On and on and on.... we are now in Milan

CHOO CHOO!!

Off on another adventure - and this one's by train!
CHOO CHOO!

April and I arrived in Milan on Friday, April 24, 2009 around 1pm... with plenty of time to kill before we are to meet up with our couchsurfing host, Matt. So, out and about we went... to stroll the streets of Milan without a clue (as per usual).

Knowing very well that Milan itself is not a very popular tourist destination, we weren't really expecting much. April had written down a few sights to see, but our goals for the visit were a little different. We wandered with our packs for about 3 hours... from visiting the Duomo church, to the Giardini Pubblica - we saw it all haha. No, literally that was all we saw! On the way into the park, we passed through this castle-ish thing, and inside the moat we saw a cat. This was cat the first of our journey - with many more to come. It turned out that cats are NOT good luck.

Duomo church on the left, the evil cat that started it all on the right

Inside the garden (giardini), there were numerous Italian couples.... we're in Italy, so I can let you imagine what we saw going on. We had a lovely stroll and used the immaculate toilet facilities that were provided - don't forget to bring your own TP! :)

Classiest toilets in all of Milan - hey, at least we didn't have to pay for them!

By the time we had seen it all, it was about 5:30/6pm and we had to head out to meet Matt. Matt lives in a small suburb of Milan - about 7km from the city's centre - on a dairy farm! We hopped on the metro and then on the bus - ready for Matt to greet us at a gas station. Expecting some dude in a car to show up, we are kinda creeped out by this guy that says hi to us on a bicycle... turns out, that's HIM! Hahaha - oops! Only now realizing that the farm is right behind the gas station, we stroll the 5 mins to his apartment.

We got a tour of the dairy farm - chickens, chicks, a pony, a donkey, cows, calves, an angry bull, and a 3-legged dog later, we are back inside cooking dinner and preparing for our adventurous Saturday.

Apes 'n Ju with baby cows!

One big problem arose - turns out that April 25 is a national holiday and pretty much everything is closed down.. along with limited public transit. After some quick deciphering, we find that the best thing to do is to walk to the nearest train station (6km away) to catch our train to Cossato - where we need to be by noon so we could make our appointment at 1pm. So Apes 'n I head out at 8am on our 1.5hr hike to a small town called Rho. Once we got there, however, we had no clue where the station was! After a little jogging and talking to the locals we finally made it with barely any time to spare.

Cossato

We arrived around 10:30am - just enough time to head to the grocery store, get some food for lunch and then march the 10km to where we needed to be. Luckily the grocery store was open (for the morning anyway), so we purchased enough food for lunch and dinner that day. So, like I said, we were going to walk 10km to get to our appointment, but after talking with a clerk at the store, we realized where we needed to be was actually 25km away - yah, we're not hiking that thanks! By now, it was 11:30 - so we ate our lunch til around noon and decided that we would call a cab. Just to reiterate: the town of Cossato is very small.... it's a Saturday...AND it's a national holiday... you do the math. Needless to say, it was quite a feat... 1. Trying to reach a cab company on the phone. 2. Trying to speak Italian (when you don't know the language) to a cab company on the phone 3. Trying to get another Italian-speaking person to speak to a cab company on the phone.

April unimpressed by our 4 hour hiatus in Cossato

By now it's 1pm, our appointment time has passed and we have no cab. We call our "appointment" and after another hour of calling back and forth, they tell us that a cab is on the way. 30 minutes pass and a kind sir shows up and takes us where we needed to be - 50€ later that is. Boo.

We ended up waiting about another 2 hours before it was our turn to go... to go where you may ask? Well, see for yourself:

All that hassle just for that!! Hahaha... what an experience though! Phew! April claims that mine was more of a fall than a jump, but I beg to differ... the photos prove that it was the other way around.

Jump or fall? Okay, I think we both fell.... let's check out the video replay

We luckily made it back in time to catch the next train to Milan at 7:15pm, and ate our glorious sandwiches on the train. Getting back to Matt's place turned to be a difficult task since the bus we needed changes stops depending on the day.. and well, we ended up at the wrong one (obviously) based on instructions from our host. Thankfully we had our cell phone and Matt had the Internet.... and well, we got home.... eventually, and basically went to bed to gear up for a football-filled Sunday.

Sunday... if the name of this day couldn't be more opposite....

