I've set up this blog with the intention to update it (semi)regularly so that people who are interested in what I’m doing on exchange can get updates from here instead of me a) having to remember to email everyone who is interested and b) clogging people inboxes with updatiuses.
Right so a bit of back story:
After receiving an ATAR (new name for TER) of 92.2 I've differed from my first uni preference of Forensic Biology and Toxicology at Murdoch. I'm also sitting on a placement in the Forensic Science course at Bond Uni in Queensland for 2012 so sometime this year I’m going to have to decide which uni I want to go to...
I’m on the last leg of my journey to Italy at the moment, I’ve been travelling for the past 28 hours and I’ll arrive at Malpensa airport (in Milan) in an hour and a half. This is however not the end of my massive half world trip. I then have a train ride of an unknown length until I reach Turin where my host family is located. I have a host mum, Laura, a host sister, Giulia, and a host dog, Cleopatra (a chocolate Labrador).
The trip has been mostly fine with the only difficulties so far being a disagreement at Perth airport with a Qantas lady about the British Airways oversize baggage rules. The Qantas lady eventually won and we paid $260 for my extra 4 kg of luggage (how ridiculous is $25/kg of overweight luggage?). Lessons learned; Qantas is a bum and when travelling overseas for 10 months bring less cloths than the minimum you can possibly survive with.
After final photos with the Fam and some watery eyed hugs I entered the through the gate of no return with my travel buddy Natasha Casey, another student heading to Italy for exchange. The Perth-Singapore leg of our flight was uneventful which was good considering we were flying Qantas. Our stopover at Changi was for 6ish hours and neither Tash or I had been to terminal 1 before (our arrival and departure terminal) so we Skytrained to T2 and then T3 to burn some time. Either T3 has had a recent renovation or I've just never explored it very well because there is actually a little cinema and a sunflower garden and they've just added X-boxes to their internet cafe. So yeah we watched the end of a movie in the cinema and then headed of the find some food, we'd been given lunch and dinner on the flight but it was 7pm Perth time so we were hungry again and decided to start the swap to the Italian time zone and named our meal 'lunch'. We had very extremly hot Lusaka. It was quite amusing because Tash ordered while I was with our bags a little way away from the shop and when our stuff was ready the lady waved to me instead of just calling out the order... we were the only round eyes around so she obviously worked out we were travelling together.
We blew another hour and a half on the internet and playing a Harry Potter game on X-box before heading back to our terminal to watch a bit of American Idol before bording our plane to London. The flight to London was pretty good, we got fed, watched movies and then slept. The Hosties we had on the flight were really awesome; for dinner the options were pasts or chicken and asian noodles... when Tash and I chose the chicken the Hostie tried to convince us that the pasta was really good, upon us saying that we were going to exchange in Italy for the next 10 months he then concluded that the chicken was in fact a better choice. I believe it was also the same guy that suggested that before we take of I move my bag to under the foot rest infront of me (we were the last row and thus 2 seats while the rest where 3) otherwise my bag might end up against the back wall when we take off.
Tash and I managed the terminal change at Heathrow without any problems, although it was a little chilly on the transfer bus. We actually managed to arrive at the correct terminal before they had published the gate that we were departing from so I proceeded to spend the next 45 mins obsessively checking the departure board and stressing that when it was updated we would be pushed for time trying to get to the gate (there were signs that said it could take up to 25mins to get to 'C' gates =S). when the time was published it turned out to only take us 5 mins to get to the gate so we were quite early and some of the only people there. We met up with the other Exchange people there and swapped origins, destinations, family compositions and lack of language skills until we had to bored. There were three people from NZ one from Sydney and one from Melbourne (I think). The flight to Milan was quite short, only 1hour 40, so it was over in a flash and we spent the majority of it being very excited!
Our landing was very smooth and consisted of Tash chanting 'OMG we're in Italy, I can see it, OMG' or something to that extent. We had lovely Hosties again who came up to us just before sitting down to land to tell us that the weather forecast was 4 to -4 ... personally I think he just thought we were being silly tourists and were going to freeze, oh well it was nice anyway.
The airport WAS rather cold but not in a 'omg I’m going to freeze' way more in a 'this is a nice crisp cold' way. We had a little wait for some of our bags but sent out the girls who had their bags to meet our welcome lady Manwella. After we'd collected a guitar form the bulky baggage claim we had to wait while Manwella took a girl to catch another flight to Naples. Two other got picked up from the airport by their families so there were just four of us left to get to Milano Centrale. I’m relatively sure that Manwella has never tried to catch a train from the airport because she couldn’t get her head around the fact that some of the lifts didn't go to floor -1. In the end I had to point out which ones did and she nearly walked right past them again. Once we finally reached the train station she didnt know which platform we were meant to be on, so she took one of the two options thinking there would be signs there. As mum and I discovered when we did the same there are not signs so she headed off to find someone to ask. Turns out she chose the wrong platform and because of that and the lift fiasco we had missed the train we needed to get on in order to make it to Centrale in time for Tash to catch the last train to her host placement. After reluctant grumbling and wrong lifting again from Manwella we managed to get on a bus to Centrale. We missed the train for one of the girls (who could get a later one) but made it in time for Tash's, I think. Manwella made me an Mikele rush to get on a train to Torino which we are sure is NOT the one that our tickets lists but one 30mins earlier =S. as it turns out she also put our tickets in the machine wrong so it stamped in the wrong place, fortunately the conductor could speak English and said that it wasn’t a problem (I got to use my first bit of Italian saying 'parle Inglese' when he asked if we spoke Italian).
As this is posting I’m on the train to Torino! I's so exciting XD
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