mean to be patriotic or anything, but I think Australian beaches are better. But that might be because it was 10°C and off season, I don't know.

Before I left I went shopping for wine, chocolate and beer to give to Africa's parents, Pablo and Africa respectively as presents. I also purchased enough for a small meal for the train later. fun fact: chorizo sandwiches are amazing.

A few hours later I met Africa at Lleida train station. We enjoyed a beer and coke while we waited for Pablo and 4 others to meet up with us by car. Africa has got a full time job at some bank for infrastructure projects in south America; she managed to vent a bit of her frustration about the 9-5 working life before the others arrived. I didn't have the heart to tell her about the devastating social affects of full time work.

The introductions were at first a tad awkward (mainly because I'd forgotten everyone's name) but afterwards we got on just fine.

We drove for a few hours and arrived at a ski resort in the North Piranise. Africa has an apartment in Baqueira that's located literally right next to the snow. Now that's cool.

Skiing day 3

I woke up with more bruises on my body than last time. I think partially because I was hit for snoring, and partially because my Spanish friends wanted revenge for giving Africa a nosebleed.

The visibility was pretty bad today and the slopes were much more crowded than usual. I was actually kind of happy about that though because it made skiing a lot more challenging. I even found a ski park and tried to go over a few jumps; I didn't get very high though. In hindsight I should have switched over to snow boarding.

The evening was fun. We made Sangria out of Gin, lemon soda, red wine and fruit. Once that ran out we started drinking beers and gin & tonics. Once that ran out we started drinking coke zero - except for some strange reason the Spanish call it 'zero coke'. I found it quite misleading that the bottles weren't packaged empty.

For dinner the girls made this awesome pasta while the guys sat around and drank beer. (Just so you know, I wanted to help make the pasta but was pushed out of the kitchen). I wish I had helped make the pasta because it tasted divine. I asked what ingredients were used but I was unable to understand what was said to me. Maybe goats cheese and spinach?

I felt quite guilty that I was just a measily monolingual speaker because everyone had to switch to English just for me. I felt the frustration in the air whenever they couldn't communicate as well as they were used to. I don't think my ability to understand the Spanish accent has gotten any better either. Asking to repeat words or phrases throughout the night lowered the average quality of conversation I think.

None the less, I'm so happy I got to go skiing in Spain. It was an excellent end to an awesome vacation! Gracias!