You've all heard that David Beckham was on loan to AC Milan for the remainder of the season right? SO DID WE.... and who so happened to be playing on Sunday? You guesssed it!! Our mission for Sunday - AC Milan vs. Palermo football game at San Siro Stadium! Woot woot. Too bad it poured rain literally ALL DAY. Blegh. The walk to the game (an hour) was a cold and wet one indeed, but we made it!! Now if only Eurpeans knew how to queue properly... then there wouldn't have been such a disgusting mob at the ticket counter full of cigarette-toting, beer-drinking fans. Boo!

San Siro Stadium in Milan, Italy - oh and David Beckham's bottom!

AC Milan ended up winning the match 3-0... and we ended up getting our glance at Becks - yes Amber, you are jealous.

After the match, Apes 'n I headed down to the canal area for some dinner... and YES it was still raining. The restaurant that looked appealing did not take credit cards, so it was our mission to find an ATM. It only took 45 minutes - that's quick in European time haha - ya right! Back to dinner - it was a lovely meal, with lovely wine, and lovely homemade gnocco fritto - not gnocchi, gnocco. Look it up!

Gnocco Fritto!

Encountering yet ANOTHER bus problem - the 10pm bus never showed up!! AH! We had to wait an hour at the bus station for the next one! Finally one shows up, we wait around a bit.. watch a gang come on the bus and try to start a fight with this guy in a pink shirt....bus driver finally notices and kicks them off... and ahhhhh we're headed back to the farm for a good night's sleep before heading off to Venice the next day! No big deal.

I hope you still don't think I'm unemployed...

So for those of you whom I haven't talked to in a long while, I am going to give you a brief update of my job situation.

January - I began a 6 week contract with a marketing/lead generation company where I was working 35 hours a week from home - making calls to the US and Europe, trying to arrange meetings. Not the best job in the world, but I earned a good chunk of change. Still working my 6 week contract, I ventured out and applied for another position where I would work from home again - this time, being a website administrator adding local events and activities to a family-based website (working when I want and for how long I want - not too shabby).

Mid-February - contract ends and I am left with my 1 part time position. This works out well since we are headed off on a 2 week trip. I will find a job when I get back.

March - Back in action and on the search for a new job. Still living off what I made from my previous position, I am set for a little while longer. End of the month rolls around and I e-mail a woman at the Inspection Académique and ask if there are any English teaching positions available. Luckily, there were!

April - Go in for my interview (which was more of a test.... to test my ENGLISH). Needless to say, I passed and get a call the next day to see if I can start on Monday.

So there you go folks... I am now an English teacher - teaching children from the ages of 6-12 years, while still maintaining my second job working for the family web site.

Did I mention that I get Wednesdays off AND get paid for holidays? And ummm well France has a lot of holidays: April 20-May 1, May 8, May 21, June 1. I've had some free time.

Pixie Reunion

So our little friend Pixie (remember her from Christmas?) came to visit us again for a week while her family went to England. In exchange for us babysitting, we got a sweet little convertible for the week. YEAH having a car again, boo that this city was NOT meant for cars. Trying to find parking here is like trying to win the lottery! Frequently Julie had to get up as I was leaving for work to move the car out of the no parking zone were we left it the night before. Why did Julie have to do this if April was already up you ask? Did I happen to mention that thanks to the lovely MTO my license expired on my birthday (after only 2 years)? So April was not driving anywhere, oh except for that one time up in the mountains at 10:00pm....hey we had a convertible, you would have done it too!

Julie & April Driving

Traffic at 3:30pm on a Friday!

Having a car meant we got to go to Monaco via the middle road and the high road, both of which are winding, at the edge of a cliff, and have speed limits of 90 km/h! hahahah Vive la France! We also hit up the French coast on the way to St. Tropez, and went to San Remo & Dolce Acqua, Italy with a friend of Julie's from back home. The weather was not quite warm at this point (it was just the beginning of April after all), but that didn't stop us from driving with the top down at all times. I might have acquired a cold.

K, so it was a little warm this day!

Oh and Pixie knew who we were and where she was this time, which meant we didn't need the leash, which of course avoided a lot of headaches- for Pixie that is.

In France, you never know where you are

- just where you aren't!

How's that for a view?

Hey Amber, thanks for the car! Can we borrow it again for our Euro trip? You, Loulou, Sophie, and Pixie can come too! 5 1/2's company right?

24's better than 23!

So I had a birthday and despite my protests, turned 24!
(apparently it HAS to work this way!)

