An Italian experience

Throughout the next few post I’ll talk about my recent trip to Europe, yeah I visited a few countries including Italy, Switzerland, Monaco, France and the independent state of Vatican City. Its actually my first time to the Europe and to experience early winter something every asian like myself who are so used to ‘summer’ whole year, this is one thing we would like to do before we hit grave! Of course, I began packing many kilos of thick long-sleeved shirts, sweaters and my other winter jacket (some which I bought in Zara last year and I thought I would never had a chance wearing them in our hot climate!)

Beautiful scenic restaurant where we had Lunch overviewing the Lugano Lake in Swiss!

Lake Lugano, Swiss

Branded stores all around this walkway but its closed on Sunday, WTF?

 First day of my traveling included many hours of flights, I flew from Miri to KL, travelled from LCCT airport to KLIA airport, took my next flight to Bangkok, where I transited in Suvarnabhumi International Airport to Milan, Malpesa Airport in Italy. Oh in Bangkok, I manage to do shopping in the airport, bought myself a new casing for my Iphone4 and also my Jawbone Icon! We flew with Thai Airways, very comfortable! Our in flight entertainment was excellent, I watched some Glees, Big bang theory, and a movie called Bad Teachers starring Justin Timberlake and xxxxx(?), Once we reached there, we passed through the customs, (a sidenote on the customs, because Malaysia is one of the commonweath countries, sometimes they don’t even stamp on our passport, they’ll just let you pass, and if you were to insist them to chop on your passport, they’ll tell you that they don’t have a knife to chop your passport, must be a common tour guide joke! it was funny! LOL!). So it was 7am local time there, we wasted no time wasted, we changed in the airport’s toilet, and I wore 5 pieces of clothing, I almost felt that I’ve had some form of stroke when moving my limbs, I can’t move them freely in layers of clothes and the temperature were 1-2 degrees when we reached!

We took a coach bus and crossed border to Switzerland and visited our first destination, the lakeside city of Lugano. It was a sunday morning, quiet town actually, all shops were closed at that time, we went around the lakeside area watching local, some were there for jogging, they brought their kids and dogs (yea Swiss and their love for dogs) for a walk, some were doing cycling. The view was scenic, temperature were perfect, place was so clean and the air has a refreshing scent to it, its something we don’t get here in this part of the world. I noticed that all my pictures taken during this cold, early winter time, they all look all albeit brownish and bluish, and they seems like I’ve applied a layer of Photoshop effect on it, which I did not. No complain yea! its probably the lack of clouds in the sky, and the thick mist as well as the old building (mostly painted with brown and milky colored walls) which helps to bring out the feeling of european autumn-winter season! The autumn palette from the trees and leaves are starting to shed leaving a bare trees and did you know that the only tree which stays green 365 days are the pine trees?

Lugano Lake, place where you rent boat.

Walkway down the street.

Artsy blue sky shot.

Yours truly posing at lakeside.

 After that we went shopping at the Foxstore (outlets for the branded goods), they were all using CHF which was their Swiss currency, approximately 1 CHF =1.2 Euros, 1 Euros= RM 4.3.  There were Gucci, Hugo Boss, Polo, LV, Burberry etc (you get the picture), all in the form of departmental stores where you can walk in, browse and touch without a salesman staring and watching you from behind. These goods are cheaper cause they are at least more than 3 months old, which means they are already out of fashion, mind you, they were not cheap. We ended up empty handed 2.5 hours of shopping, ouch!

After a nice lunch in Switzerland at a beautiful restaurant overviewing the lake, we went back to Milan, the fashion city! In Milan we went to the Gothic Duomo, a large catholic church which is currently under restoration. Then we walk through a glass-domed Galleria to towards Scala Opera House. Theres this statue of Leonardo Da Vinci (Mona Lisa anyone?) nearby the Opera House, and its like a small park there bustling with the locals. Galleria is the place where we shop at the Gucci store, there’s Prada and LV too. Prices here were cheaper than in Malaysia and of course you can claim the 12% tax refund which made our purchase sweeter! I just got a Gucci wallet for myself, mom got a bag (which she refused when I offered to pay for her). The whole place was packed with people! Something about the Italian, they were all good looking, in their fashionable winter wear, and cute chihuahuas, 80% of them were tall and slim (you guys should know if you watches soccer-hottest bunch of footballers!)

You Jump I jump! the water looks cold.

Another view of the lakeside and its town!

Another shot, are you getting bored?

Heaven on earth, lakeside park!

Louis Vuitton!

Trying to be a poser here!

Also before going back I manage to spend half and hour in H&M nearby the church (sorry but the church does not catch much of my interest there), bought a shirt, underwears and a scarf there, which was cheap and nice! I went like schoolgirl crazy when I spotted H&M there cause I always wanted to visit one since my friend bought me a nice shirt from Korean H&M and my sister bought me another shirt from H&M Hong Kong (why can’t Malaysia has one?), I just wished I have more time to test the shirts and pants but only 1/2 hour only! Eek too much time spent at the Gucci store perhaps? Damn!

SPQR, & the logo eh!

Gothic Duomo in Milan, Majestic yes!

Statues of Leonardo Da Vinci! overviewing the Scala.

Shopping area of Milan, any brand, any outlet is all here!

We stayed overnight at Milano (there’s how the Italian called Milan, everyone with a O behind, Milano, Italiano, Cappuccino, Mario, Duomo, Leonardo (Shit, I just made things up! :)), Oh yeah did I tell you? everything here cost Euros, which includes going to toilets, asking for hot water refill from the hotel lobby, using the cart at the airport! We ended up holding our bladder (bladder training), drinking water from tap water (apparently this is one of the cleanest place to drink water directly from the tap water besides Austria - their water from the Ice from mountain tops, think Evian mineral waters), pushing our many luggages by ourselves - not too bad, the european teach us how to save money. remember 1 Euro= RM4.3, heck even small bottle of coke which cost us only RM2.70 is Euro 2.70 in Italy! Crazy oh!