My impromptu 2 1/2 month trip to Milan, Italy....and everywhere in between....with my boyfriend Shane :)

Tuesday, December 29, 2009

Twiddling my thumbs


So the day has arrived!! My stomach actually had butterflies as we pulled into the Seattle airport. I haven’t really mentally prepared to not be in the USA for 3 months. Last night and this morning was torture, trying to scramble to pack our bags and realizing, after packing and repacking about 5 times, that we simply had too much stuff to only check 2 bags. Even after getting rid of more and more things. That's what we get for going in the winter time.

Once we got to the surprisingly empty airport and checked in, we found out that we had to pay $60 instead of $50 for our 3rd bag. What? It was a backpack and less weight than the other two by far! Oh well, what can you do. We then proceeded to go through customs which we had been sure would be crazy busy and tedious. Not so. We were through in 10 minutes and didn’t even have to take off our clothes or have strange hands feeling all over us. Haha I joke…kinda. But after that stunt pulled recently by the idiot in Amsterdam, I was expecting the worst.

As lucky as we got going through customs here, we didn’t get any luck from the other side. Apparently their customs are crazy enough that our flight is delayed 2 hours and 10 minutes. Boo! We get to sit here in this dead airport for another 4 hours. Oh well. I suppose I should be happy we aren’t stuck in a line. Shane’s dad just told us that the road we came in on is now stopped because two policemen got shot. Thank goodness we got here as early as we did, because we just barely missed the standstill traffic over that. So I will count my blessings and pray that the family of the policeman who was killed will somehow make it through.

There is the cutest little girl speaking German in front of me. I love international flights. This is where the fun starts. :)

Wednesday, December 23, 2009

Who Ever Said I Have Too Much Baggage??

Hostel booked for the first night in Milan: check. Bus route to get from the airport to the central train station: check. Metro route to get to our hostel: check. Luggage storage for 1 week while we romp around in Rome: major fail.

For those who may ever run into this problem, through various research I have discovered that the Central train station in Milan does in fact have a luggage storage. It is open daily from 6am to 12pm. However, it costs about 3.80 Euro for the first 5 hours, 0.60 Euro for each additional hour from the 6th-12th, and from the 12th hour on, only 0.20 Euro....let's see, one week would add up to how many hours again?? Not only this but it's per bag--Shane and I were planning on having 3-4 bags to store, and they are massive bags. I read somewhere else that they only allow a max. of 20 kg per bag. That is somewhere around 44 pounds. How annoying that they only allow 44 pounds when the airlines will let us take at least 50. Why can't everyone just keep it the same? Are we supposed to unpack 6 pounds? What a nuisance.

This is about where Shane's persuasion skills came in. Previously we planned to each take 2 checked bags and two small carry-ons (it's 3 months ok!). Alas, we discovered that these days only 1 free bag is allowed; every bag after that is $50. One way. Two extra bags=$200 round trip. Boo. So Shane convinced me to try taking only 1 checked bag for myself, and we would split a third. A few days after stressing over this I finally confessed that I really didn't think that was possible! If it weren't for my shoes....! Just kidding...sorta. I blame it on the bulky winter clothing. In all honesty I thought I was doing pretty good; I was bringing a lot less than I had the first trek around Europe. So we decided to go back to Plan A and each take 2 bags. Whew! What a relief for me! (But not for moneyman Shane.) But then last night he worked his convincing magic on me again (it was one of those times where you think it's your idea but it's really not) and somehow I began to believe that I could do without a lot of what I had planned to bring, and that we could each only bring one checked bag = free!! So I excitedly put on my "roughing it" mindset and ditched about half of my clothes and a third of my shoes...Viola! One checked bag! It's really still quite a lot of stuff, once you think about the two carry-ons I will have. Shane also helped convince me to bring my hiking backpack instead of my classy red crocodile skin bag. I wouldn't have wanted to carry it around with no wheels anyways.