My lovely family made sure I was well taken care in the present department.


And to celebrate the day, I worked and then a group of us hit up La Voglia for a little Italian birthday dinner.

This is what it looked like:

Julie and I heading out for the evening.

Getting some money!






Birthday Celebration Attendants!
(Ryan, Julie, Me, Katie, Seabass)

Props to Ryan for finishing that entire pasta dish on his own!

Thanks to everyone for a great night!

Pork and Cheese

Finally, here I go with a post about our lovely voyage to Portugal....

Portugal was added to the list of places to travel to, because well, it's Portugal, it's amazing, I'm Portuguese, AND my cousin was getting married so my entire family would be coming over from Canada - YAY FOR REUNIONS!

We arrived in Porto, Portugal (in the north for those of you who don't know) Thursday evening and we were picked up by my sister Nicki and my cousin Luisa! HIIIIIII!!! Out for dinner (10pm style in Portugal - they eat late), and were overcome with what we ordered. The name of the dish/sandwich thing is called a Francesinha. OMG. This photo speaks for itself:

Francesinha (meaning Little French Girl in Portuguese) is a Portuguese sandwich originally from Porto, made with bread, wet-cured ham, linguiça, fresh sausage like chipolata, steak or roast meat and covered with molten cheese and a hot thick tomato and beer sauce

So anyway, moving on from the crazy meat-filled sandwich... we spent the next day touring around the city of Braga where my uncle and aunt live, realizing that Portuguese men are by far the worst cat-callers in all of Europe (that we encountered thus far). The three of us were standing on a street corner waiting for the light to change and a car was driving past us... the man driving looked over at us, called out something and then pressed his horn. If only a blog could portray what his horn sounded like... but let me try anyway. It began with a horse neighing, followed by one of those "hey good-lookin'" whistles. Some people! We were also referred to as supermodels, and had many a man hiss our way. My heritage :) Hahaha.

Aside from the cat-calling, the town was really different from anything we'd seen so far on our trip. The ceramic tile mosaics on all the buildings were really cool, and the hospital looked awesome! See below:

Who would have thought that a hospital could look so cool!?

Moving along... the day ended with Apes and Steph heading to Porto for the rest of their stay while I stayed with my family for the wedding the next day. YIPEE!

The wedding was gorgeous, let me just say, in an old church in Porto, then followed by the reception at a Port Wine vineyard - so pretty! Welcomed with a glass of port wine, we were then fed from 4pm until the wee hours of the morning. Once 3:30am came around, I was ready to call it a night, and out comes another feast - caldo verde soup and entire BBQ buffet - WHAT!? I guess they sure know how to do it in Portugal! :)

Port wine storage - our entrance to the reception


Little Joao (cutest kid ever)


Inside at the reception

The next day was calm and relaxing - just spending some nice time with my family and feasting on the leftovers from the wedding. What was originally going to be a small luncheon, turned out to be a feast with 17 of us! Amazing though!

On Monday, my immediate family plus Abe, and my aunt and uncle, all piled into two cars and drove up into the mountains to Parafita - the village (more like the hamlet) where my father was born and raised. How amazing was this!? It was almost like stepping back in time to a quiet old village where animals (cows, chickens, etc.) were free to roam the cobblestone streets - trust me, there were some cow patties along the way hahaha. I got to see the house where my dad grew up (which is now a getaway place for my aunt and uncle's family - cottagesque).

The house my dad grew up in (Parafita, Portugal)


The streets of the village - can you see the cow poop?


My family with the gorgeous view from the house

For the afternoon, we were invited over to my dad's cousin's house (in the village 5 min up the road known as Friaes). What an experience this was!! Remember how I was mentioning stepping back in time before? This time it was more unreal! We walked into the kitchen/dining room which was not accessible from the main house, but in a separate section to itself. In the open fireplace (yes, open in the middle of the kitchen), there were 3 cauldrons cooking in the flame! So cool! Lunch wasn't going to be ready for a little bit, so my sister and my mom went exploring in the village - watch out for the poop! Chickens and cats were all over place hahaha. Roosters having a crowing competition, you know, typical village stuff.

I told you the fire was open in the kitchen

Some more people arrived for this incredible feast and the food was ready to be served. Let me just mention now that EVERYTHING that was served was homemade/homegrown - including the chicken, goat, pork, etc. This meal was ludicrously filling - homemade chicken soup, bread, wine, potatoes, goat, chicken, chorizo, sausages, rapini, AND the amazing desserts (yes, plural). I could not believe how much food this woman had made! She truly is a wonder chef!

