It was a good thing I was prepared to go early to the airport as a train had drailed on the airport line and we were all having to transfer to a bus and it was taking twice as long to get to the airport as it usually would.  Needless to say there were a lot of angry ppl who were missing their flights.

I got on to mine ok, it was a little late and Mario (my family's dad) met me at the airport.  His english vocab is quite good but it's going to take me a while to get use to the accent. 

It took us around 1 1/2 - 2 hrs to get to Trento, which the Italians pronounce as Trent and it's located in a valley and I must say it makes me feel very small.  We are surounded by these huge mountains - one of which has snow on top still. 

My apartment is actually quite ig, a lot bigger than I expected.  Mine is the biggest and best room, I have the only balcony, the only problem is that it faces the Agostini's house so in winter when the trees have no leaves I can see right into their house and vise versa (there's only 1 small tree that's very conviently grown up in front of their top windows).  I met two of the girls I'm living with and they're both very nice, I think they think I'm a little weird.  None of the girls have really decorated their rooms, they're so empty and neat kinda like the ultra modern look.  Needless to say that I'm figuring out ways of rearranging my room and things I need to buy to put up around the place.  I figure although I'm only here temproarily it's still long enough to need my own space.  I mean I was only at camp for 2 months but the stuff I bought to decoarate there!!!!

I went over to the agostini's for dinner last night and met the family.  They all speak Italian!!!!  (duh)  It's funny cos the boys will call out to me to get my attention but then they speak to me in italian so I have no idea of what they're saying. 

Anyway I've got fri thru mon off as it's a long weekend and the family is going up the mountains, so it gives me time to get settled and know the place.

Love you all heaps.

Slept like a log the first night.  It was soooo good.

Weather wasn't too cold - kinda like Tassie in summer, fresh.  Jemma had booked a Duck tour of London so it took us around the sites - Trafalga Square, Big Ben, parliament house, buckingham palace, pal mal (just like on monopoly).  Then the bus wen't into the Thames river and we went up a little bit and saw the milenium eye, which is huge!

After that we went to lunch and headed to the national gallery.  It wasn't on my agenda at first but then I realised that you don't very often get the opportunity to see van gough and monet so we went a checked it out.  They even had that water lily painting - monet's work is quite ugly up close, very busy and messy but quite ok from a distance, I guess that's why they think he's great.

Anyway we walked around trafalgar square for a bit then walked through the park and on out way to buckingham palace.  It was quite impressive but not as heavily guarded as the white house.  We went in to the gallery there and saw a portrait of the queen by rolf harris - i didn't know he was a painter!  and a few of the crown jewels.

After that it was over to the tower bridge, which we walked accross then back to Jemma's place.  My feet were toatally dead and covered in blisters thanks to my stupid shoes.

So I arrived in London last night at Heathrow, and it defnitaely is a very busy airport - that or just poorly mananged.  The waiting line to get past passport control took forever and us poor non-uk passport holders were waiting for about an hour to get through.  So by the time I actually got to pick up my bags theyd already been chucked off the carousel.

The flights weren't all that bad, after we had a bit of a rocky start at Brisbane airport.  I flew Malaysian Airlines and silly me forgot to check baggage restrictions but I packed my bags with my flight from London to Verona in mind - 20k checked and 10k hand luggage.  Well when I got to the front desk to check in for Malaysian air I asked "can I check 2 bags, so long as they both come under 32 kilos? Would it cost me any extra?"  the stupid lady said no so I checked the 20k one and then went to check the 10k one on to find that I wasn't actually allowed 32 only 25, I'm allowed up to 32 but anything over 25 is gonna cost me $40/kilo!!!  So she made me unpack my 10 hand luggage down to 4 kilos - I think the bag itself weighed around 2 cos there was hardly anything left in it and I ended up having 2 squeeze everthing else in to a green Woolies bag to take on board - very awkward.

Now the first flight wasn't too bad.  I got around 4 hours of good sleep.  I almost fell asleep at the Kualar Lumpur airport.  Oh and I went to the bathroom  there also - yeah, they only had the hole in the ground toilets, wasn't expecting that.

The second flight was a little better, I was right down the back of the plane in one of the middle seats, which had the only spare seat in the plane next to me!  There was a girl from good ol' Burnie on the other side so we sharde the seat and took turns getting some sleep.  There was a great group of ppl who formed a drinking gorup in the space up the back, so they were really nice and rowdy, and actually drunk all the wine on board.

It was good to finally get off the plane, I met Jemma at the airport and we caught the tube back to her place.  She lives with 3 other girls, all dancers and really nice.  Later today she's got a Duck tour of London planned and then we're going to do some shopping or or something. 

I'm all caught up on sleep kinda, feeling ok.

Till next time - I love and miss you all

Well it's almost time. . .I've been saying my goodbyes all week and although it's getting rather tiring, there's still those people who I don't want to leave behind. 

I've got most of my packing organised, although I can't shake the feeling as though I've forgotten something.  I doubt that will go away for a while until I realise how much other stuff I should have brought along. 

I'm hoping this site is going to be an easy thing to do - I've done one before when I was at uni but that was back in the day when I was surrounded by people who knew what they were doing.  If there are any problems though let me know and I'll see if I can find the time to do something about it.

Well that's my first entry done - not all that exciting I know but now I can play around with the settings and stuff.

Ciao

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Author: italianbella    in: My travelblog

Modified on April 22, 2006 at 8:52 AM