Milan Weekend

On the weekend 23-24th June, we caught an early 6:10am flight from Stansted airport to Bergamo airport. We were going to Milan – one of the fashion capitals of the world! Ian was quite excited with anticipation, he even thought our hand-carry bag might not be big enough. I assured him that everything would be too expensive so he didn’t need to worry.

From the Bergamo airport, we took an hour bus ride (pre-booked through Terravision) to Centrale train station. Once we got off the bus, you guessed it, we headed straight to Buenos Aires Avenue, Milan’s local shopping district. This was indeed a shopping paradise. This road is really long, 1.7km to be exact and it stretches from Loreto to Lima then Porta Venezia intersection (all of which are connected by the metro). Luckily we had anticipated the amount of exercise we were doing that day so both of us had walking shoes on We even walked as far as Via Della Spiga and Via Monte Napoleone Street, where all the expensive designer labels have their main shops. By the time we wandered to Duomo Square, we were absolutely exhausted!

Thanks to Ian’s complimentary voucher at any Hyatt hotels, we stayed for free at the Milan Park Hyatt which was conveniently close to Duomo Square. We were literally minute away from the beautiful Milan Cathedral, second biggest church in the world (after Saint Peter’s Basilica) and also second biggest Gothic cathedral in the world (after Cathedral of Seville). Going up to the roof is a must! It costs 6 EUR. You can either catch a lift from the back of the cathedral or walk 240 steps up. The view of the Gothic architecture from the rooftop is absolutely magnificent!

On Sunday, we took it easy and decided to walk from Duomo Square. While having our delicious gelato, we walked along the cobble street of Via Dante then we heard beautiful harmonic sounds of accordions, playing the tunes of William Tell Overture (or if you want to be amused, click here) by a very much synchronised father-and-son band. Eventually we entered the grounds of Castello Sforzesco, it used to be a castle for the Austrian Empire but now it is an art museum. Walking along the footpath in the courtyard was a strange experience in itself, not only did we see many hawkers selling fake handbags and we also saw a man with long curly beard in a Chinese long dress, sitting on a stool and playing an instrument called “yee-woo” (which is a 2-string Chinese fiddle)?! Definitely not what I had expected to see. Further inside was a huge garden, spotted with picnickers enjoying the beautiful weather. After our tour of the castle, we caught the metro to Loreto and made our way to Buenos Aires Avenue for the rest of the afternoon. We had tasty Italian pasta/pizzas on both nights and gelato for dessert

Our flight back was delayed, it was supposed to take off at 8pm but we didn’t leave till 9:30pm, which meant we didn’t get back to London till 10:30pm, waited an hour and a half at the immigration counters then had to take a bus and finally got back around 2am. This was when Ian had a hectic morning trying to book taxi at 3am for his flight to Amsterdam the every same morning. And I had to work at 8!

 

Looking forward to a quiet weekend

Or should I say, relatively quiet. We have nothing planned other than lunch and a movie with some friends tomorrow. It’s good to do nothing, especially when you travel all the time.

I already mentioned we spent last weekend shopping. We spent Sunday looking for my suit, although Mimi still managed to find something to buy. We actually started the day by having brunch at Harrods in one of their restaurants. Pizza and Pasta. We got there early so luckily we got a seat. Within half an hour, there was a queue…a really long one. The food was good, but expensive as you’d expect in Harrods. We followed that up with macaroons at Laduree (yes Jason, I know the one in Harrods is over-priced, but I’m not going to fly to Paris just for macaroons) which were pretty good (mmm…macaroons). Oh yeah, we then bought some gelato from one of the shops in Harrods (mmm…gelato). Well fed and satisfied, we then went on to do my suit hunting and got lost trying to walk from Knightsbridge to Chelsea (the tube wasn’t working). We eventually found one, but had to get the pants altered. We’re picking it up this evening from the shop, which is just on Kensington High Street so it’s a short walk.

I spent part of this past week in Amsterdam again and had a heck of a time getting back to London on Wednesday. It was just a bad travel day that started with me taking the wrong train from Amsterdam Centraal. I was trying to get to a customer near the the Amsterdam ArenA and got on a train thinking it would stop there. The signs all indicated that it would. What I didn’t know was that those weren’t really in effect yet as the were still finishing parts of the Amsterdam ArenA train station. So you could take a train from Amsterdam ArenA to Amsterdam Centraal, but not the reverse. As the train speed past my stop, I thought “ok, I’ll just get off at the next one and take a taxi.” The problem was that it didn’t stop for quite awhile. I started to see Dutch farms and windmills and then I really started to get worried. In the end, the train stopped at Utrecht and I had to hop on a train to go backwards. When the train conductor came around to check tickets, I just said “I got on the wrong train and now I have to go back”. He tried rather hard not to laugh and just said “ok” and moved on, probably out of embarrassment for me.