From L to R: The 3 sistas with the Wonder Chef, Maria!

After the meal, it was time to explore some more. We had heard some baa-ing and realized that they had baby goats living in a little room under the kitchen. So when Maria came out to feed them, we were so excited and out came the camera. The exact same thing occurred when we discovered that they had lambs too!! Best experience ever!

Maria had a little lamb


And a little goat!

After this exquisite feast, we said our goodbyes and piled back in the cars to head back to Braga for the night. We all had a calm relaxing evening trying to digest the food we consumed that day, and I got ready to head to the airport the next morning.

Mom had brought me an entire case of PC white cheddar macaroni and cheese to bring back to France, but I had no room in my luggage! I ended up taking the powder back with me and leaving the boxes of noodles! And I also got a lovely homemade chorizo to bring back too :) SO GOOD! I can't wait to visit again :)

Czech Czech Czech, Czech it out!

WOW.... so you wanna know what happened 2 months ago in Prague eh? Let me look at the pictures to refresh my memory...actually.

Ah yes... So we hear that if you hop on a certain city "tram", which we can catch right outside our door step, that you can see the sites of Prague without paying for a tour. Get on said bus, tour around, arrive at castle. So we tour around this castle, seeing all the sites and then Steph decides she wants to see the bone church. Well, there is nothing ANYWHERE about this church, but we see a wall off in the distance that appears to be made out of human skulls (thanks to an amazing view from the castle) and we head in that direction. After finding said wall, which is encased in a courtyard at the old Riding Academy, (which doesn't open until April- this is February remember) and unsuccessfully trying to talk the guard lady into letting us in, we head back to the apartment to find food.

Side note: the bone castle is actually outside of Prague..but what fun would it be to look up that information BEFORE your trip?

I've learned it's better not to ask

After lunch, we head out to see a famous bridge with a name I don't remember...which like everything else in Europe, is under construction in preparation for Tourist season (Another side note: doesn't this sound like a type of hunting season, similar to fishing or deer season, where you catch a tourist? I think so). Next is some souvenir shopping, a stop at Starbucks, and a clock. A clock that everyone is standing in front of in anticipation of the coming hour marker. The hour arrives and- there is absolutely nothing I can say here that will describe what we saw. It literally left us all going "What was that? Was that all? Can I have those 3 minutes of my life back?" Oh well, we had Starbucks, so off we go to explore some more. We head down a fancy shopping street, with stores that I will NEVER be able to afford, that eventually leads us to the Old Jewish Quarter (I'm going to pause here, and allow YOU to come up with the jokes). Anyways, once here we realize that they try and charge you an arm and a leg to see the sites (again, pause)...including the cemetery. So instead, we walk around the outer wall of the cemetery, poke the camera thru the tiny window, take some pictures, and voila it's almost like you're inside. Some other funny things also happened on this little journey around the cemetery...like me falling off the curb, and walking in a particular way....but again, I probably shouldn't mention it for sensitivities sake, altho I apparently wasn't being too sensitive at the time I did it. OOPS. Confused yet? I know I am. But if you were there, those last sentences will make you chuckle.

Moving on.

Off to Wenceslas Square we go. Take some pictures, do a little shopping in stores we can actually afford, and then head back to the apartment to make dinner and get some shut eye before our flight back to England the next day.

Where shopping takes place in Prague!

And that ladies and gents is Prague, Czech Republic...only 2 months late!

MIA - Paper planes

Look Look Look who it is?

I know I know, I've been MIA for awhile, but I just haven't been in the mood to sit and type on a computer when the weather is so nice. This mood has apparently rubbed off on Julie as well/her computer just plan sucks these days.

Piece de merde

As some of you may know, we've been to Italy recently and seen/done some really exciting things. We've also been designing a website for a local restaurant here in Nice, and sitting on the beach during our spare time. Unfortunately right now, this website and two others that are in the works take precedence over blogging, but have no fear, if Julie's computer decides to start cooperating (or if anyone has keycodes for Mac Adobe CS4 programs) this should be done in no time- bah hahaha. Until then, look forward to hearing about the rest of our stay in Prague, Portugal, Italy and about the other random things we've been up to for the last 8 weeks (oops- has it really been that long?).

In other news, I have a REALLY sore throat. I think I'm dying because of it. It sucks. The end.