Multilingual Milan!

25/6/12

1924 (local time)

Milan, Italy (written in Florence)

It’s been go, go go for the past week! The weather in Italy is HOT! Super hot, we are talking 28 – 33 degrees! Feels pretty good compared to Melbourne which has 10 degrees at the moment…

Ok, so I arrive to Milan via Bus from Zurich! The bus as a whole was a bit of a nightmare! It arrived late, and it wasn’t the most comfortable journey, but that’s buses for you I suppose.

I eventually arrived and I met Silvia at the bus station on the 18^th of June in her little VW Golf GTI. She then showed me the way that Italians drive… In a word, Sketchy!

I’m not one that drives all that dangerously, I find no real need for it. Well, the Italians don’t think like this. Everyone on the road, speeds, changes lanes about a dozen times in the space of a kilometre! Its pretty mental, not as bad as the Egyptians though!

I met Silva out in Dahab, Egypt herself and her friends came out on holiday to work on their windsurfing skills, and since they love a drink and I do also, we got along quite well.

So I kept in touch with her, and when I let her know that I was coming to Milan she was more than happy to let me stay for a few nights as I explored her city, and maybe even do some windsurfing if there was some wind.

As soon as we got in, I freshened up had a shower and then we went to Irene’s lovely flat which is just outside of Milan. Irene was one of the girls that was windsurfing, and now has her own windsurfing equipment! We had an amazing dinner, the girls certainly know how to cook! and then headed out for some beers, what a perfect way to start my trip in Italy.

The next day involved A LOT of walking. I explored the city, I went to a pretty cheesy natural history museum which had dinosaurs bones and dodgy looking stuffed animals behind glass. It was a bit of laugh. After chuckling through the museum, I wandered on down to check out the Duomo, which is Milan’s landmark and the WORLDS biggest Gothic Cathedral.

Its pretty amazing with its 3400 statues, 135 Spires and 155 Gargoyles, I payed my 7 Euros, and headed up to the top. It was an amazing view, even though I was sweating profusely it was beautiful.

Afterwards I walked through the Galleria Vittorio Emanuele and saw a pair of Bull’s Nuts (Balls, Testical’s) that are part of the beautiful tiled floor, where tourists spin on it 3 times for good luck. I didn’t bother.

I then wandered through the city to visit the old castle, and then a beautiful Arch that’s looks similar to the Arc De Triomphe in France.

After this mammoth day of walking, I headed back to Silvia’s where I had to get dressed looking ‘nice’ as we were going to a going away party for one of Silva’s friends.

All though I felt completely underdressed, it was fantastic meeting all these peoples and laughing at the ones that looked completely ridiculous with Kashmir scarfs tied around their neck in 30 degrees heat!

I’m normally not one that feels self conscious, and I will generally wear anything, but  some of the Italian guys have this attitude that you don’t feel all that welcome. Obviously there are some absolute legends, that are completely the opposite… Just my views… don’t have a go!

I woke to a sore head, but managed to get out of the flat at a reasonable time, Day 3 was going to be about checking out Museums. I went down to the ‘Science and Technology’ Which was similar to Science Works in Melbourne, I wasn’t such a huge fan.

Afterwards, I checked out a museum talking about the walls that surrounded Milan…

I’m pretty over museums now.

The plan for Thursday was to hit the lake and maybe even get some windsurfing in with Irene! Unfortunately the wind never prevailed, but I did manage to get out and do some light wind freestyle!  The only thing that sucked, is that I got a text off Irene the next day, saying that it was absolutely howling… bugger, we only missed the wind by 1 day! Welcome to windsurfing!

That night, we hung out with more of Silvia’s friends! We were fortunate to see Francesca, who was another one of the girls we met out in Dahab. We had probably the greatest BBQ in her beautiful flat, with great music and great company! It was a great night.

My last day (which was a Friday) I found out Tim (the turbo) Williams was in Milan. Tim is one of my hockey mates from back in Melbourne and to catch up with him after not seeing him for like 3 years was awesome! We picked things up where we left off!

I quickly showed Tim around the city, had some proper Italian Pizza with Silvia which was potentially the greatest (and biggest) pizza I ever had.

That night was spent at a Chicken and Chips restaurant, where they only served you Chicken and Chips, weird I know… I spose you had to be there…

After the Chicken and Chips, we all engaged in some Karoke… I think we were the only ones that spoke English. I’m not to sure if the Italians were that impressed that we were rockin’ out to Bohemian Rhapsody!

PHEW! And that finally concludes my amazing trip in Milan!

A massive thankyou goes to Silvia for taking care of me in Milan! And of course I cant forget Irene and Francesca for everything! You were all fantastic!

Next up is Florence! BE PREPARED!

