Italy and Switzerland

Last Wednesday the 27th I started a four day adventure with my host family. We went on a little car ride to some of the neighbouring country's to France that of Italy and a little bit of Switzerland.

So we woke up at 4am due to our long car trip. I woke up a few hours later and we were in some high country in Italy and it had snowed the night before so we stopped for a minute and I had a play while I had a play. The being my first time with snow of was a bit excited.

We continued onwards to Milan or Milano as the Italian's call it. It was a pretty big city for what I saw. My first encounter with an Italian city it seemed a lot more open then streets than France. In France you are scared most times you go driving that you are going to crash. It also seemed a lot more colourful. Many houses were yellow, orange, red so it was nice for a bit of a change,

We firstly went to the Milano football stadium. Was really weird when we went to go buy our tickets the chick spoke English with us straight away..didn't even try to speak Italian. My host family don't speak any Italian so I had to talk English with her to buy the tickets. It had a big room with the history with the two clubs that call it their "home". We then continued to walk through to the field and then to the players rooms which confirmed that european soccer teams have way too much money and then we moved onto walking through to the city.

We walked around the city and went into some of the old Churches and shops then had lunch at a small restaurant where I had pasta. was pretty good but so small..could have had another three.

We were then walking through this park which took us to our next destination and there were all ways people coming up to you with wrist bands asking for money. My host family kind of said not to give them any money ( because there were heaps of these guys around the city) so I had to go by what they wanted, but one of the guy's came right up to me and spoke to me in English and Christaine my host mum said something along the lines of "no no money" so I kept walking then he put it on my shoulder and said free for you. so I turned around and Christaine kept saying no no mooney and he said no it's free for you. So he started talking to me for a little bit, asked where I was from and I asked him and he said he was from Africa. I would have loved to stay and talk to him and find out why he was in Italy and about his home in Africa but my family wernt quite into that idea. He said his name was Taboul and he seemed really happy I stayed and talked to him. Probably because not many people do talk to them..most don't even look at them as if they are dirt so I thought I would try and make conversation while I could without being kicked out of the house.

We then were walking through some more of the city when we came across this massive church. I am told by my beautiful friend Emily Grant that all the spikes on the top are saints and the one up the top is painted with pure gold. Was cool inside with heaps o history and "no boring bits". Was not aloud to take photos inside.

After more walking we got back in the car to drive to Porlezza, which is where we stayed over night, which I am pretty shore over looks lake Lugano.

The next morning we woke up and drove to the top of the mountain near where we were staying and the view was overlooking the Swiss Alps. It has snowed again overnight so I was happy.

We stayed up there for around an hour, had lunch then made our way back down the mountain where we would explore the closest town.

That night we had lunch at some of my host family's family friends in Switzerland.

The drive through Italy and Switzerland it pretty motionless. The family didnt tell me we were about to go through to Switzerland..I wanted to brace myself or something to make it a bit more official or something..apart from the time we came across to Italy for 20 min..the only other time i have went over seas or to another county was New Zealand camp..So driving to another country still hasn't got normal for me.

Switz was another very nice country..one of the first things I saw there was a picture of Rodger Fed.

The family were very nice and I got to meet a young boy Sasha I'm pretty shore his name was, he was 3, he was telling me about the monstre over the other side of the city and how him and me were going to fight it. So he was fun to talk to and test some of my French out.

The next day we had a day on these boats that would take us from one side of lake Lugano to the other because it is such a big lake. We walked up the big hill where there was a Castle up the top but we couldn't get in that day but was still good to be able to see some more of the country. We went from side to side around 4 times. We were walking around and went into one of the small churches and i met my first Aussie. She was from Melbourne and was traveling around Europe    obviously.

Where we were walking there were heaps of olive trees, went to try one but the family said they arnt very nice   but anyway,

For the last day we had a sleep in, packed up and drove back to Switz where we had lunch again with the family friends.

We had a bit of a look around then at 4pm we decided to make our way home for our 7 hour car ride.

We got home around 1:30am. After 4 days of 3 country and 650 photos later I found my way to bed.