When it came time for me to fly back to London, I found out my flight was cancelled. Apparently there had been a gas leak at Heathrow and all flights out had to be delayed or cancelled and all flights in had to be diverted. Mine was one of those that didn’t get to take off, hence the cancellation. Initially, the guy at the counter wasn’t very helpful. He basically said I had to stay in a hotel at my own expense. I wasn’t too happy about it and got him to wait-list me on another flight. I then had to clear customs, walk to the gate (which was at the farthest end of the airport), clear security (they do it at the gate in Amsterdam) and just wait in line until I got to the desk only for them to tell me I didn’t get on the flight. They had however, managed to book me on a BMI flight but it was pretty much the last one out. I didn’t get back to London until midnight.

Time to stop blogging and get started with our weekend of doing nothing.

Update (this is me complaining, so don’t read if you don’t want to be subjected to it): I’ve just picked up my suit and found that this week, it’s selling for £30 less ($75 AUD for those converting)! The problem is that I can’t return it because I had the pants altered! The thing is, if they didn’t reduce the price this week, I’d still be feeling pretty good about the price I paid. Now I just feel foolish. All they’ve managed to get themselves now is a customer feeling cheated, meaning it’s unlikely I’d buy another suit of the same brand unless it was ridiculously cheap. Yeah I know we’ve all been stung by this problem before, but couldn’t they have at least waited 2 weeks before lowering the price? That way I probably wouldn’t have known. I know it’s difficult on their part because there’s always a customer coming back in a week’s time to collect something they bought the week before. Then again, they aren’t always having sales, so they would only have to deal with this problem every now and then. If they had something like a low price guarantee valid for say a month, we’d all be happier. Instead, all they get in “cheating” me out of £30 is future loss of business, which is definitely worth more than the £30 saving I would have received.

 

For those with a sweet-tooth…

Two weeks ago, I had a pleasant surprise when I bumped into my friend Ada at the entrance of a Waitrose supermarket! I actually met Ada through one of my high school friends and dear friend Andrea…who may come visit some time year?!

It was a really nice summery day that following Saturday, I met up with Ada and her friends to go Portobello Market in Notting Hill and what I found was another surprise, Yvonne – it was good to see my dance buddy again! While we waited for Ada’s friends Sarah and Aurica to turn up, we wandered into a few op shops and other shops along Pembridge Road. Sarah and Aurica found us just as we walked past George Orwell’s apartment where he used to live when he was twenty-four, it is now a lemon-coloured apartment marked by a gold plaque. We continued to weave our way through the crowds to the most famous part of Portobello Market where there are many antiques stores. As we walked further north on Portobello Road, there are more fruit and vegetable stalls. We even saw the travel bookshop from the movie ‘Notting Hill’ – no sign of Hugh Grant though

We did however find some really delicious cupcakes in a cake shop called ‘Hummingbird Cafe‘. I tried one called Red Velvet cupcake, which was basically moist vanilla sponge with light taste of chocolate, red colouring and cream cheese frosting. Unfortunately I ate that one on the go so didn’t get a chance to take a picture but here’s one of a Vanilla cupcake:

 

UK related things we bought today

So maybe some of this is mundane, but haven’t you ever wondered what types of things people buy in preparation for “the big move”? Here’s a start:

• 2 Headphones each with an attached microphone – so Mimi can Skype with her family. 1 set for her, the other for her family. I don’t need one because my Macbook Pro has a built-in camera, microphone and good sound.
• Travel laundry bag – for putting dirty clothes in apparently. I didn’t know you need a special bag for that. Isn’t that what plastic bags are for?
• Washing bags – not sure what they’re actually called but apparently they protect your more delicate clothes in the washing machine. You learn something new everyday
• Air mattresses – the friend we’re staying with doesn’t have anything for us to sleep on…and his floor is not carpeted.
• New suitcase for me – I usually steal the one my parents have, but I’m not sure they’d be happy with me running away with it for a few years.
• 4 power plug adapters – 2 for Europe, 2 for the UK.
• 2 power boards (the ones where you have 4 plug slots on a board that plugs into the actual power) – so we don’t need to buy more power plug adapters.

What a riveting day of shopping. Wonder what else we’ve missed.

In other news, still no sign of interest in John Mayer tickets or our cars and HSBC finally sent me the pack for opening a UK bank account (but it’s like reading a book when trying to fill it in).