Ciao!... 'thats what they say'

Note- We dont actually call Tim, Tim The Turbo Williams... but it sounds amusing!

The sketchy Museum... 

The lovely streets of Milan!

You can see the big cathedral in the background!

There he is! The Duomo!

Tourist.

All the little ants!

all the many towers!

Pretty epic stuff!

more ants!

The Fountain!

PHOTO BOMB!

The beautiful parks outside the castle!

the Arc de Triomph!

Here we have Lake Como! So beautiful!

Bit of lightwind windsurfing!

Amazing Cloud formations!

Marko and Irene!

THE END!

Munich & Dachu

MUNICH

1900 (local time)

16-6-12 (Yves Flat – Zurich - Listening to the lovely church bells in the background, with the sun on my back)

So, I caught a ‘lift’ via this website called Car Pooling.co.uk, its based off this Germany website where you go to this site, tell it where you wanna go, and BOOM! 30+ people are offering lifts to what ever destination you want to go to. All you do, is just chip in for petrol money. It’s a great idea, and I have saved SO much money doing this. For Example –

Trip to Berlin – Munich via Train =                             99Euros.

Trip to Berlin – Munich via Car Pooling =                30 Euros.

BARRRRRGAIN!

Anyway so I got a lift to Munich and I was greeted by a couple that I met travelling through Jordan (in 2009), When I met Bec and Simon we chatted for ages, infact we hired a car and all hell broke loose in Jordan! Anyway, so we kept in touch hopefully meeting one day up in the small town of Bendigo, where my Grandparents live.

So we kept in touch and Simon and Bec decided to do more travelling and live in Munich, rent a flat and use it for a base for their travelling! When I emailed them about coming to Munich they invited me to their flat for a couple of days.

So we set a meeting place and met up in Hungry Jacks, took me back to their lovely flat no more than 10 minutes from the city! PERFECT.

 When I got settled, they then took me out for an awesome dinner at a trendy Hamburger place! Legends!

The first day meant that I headed out and SESSIONED the city! Did the museums and walked around all day! The weather was on and off (like Melbourne) so I was having to walk under shelter, instead of along the river.

So I first visited the “German” Museum, it was very German. The photos will show this…

The German Museum 

Very German!

Anyway, That night was nice and quiet. Simon had to do his Exams, so me and Bec watched a Movie called Run Fat Boy. It was average.

So, the next day arrived and I caught a Train all the way to Dachu, which is 16KM North West of Munich, the reason for this visit, is that I wanted to check out ‘The first concentration camp in World War 2’.

I made some friends with some Indian guys that were heading the same way as me, we mostly chatted about the cricket!

We walked for what felt like ages to find this place, we found it so confusing. I swear all the signs point different directions.

We eventually found it, and WOW. I didn’t expect to see it like this… I never really understood what a Concentrate Camp was. Obviously I saw it as a place where horrible horrific place were a few thousand died. Not correct, Jews alone there was 4.1million!

The structure itself was massive, 4 ‘bases’ huge fences, Watch towers! Everything. Inside the main base, there were museums, and churches cemetery and even a Gas Chamber.

I’ll put some photos up so you can have a look.

That night was rather big, as Germany was playing their first soccer match against Portugal. Simo and myself got on the beers, and I dragged him away from his studies. We went to a nice ‘touristy themed’ bar I’m normally not one for these types of places but, it was literally the only place that had standing space for the TV. Funnily enough the place was mostly filled with Germans, and no tourists.

A beer at that 'no tourist' place! Beer the size of my head!

Beers were drunk, pubs were found… it got late and Simo and myself headed home to a sore head the next morning, where I had to catch another ‘lift’ from Munich to Zurich.

Easy morning! No Dramas, made it to Zurich!! To party with Yves!

NEXT UP! SWITZERLAND! What Zaney Things Will Happen To FIGJAM On His Next Adventures!

Checking out the BMW museum, it was really cool! 

Nice Beamers!

Cant fit much windsurfing kit in this little guy!

This is the front gate for the Concentration Camp in Dachu, the writing on the gate says something like "Work sets you free" They didnt know any better...

Still in Dachu, on either side there used to be the several places where camps were.

The gas chamber, and crematorium 

Gas Chamber

The Indian guys!

The Memorial Shrine.

Step Up To The Plate Berlin!

Berlin

Right, so we cruised down the Autobahn at first just at a measly 140km/h in Max’s BMW M5… for the guys that don’t know what an Autobahn is, it’s a basically a big highway/motorway where there really isn’t a speed limit. Anyway, so at 140 things were going quickly, but after some peer pressure we forced Max up to 240km/h! Jesus, now that was fast. We were going past cars like they weren’t moving! It was unbelievable!

I have never been that fast in my life! It was defiantly a rush!

