I have had the best last few days, and it is all because of my lovely Couch Surfing host, Flo. What an awesome chick!

I arrived in Milan Thursday evening after another Ryan Air flight (with more clapping upon landing - thank goodness!) and made my way to the home of my second Couch Surfing host - Flo. Flo is 25 (and not very excited about turning 26 soon...) and works for Fed Ex in the marking department - she´s also a writer for an online news service, which is pretty cool! Her apartment was right in the centre of Milan, and while small, was very much like home. I had a room all to myself for the first night, as her housemates were ´away traveling´ . I later found out that her housemates were two Italian male models (named Guido and Norbert - MELT - check out my photos) and by ´away traveling' she meant that they were away at some exotic location for a shoot. What a lucky girl.

On my first night in Milan Flo took me to an Italian birthday party - what a hoot! We got some proper Italian pizza (thin, crunchy base, just enough cheese, sweet tomato sauce, zucchini and capcicum = YUM!) and hung out with her mates in their apartment. While I could not understand a word of their conversation, their bodies told me everything I needed to know. This bunch is not who you´d like to have around for wine and cheese after you´ve installed new, white carpet. It´s no lie, Italians talk with their hands! There were enough sound effects, emotion, and literal demonstrations for me to follow pretty well what was being said. My favourite story was about their car getting bogged on a beach in Brazil - I bet you can imagine what that story looked like! So I sat there like a goose, laughing and smiling along with the rest of them, as we devoured that delicious pizza. Flo and her best friend Isabella had both lived in Ireland for a short while, and had both tried Marmite (with a negative outcome)- it was great fun teasing Flo with Vegemite for the rest of my stay! And when I told her that my Japanese host mother put Vegemite in spaghetti bolognese - MAMA MIA! It´s evenings like this that makes me so glad to be part of Couch Surfing - never would I get to have experienced something like that evening if I was were just an ordinary tourist staying in a hostel.

The next day I was feeling very ordinary again, so I just bummed around Flo´s house in my pajamas all day. While I wasn´t out seeing the sights and learning about Milan, it was nice just to pretend I was home for a few hours - do some washing, watch a movie, make a snack, etc. Oh, and CLEAN UP ALL OF THE TALCUM POWDER THAT EXPLODED IN MY BACKPACK! Mama mia. Thank goodness for plastic space saving bags - it meant I didn´t have to rewash all of my clothes.

When Flo came home from work and discovered I had been home sick all day, she went into Mamma overdrive - which was so nice! She played doctor, administered medicines, advised what I should and should not eat, inquired often about my health, etc. Flo has a younger sister about my age, so for the rest of my stay I was treated like her little sister, - lots of fun and lots of teasing! That evening we had another Couch Surfer join our little gang. Her name was Ilze, from Lativa. Flo made dinner for us that night (awesome Italian pasta for her and Ilze, white rice with ¨only a little olive oil and parmesan¨ for me - yes Mum!) and one of the entertaining Italians from my first night (Carlo) joined us. We chatted for a while about movies and music, but I bailed fairly early, still not feeling 100% (but with the promise to Flo that I would be much better in the morning).

And I was! On Saturday morning Flo, Ilze and I went out sight seeing. We started with coffee and croissants at the local bakery (standing at the bar to drink, like real Italians) then walked through the back streets to Milan´s most famous building - Duomo. Duomo is the world´s largest Gothic cathedral, which began construction in 1386 and it´s still not complete. It has over 5,000 statues adorning the interior and exterior of the building! AMAZING. We had a look around in a few shops too - I must have lost a bit of weight or something over here (too expensive/too hard to eat!), but my shorts very rarely stay up of their own accord. Try finding a pair of black shorts in Milan - non-existent! Perhaps people in the fashion capital of the world don´t wear shorts... After picking up some salad and mozzarella sandwiches we headed to a lovely park to lounge around and gossip in the beautiful sunshine.

That evening I said a very sad goodbye to Flo (who promises to come Couch Surf with me in Brisbane!) and began the 12 hour overnight train journey from Milan to Zagreb, Croatia.

Sorry that was a bit boring guys! While I really enjoyed my stay in Milan, I unfortunately don´t have many stories to tell, as once again I was sick! But don´t lose faith - Croatia promises to be amazing!

Talk to you soon!

Love Hayley xxx