In Italy, cars are powered by hamsters

BERGAMO ITALY! (That on the hill is the Old City-their one and only tourist attraction)


Our amazing tiramisu in Milan


Ray Ban ad in the main square of Milan


Milan center!


After our final run-so happy!


Foppolo, Italy


Hands down the most beautiful place I've ever seen...


Our tiny little car run on hamster power...


Yup we flew over the real Alps (we only snowboarded the foothills if you can believe it!)

So the trip started out successful...NOT! Bay and I thought we were doing well by calling and setting up the cab the night before (it was set to come at 430 am). After a false alarm at 230, we proceeded to sleep until 440! Missed the cab and ended up beginning the trip sprinting to the main rue near her apartment to catch a cab. Luckily some guy gave up his cab so we could make our shuttle on time. Had we missed that we would have missed our connecting flight...would've sucked. Butttt we made it! After sleeping the entire drive there (it was an hour) we arrived at a closed airport...you know its early when you arrive at an airport that isn't even open yet. NEVER AGAIN! We were finally able to board at 8 am and the flight was like any other...after the horror stories I had heard about Ryanair, I expected a plane with wooden benches and airbags or something horrible like that...and a blind pilot. But we had none of the above. Talk about a spontaneous trip. Bay, Alyssa, and I landed in a country where we didn't speak one word of the language (we weren't sure if ciao meant hello or goodbye, so we decided not to try to use it), and had no idea where we were snowboarding and how to get there. After basically playing charades for two hours with the airport staff to find a car rental company and a tourist information desk, we decided to cut our losses and find the hostel. We were pointed in the direction of the "correct" bus, and ended up in a lot full of about 30 busses...jokes on the stupid american's I guess. I tried to buy a ticket from an automated machine that was so broken it wasn't even funny and everyone laughed at me. Again, stupid american. We finally made it to the right stop and according to our directions there were stairs right as we got off the bus. LIE! We had to hike up a hill in order to find the stairs, but if we had known the italian word for hostel was ostello we could've followed the signs. Note to self: find a phrase book for the language of every country I visit. Charades gets you nowhere. Anyways after walking up 500 stairs we arrived and found out we had a lovely 50 year old asian roommate who was a BITCH! Who stays at a YOUTH hostel at the age of 50...I'll tell you, A FREAK! Whatever...we were in italy. We were totally jerked around the entire first day and traveled all around italy to find this "tourist info center" which we had the hardest time finding, italians have to have some internal GPS system that americans dont have or something because we ended up just getting gellato twice before finally finding it...only to find out, shuttles dont run on sundays...nothing runs in europe on sundays...its bull. So after retreating back to the hostel and booking a rental car only to find out you had to be 25, we finally found a company to rent from for 35 euros for the day! AMAZING! We went out to dinner at this tiny little italian place that was free as long as you bought alcohol...dream come true? I think yes. We finished the night with gelatto...(yes im going to be fat in may). We woke up bright and early for breakfast which was "bread"...but I think they just served us street hockey balls and butter...I honestly contemplated sending them home to Nick and Brooks...they were that hard. Dad you would've surely broken a tooth or twenty on them. Not even americans consider hockey balls breakfast and americans will eat anything. Anyways, the car was this tiny little red hybrid (standard, which was fun) and I swear to god if I had looked underneath it, I would have seen 20 hamsters running in wheels with wires attached to their ears to power the car. No lie. Our car was surely powered by running hamsters, and you can bet money on the fact that they gave out on me on more than one occasion, especially going up the tiny mountain roads. Our drive was pretty though, we passed the headquarters of Pellegrino water. When we finally got to the mountain I couldn't believe it. THE. MOST. BEAUTIFUL. PLACE. ON. EARTH. No lie. Amazing. I'll never see anything like it as long as I live. The mountains in New Hampshire don't even compare to it. Itd be like comparing a snowbank to the mountains back home. Maybe not even that. CRAZY. Luckily I didn't kill myself on the slopes and Bay didn't have to wait very long for me. Seeing all of these other touristy european cities will be fun and everything, but nothing will compare to this past weekend. On our way back, I somehow missed our exit which was clearly labeled and we made the decision to continue on to Milan for dinner. I mean, why not drive to Milan for dinner? When in Rome right? WRONG. Nothing is open in europe (if you didn't get that by now). So after somehow finding the most assbackwards road in italy to milan and driving through the ghetto countryside we arrived. We proceeded to pull a quick change into classier clothes on the side of the road (such classy americans we are) only to find that dinner wasn't served (at probably the only restaurant open in Milan) until 7...it was only 5 and we hadn't eaten since 1...so why not get gelatto? We sure did. We found this insane mall where I couldn't have even afforded McDonalds (not like I'd ever eat there anyways, but still the point remains) because the McDonalds was sandwiched in between Prada and Gucci or something like that. INSANE. Dinner was AMAZING though...we had homemade tortellini's in a cream sauce with proscuitto and real tiramisu for dessert. Yeah we had to basically roll ourselves home. Back at the hostel we had our lovely bitch of a roommate make us switch our locker because she didnt want to wake up before 8 am...we were getting up at 745...some people have some nerve. Youre 50 years old staying in a youth hostel, paying 15 euros a night. I wanted to tell her to suck it, but Bay switched the locker...shes much nicer than I am. ZERO TOLERANCE for stupidity. Common sense is very UNcommon. Humanity is doomed. Anyways...the last day we ended up having 7 hours of free time and NOTHING to do with it...some places in europe nothing is even open on mondays...bergamo is one of those places. We found an open market and basically ate lunch in free samples of cheese (fresh parmesan is amazing) and sausage. We also had to get canoli's...can't leave italy without getting one. SO good. We found this cheap restaurant/cafeteria thing that was open only to get locked in when it closed for a random 4 hour time period mid afternoon...bizarre. Yes, we got locked into a restaurant...why they wouldnt just ask us to leave is beyond me...locking us in seemed so much more efficient. Idiots. I swear I'm a magnet haha. Anyways, after finally arriving at the airport (Bay talked me into a final gelatto) we were on our way home (to start our diet). Only to arrive into an apartment that looked like it tried to reenact (successfully) vietman or hiroshima...thanks roommates...but thats another story and probably shouldn't be told via the internet. Amazing weekend. I still can't believe I went snowboarding in the Alps...I'll add pictures later...I'm still wayyy too tired from traveling. C'est tout!