So I rest a little bit more peacefully at night, knowing that in worst case scenarios, we will either store 2 large bags for a week or bring them with us...after all it's better than 4 each! I remember the days when Lydia and I struggled up the cobblestone streets of Paris lugging 2 huge suitcases whose wheels were doing the splits, 2 (rather large) carry-on types, and a humongous bag of food. Oooh that food bag! It's still occasionally the topic of discussion, usually in the "remember how horrible that was" category. Sweat and tempers skyrocketed during those terrible luggage-hauling days. Never again!

So to Shane, I thank you, for keeping me happier and less stressed in the long run! :)

Tuesday, December 22, 2009

It's Finally Hitting Me

Up until now I've just been thinking about my upcoming trip to Europe, but last night Shane and I finally sat down (a little late in the game in my opinion) and made our plans for New Year's. We will be staying one night somewhere in Milan, then using our handy-dandy 10-day Italy Eurail pass to make the trek down to Rome, where we will spend a week celebrating the intro of 2010 with the people who know how to celebrate the best. After a few hours of searching through various hostels online and groaning over the skyrocketed holiday prices, I finally convinced Shane to just book the hostel that Lydia and I had stayed at previously: Freedom Traveler hostel. Seemed good enough, so we booked it through the 6th so we could be there for Italy's Epiphany.

Let's get sidetracked for a minute: For those of you who don't know what Epiphany is, it's a Christian feast day
which celebrates the revelation of God in human form in the person of Jesus Christ. (I just now copied and pasted that from Google because I had no idea what it was either.) I read that in Vatican City a procession of hundreds of people in medieval costumes walk along the wide avenue leading up to the Vatican, carrying symbolic gifts for the Pope. The Pope says a morning mass in St Peter's Basilica to commemorate the visit of the wise men bearing gifts for Jesus. So although I'm not Catholic and have nothing to do with the Pope, I can't help but be excited to be there during their traditional celebration.

Back to that hostel. Unfortunately after we booked our week's stay and breathed a sigh of relief (I'm certain mine was bigger than Shane's), we noticed that it had booked us for the wrong dates! Great. Suck back in that sigh of relief. Upon writing them an email questioning this disaster, we were told that reservations for this time of year were required to be 4 days' stay and must begin on the 29th of December. Not possible, since we would be in the air on that day. Thankfully Shane, being the cautious, no-risk person that he is had taken advantage of their $2 cancellation protection, which allowed us to receive a credit for the deposit that could be used to book a different hostel on that same website. (Hostelworld.com, for other travelers out there.)

Because our plans had been demolished and we could start all over, we decided that since we'd be in southernish Italy for a whole week, we should just book the first two nights in Rome and then use our Eurail pass to travel to other neighboring cities during the week before going back to Rome for Epiphany. So my afternoon consisted of searching the alarmingly increasing lack of hostel vacancies for the first two nights' stay in Rome. I even entertained the idea of using couchsurfing.com, which is a network of thousands of people worldwide opening their homes to travelers free of charge, lending a couch and a hot shower for a night or two. If I were more familiar with this method of travel and had thought ahead to avoid the holiday rush, this would be a great way to save money. Maybe in our future travels we will look into it. But for now I finally found and booked a room in Pensione Giamaica, and actually was able to snag a private room with two twin beds for about the same price as some other 12-bed hostel rooms. This will make Shane happy because he's never done the hostel scene before and is concerned about theft in a room of 12 beds with 12 strangers. Understandable. Hopefully this will decrease those chances....this once. Haha. Overall, I hope that he is able to see the fun and enjoyment of living a bit on the unknown side by not quite knowing where your next bed or meal will be, or sharing a room with 12 fellow travelers who usually turn out to be quite friendly and interesting. While not always fun during, those are some of the things I remember most fondly from my previous Europe excursions.

With the issue of where to lay our heads the first two nights in Rome taken care of, my next quest will be for a place to stay in Milan the first night, luggage storage in Milan so we don't have to sweat too much trying to get on the train, and places to visit during our week in southern Italy. Wish me luck! :)

Thursday, December 10, 2009

Just Waiting...

So as I mentioned in my last post, my plans to successfully complete board exams and find a decent job by, oh, January were destroyed....happily destroyed I might add. The story goes that Shane and his roommate/classmate Ryan were miraculously 2 of the...well, 2...to be accepted to participate in a type of exchange program between their MBA program here and the MIP college in Milan, Italy for the winter quarter. 2 1/2 months.

