Mama Mia We Are In Italia at last - mucho bucho wucho !!




Well its 4am and that bloody alarm clock is going crazy we have to drag ourselves out of bed, shower and by 4.45 we are downstairs waiting for the shuttle bus to take us to Gatwick airport. We drag ourselves onto the shuttle, off the shuttle at the airport and into the terminal in Gatwick where we are surprised to see it is sooooooooo busy and it's only 5am. We only managed a couple of hours sleep and we are knackerd. Brits are everywhere jetting off on their european holidays dressed in soccer shirts and soccer shorts - like most of them actually are wearing soccer shirts. Because of the royal wedding in a weeks time security at the airport is at an all time high. There are police everywhere armed with hand guys and some machine guns watching people as they pass through security. I got through security okay but then I look around and Glen has been taken off to the side by a security officer and he ends up getting a full body search and his hands are swabbed with some weird liquid to check for explosives. After check in and going through security we are surprised to see that every restauraunt in Gatwick is open so we head to Wetherspoons (Guy's recommendation) where we are able to order a full English breakfast (bacon, eggs, beans, sausage, mushrooms, tomatoes and a big cup of tea) Wetherspoons is actually a pub and there are dozens of brits in there eating breakfast washed down with pints of beer at 5am!!!!!  

Mmmm bacon, sausage, eggs, beans, tomatoes, mushrooms and hash browns at 5am

By 630am we are on our flight to Italy and 1.5 hours later we land in Milan which is in northern Italy a fw hundred kms from Rome. We head through Italian immigration and we manage to talk nicely to the customs officer and get an Italian stamp on our passports to add to our collection (they dont normally stamp passports in Italy, Glen really worked his magic) Once we had our luggage we head to the car rental desk and collect the keys to our super sporty Italian sports car we have rented(teehee NOT) we walk through the car rental lot looking for space 32 and when we find it we have a giggle at the tiny boxy car that we have rented. The car is a Fiat Panda, ugly as bloody hell but its economical and cheap so we dont give a !!!! The good thing about Italy is they drive on the same side as Canada so navigating the roads is pretty easy. We have brought our tomtom loaded with a Europe expansion card so after plugging in the cordinates we are soon on the Italian autostrasse (highway1) to our hotel. We arrive at our hotel which is about 20km north of Milan and not knowing Italian hotel standards we dont really know what a 4* will look like   We check in and reception asks us if we want to pay an extra 10 euros a day to upgrade to a top floor premium suite with jacuzzi tub. thats only about 13$ a night so we say okay and when we get to the room it is KNOCK OUT GORGEOUS! the bed looks like something a king and queen would sleep in and the jaccuzzi is unreal. 

king Glen on his royal bed !!

As we only paid 50cdn a night for this hotel it's a real surprise for the quaility we are getting its awesome. The price also includes a full buffet breakfast. Once settled into the room we shower and change and head out to explore the local town and find something to eat. We drive our little sporty metal box around the back streets of the local town. The architecture everywhere is amazing - look at some of the photos of the buildings we stopped to look at - this is how we imagined Italy would look.         It's now 2pm and we find a real local looking bar/trattoria.  On the flight over Glen has been cramming Italian phrases into his brain and he is excited to try it on the locals in the bar Glen say's in Italian hello and he is understood he then orders duas birra and we get 2 beer and from the menu he orders a couple dishes and I have no idea what to expect and we sit and wait for the food and watch the locals. We are served with a full tray of antipasto (fresh cold meats, cheese olives, ham, eggplant and a fresh loaf of bread from the oven) we also get our first proper Italian pizza and ALL the food is absoulutely to die for.         With the food we have 3 beers each and when Glen asked for the il conto (the bill) it is 22euros (about 30$) we give the owner 30 euros's and she gives glen 10 back and says is okay, is okay. she also refuses a tip and is just so happy some english speaking people came in her restaurant. she is a darling.
We are so exhausted by now as we have only slept about 4 hours in the past 48 hours so we have to head back to the hotel - it is only 5pm but both of us are falling asleep at the table.  driving back to the hotel we think about that beautiful jaccuzi and as soon as we walk into the room glen cranks up the hotwater to fill it up.......mmmmmmmmm. steamy hot jaccuzi then bed - shit the water is freezing cold Glen is busy writing this blog so I get on the phone to reception to ask how to get hot water into the jaccuzi and it takes me 3 attempts, speaking REALLY slowly to get him to understand "hot water" he seems to understand and asks me to go to reception this is really odd as im in pj's already but glen say's you better go (HE WAS NAKED). I head down and when i get to front reception, the guy i was actually speaking to was stood with an electric kettle in his hand he says "hot water" he must think we want a coffee and dont have any boiling water. After 5 min of sign language he undersntsds we need hot water for the tub and he will get maintance to sort it, i go back upstairs to tell glen what happened and we crack up about him trying to give me hot water from a kettle. oh well forget the jaccuzie We jump into bed thinking we will sleep until the next day. 2 hours later we are both wide awake thinking it is morning as the sun is up. Holy cow we look at the clock and its only 7pm the same day - shitty !!! Oh well we are also strangely starving hungry so we get dressed and head out for a meal. After a meal of pizza and wine we stop at a local bar just outside the hotel for a night cap. After a few minutes in there we notice it is the local GAY bar that we are in. The guys in there are so nice to us - especially to Glen (teeheeeheeee).  

 We chat to them in sign language and tourist book italian and have a great time. After we notice it is after midnight we have to force ourselves to go to bed - hopefully we will sleep !!
TOmorrow we start exploring northern Italy proper.