Eventually we made it to Berlin, and we paid our money to Max and we set on our way. It took me a while to figure out the metro here in Berlin. It is quite tricky, but I managed!

Once I found my hostel , I chilled out for about an hour. Got Bored, grabbed my skateboard and headed to the Berlin Wall or East Wall. Took some nice photos!

Once I explored the entire wall, I kept walking for a couple of minutes and came across this cool reggae camp. On entrance there was like a bunch of dudes playing 3 v 3 basketball, then there was this nice looking mini half pipe!

The music was chilled, the people were fine. I just session’d this ramp for 2 hours just practicing! And it payed off, I landed my first rock-to-fakie! Which I was stoked about! I then managed a Axel Stall to Rock-to-fakie! Once I did that, I had a beer and then went back to my hostel and chilled out!

As tomorrow was going to be a lot of walking!...

I set my alarm for 8:30am but didn’t leave until 12. I slept in, and then just minced around and organised my trip to Munich!

In my trip around Berlin, I visited…

·         Brandenburg Gate

·         Reichstag

·         Walked down the Unter den Linden, and checked out all the different German Car Dealerships.

·         Visited the tallest building in Germany the Berliner Fernsehturm aka the TV Tower.

·         The Museum Square.

I have to say this even though Berlin is a very beautiful city with apparently a great Nightlife, I didn’t really connect with it. I’m sure you all know what that feeling is like. For me it just felt like another city, it’s kinda sucks when you feel like this, because I have heard so many great stories about the place… Maybe it just wasn’t for me… Till next time ey!

Along the Berlin Wall, these little cars were everywhere, kinda cool i thought!

Going for a skate at the Berlin wall!

Loving the Art in this photo! So many patterns!

Deutschland 

Reichstag!

Branderburg Tor

Pretty beautiful, but so much construction going on!

Bugatti Veyron

This was a building in the Museum square

Hope you enjoyed the photos! NEXT UP MUNICH!

Bremen - Hamburg with LISA!

6-6-12

1937 (local time)

Berlin, Germany

-Writing about Bremen :)

HELLLLLLOOOOOO, HOW AARRREEE YOUUUUUUU!!!!

What you have just read is German. Yup, ive been in Germany for like 1 week, and I already feel like I’m fluent!

Right, so I am writing this in my Hostel in Berlin, I’m fairly bored. The hostel im staying at is lovely, super clean but as far as the  ‘fun’ factor goes… its lacking. But that doesn’t bother me all that much, I’ve had some great fun in the last week, so it was going to be hard to keep the epic run going.

So let’s bring it back about till about the 2^nd. I eventually stumbled into Bremen.  After a stupid amount of hours on buses and trains I got there.

I was greeted by Lisa, who I met out in Dahab doing her PADI Open Advanced Course. Since I was coming to Germany for my travels Lisa said she would show me around her city. So of course I took her up on her offer, but the first thing she wanted to do on my arrival was to consume some beers and then hit the town. I wasn’t complaining! I met a tonne of her mates, who are a bit strange, not in a bad way, just ....strange :)

The next day was a bit slow, as we both had sore heads, but we dragged ourselves into town had a glass of wine and watch a lovely cover band in the city centre of Bremen, it was a pity that the weather wasn’t great but just the atmosphere of a nice glass of wine and some live music made it a fantastic evening to a hard first day!

Lisa promised me that we were going to head over to Hamburg, so we caught a train that took us directly to Hamburg! It was great, apart from Lisa having absolutely no orientation skills we had a great time just wandering around the city. 

We eventually made our way to St. Michaelis Chuch in Hamburg! I was 100% against it, but Lisa insisted we climb ‘walk’ to the top. I don’t know how many steps it was… but it was enough to definitely get the legs burning. The photos we got from the top are pretty awesome!

Unfortunately that was my last day with Lisa as she had to start her studies for her Lawyer exams, and I had to keep cookin’.

Lisa showed me this great website where you can basically hitch-hike to anywhere around Europe. You type in where you are, and where you want to go… and BAM! Sometimes up to 20 people pop up on your screen telling you how many places are available, their name and sometimes even what car they are driving.

You can save so much money do this its epic! I’ve saved a fortune (and now I sound like a car salesman)

Trip to Berlin – Munich via Train =                             99Euros.

Trip to Berlin – Munich via Car Pooling =                30 Euros.

I asked very nicely for Lisa to call up a guy called Max that was driving a (new) BMW M5 to take me from Bremen to Berlin…

After a bit of hassle we had it sorted… and that brings us too the next story – Berlin!

THANKS AGAIN LISA! SUPERSTAR

Enjoy the photos! NEXT UP! BERLIN!

A beautiful windfarm on the way to Bremen!

Awesome live act from Bremen!

Town hall (Rathaus) in Bremen 

The view of the top of the tower!

Classic Flack!