Guess who gets the girlfriend priviledge of tagging along??!! That's right, ME!!! You can't even imagine how excited I am even now just thinking about reliving my experiences in Europe 3-something years ago! Of course, it will definitely be different; Shane is not Lydia, we'll be there in the winter instead of the summer, and I will still be lugging along my schoolbooks in the attempts to study during my time there, due to the fact that I desperately need to take boards and get a job as soon as I get back in March. Did I mention that I ran out of money about a month ago? Shane, being the sweetie that he is, has agreed to not let me go hungry or homeless until I can find a job. Of course, back when he agreed to that we weren't planning on a 2.5-month jaunt to Europe. Haha. Poor Shane.

Don't worry I'm not mean. I'll be paying every cent back.

Before we leave for Italy at the end of December, we're making a pit stop in Washington to spend Christmas with Shane's family. While there I'll also get to see Lydia and her boyfriend Dennis, and we all plan to go snowboarding sometime. Please pray for my bum.

Currently storage day is set for tomorrow, and my apartment has been packed up for about a week now. I've eaten microwave popcorn for supper three nights in a row. Guess that's what I get for jumping the gun and packing all my dishes.

So for now as I sit and write this blog, I'm just waiting...impatiently. :)

This Is Me

So in this first blog I thought I should perhaps give a background of who I am and what led me to begin writing a new blog, for those who are interested. So here goes!

My name is Ashelle (pronounced uh-shell,
not Ashley) and I've managed to stay alive for 25 years. I have one older sister, Lydia, and two loving parents who are still together. I was born in Kansas, raised in Nebraska, and at the age of 12 moved to the piney woods of east Texas (the pretty part that no one seems to know exists). At the time I had been home schooled my entire life, and although it was one of the best things that could have ever happened to me as far as education goes, my enrollment in a "real" school by 7th grade happened early enough to save me from ending up a social misfit.

The small community I lived in was mostly made up of Seventh-day Adventists, like me, and sported a church strategically built in between the elementary school and the academy across the street. A tiny "healthfood" store across from the academy sold candy for the kids and vegetarian foods for the adults. Our house was located 1/2 mile from this thriving metropolis, and it was my sheltered world until I flew the coop for my first year of college, 3 hours away.

After attending college in Texas for one exciting year, I gave in to Lydia's enticing suggestions to attend a college in Washington state with her. This is where I stayed for the remainder of my college life, majoring in Undecideds, Boys, pre-Chiropractic, pre-Physical Therapy....and finally one that I stuck with: pre-Physical Therapist Assistant.

After my second year of college came the pivotal part of my life in which Lydia and I decided we wanted to take a year out to become student missionaries in Poland. There is no way I can describe how amazing that year was for me. It was by far the most momentous, exciting, awe-inspiring year of my life. In between teaching English classes (which, I'll be honest, I'm a sucky teacher) we saved half of our meager stipend and used it to explore the land of Europe. Among our several stops were Germany, Lithuania, Austria, Hungary, Czech Republic, France, and Italy. Our adventures as two girls traveling alone cannot be surpassed, and we have even considered making a book of our numberous blogs from that trip. In the meantime, however, I cannot help but keep the memories alive by recording my own account of the adventure that I am about to embark on. :) But more about that in my next blog.

After completing my pre-PTA requirements in Washington, I transferred down to the sunny state of Califoria, specifically Loma Linda University, to complete the actual PTA program. While there I made more memories and friends to last a lifetime. Despite having a class that felt like family, it was difficult because during my last year at college in Washington I began dating an amazing guy named Shane, and when I left for California we decided to try to stick it out despite the distance. It was extremely hard, but to make along story short, we made it! A little over two years down the road now and we are still going strong.

After graduating, I made my way upstate to be where Shane would be completing his engineering masters degree. It is here that I snatched up a cute little apartment and planned to putter around studying for my board exams before landing a job that would miraculously erase my financial stress... But things don't always go according to plan........