Day 2 – Milan – Monday June 28

It's 6:15 on Wednesday morning and I'm 2 days behind on my blog. I'm not up this early because I am behind, I'm up this early because we're in the tent now and we wake up when the sun comes up.

Milan is a lovely city, built around it's centre piece The Duomo. The roads all lead away from the Duomo and the main roads are generally named for the place they are leading to – Corsa Di Porta Romana for the road to Rome etc. The plan seems to be more concept that reality because it doesn't seem to have been delivered in precise detail. For example, Via Dante, the road between Piazza Duomo and the Castle should enable you to stand at one and view the other, except you can't because it takes a kink just as it leaves the Duomo.

We visited the inside of the Duomo today. The interior seems to be as dark and austere as the outside is light and ornate. Getting in involved a bag search by one of either the Polizei, the Carabinieri or the army. I got the Polizei, and so I opened the back of my laptop / camera bag. "ok" he said, so I opened the top of the front of the bag "OK" he said.... so I opened the third section of my bag... I then figured out that the first ok was a coverall and he was now sick of this bloke opening up different section of his camera bag. I think I was one step away from being charged with wasting police time.

Anyway, today was more about getting things sorted for the rest of the holiday, so we did a long walk round parts of Milan. I've bought my internet stick from New Zealand and was going to buy a SIM card for it, so that I could surf the internet to my hearts content and do all my uploading on my own account and not be perched in the corner of camp ground reception areas trying to access their wifi.

Everything is so cheap now that a vodafone internet stick, with 150 hours of internet usage for the month is 60 Euros, so I bought that and saved myself the hassle of working out how to convert my NZ stick to work in Europe. I've been using it this morning and have been amazed at the internet speed here is Europe – it has a range of speeds – Mbps, Kbps, bps and my personal favourite 0. Fortunately, when I was loading up photos, it was going at Mbps, so it was quick.

We caught up with Giampaolo and Elena (friends of a friend) while we were here and had dinner with them tonight, which was awesome. Went to a really nice restaurant right beside their apartment which is next to the Porta Romana – One of the gates to the ancient city. Milan is a very safe city and we had no qualms about walking the 2kms back to the hotel at 1am in the morning. The only unsafe thing about Milan are the trams which are very quiet and can sneak up on you when you unawares. Being only our second day here, I'm still looking the wrong way and end up having to look every way about 6 times to make sure there is nothing that is going to run me down.

We dined inside tonight with Giampaulo and Elena because the locals know that if you dine outside, the mosquitoes will be doing more dining than you will. Our legs are both testament to the previous nights pizza on the pavement and even as I sit here now a 7am in the morning, I have the mosquito coil burning to keep the little bastards away from me.