We woke up at 6ish and got all packed up and ready to go. Our train left at 7:58am, so we didn't even have time to eat breakfast (which starts at 7:30 at the hotel). We left the hotel at 7, took a bus to the train station, and grabbed a quick breakfast there (Lauren had a croissant, and I had a warm prosciutto and cheese sandwich). Unfortunately, because of all the snow, our train was delayed for a whole hour. Good thing I decided to get the really early tickets (that gave us way too much extra time at the airport in Milan).
The train wasn't too great – all the cars had little 6 seat rooms, and they were all reserved. We didn't realize this, so it took us squeezing through a car and a half of tiny hallways with our big suitcases before we realized that all the cars were like this, and our seat reservations were on our ticket. Luckily we were pretty close to our seats, but when we managed to squeeze our way over there, there were two people already in our seats. I had to kick them both out by tapping them and pointing out the seat numbers on our tickets. We barely managed to get into our seats and put our suitcases up on the rack, and we each had to sit in between two other people across from each other.
Naturally, the lady next to me immediately got a phone call, and proceeded to talk on her phone loudly for the next 20 minutes. Not only was it loud, but I couldn't stand her voice – she sounded like she had been smoking just a little bit too long, and it was like listening to nails on a chalk board (or in my case – the metal of a worn down pencil eraser on paper). After a long and snowy train ride, we arrived at the train station in Milan a little past 11:30am. We then had to quickly grab our stuff and run for the metro, which we took from Milano Centrale Station to Cadorna Station.
After we jumped off the metro we ran straight for the Malpensa Express – a 30 minute train that runs between Cadorna Station and the Malpensa Airport. We bought tickets for it and jumped on train about 30 seconds before the doors closed and it left. We arrived at the airport around 12:30, and had to wait 20 minutes for the bus to arrive and get us to terminal 2.
Checkin for our flight on easyjet ended at 1:50pm, and we were there around 1:00pm, with a massive line ahead of us that was barely moving. It reminded us of when they made fun of “check-in at an Italian airport” on 30 rock. Anyway, it was crazy, and by 1:30, the line had barely moved. Luckily, at this pointed they opened up a “Barcelona only” line, which we quickly jumped into. However, these people at the front of the line had some sort of problem that involved 15 minutes of not moving and a lot of random people cutting in line and carrying bags to the counter. It was pissing us off. Finally the line started moving again, and we checked in right at 1:50. Not that it mattered, because it was just announced that our flight was delayed 40 minutes, back to 3:10pm.
We got some chips and chocolate to hold us over, since we hadn't eaten since or small breakfast at 7:30 that morning. Finally we were able to board the plane, which did not have reserved seats, so we just had to get in line as quickly as possible. Luckily we got in near the front of the line, and got nice window seats in front of the plane engines. The flight was pretty nice and only took an hour and a half or so. I could see a lot of snow, the Mediterranean Sea, and even Nice, France as we flew over it. We landed in Barcelona a little past 5pm, and after collecting our luggage we headed over and boarded the train into the city.
It was much warmer than any of Italy, and everything seemed much more relaxed. At the train station when we were fumbling with the ticket machine, a worker actually came up and helped us – it was amazing, and totally unexpected (never would've happened in Italy). We got on the train and were surprised at how empty and organized it was – they actually had screens that showed the upcoming stops and announced them ahead of time (again, nothing like Italy). After the train we jumped on the metro and took it to the street where Jason and Naomi's flat is (Lauren's brother and sister-in-law).
They actually just flew to Rome, so we got to stay at their flat while they are gone. We found our way to the flat, and their one housemate who is here right now, Heather, let us in and showed us around. We were both really tired, but our food for the day consisted of a quick breakfast and a small snack, we ran out to a cafe and grabbed a really good sandwich. After we got back, Lauren passed out pretty quickly and I wasn't far behind.
So overall, it wasn't really an exciting day – just a lot of traveling (3 trains, 2 buses, 1 airplane, 2 metros, and 11 hours) and a lot of luck that we actually got there. I'm really glad I picked such an early train – I thought we were going to have many hours free at the airport before our flight, but it turned out that we barely made it on time. I later realized that if we hadn't jumped on that Malpensa Express train just seconds before the doors closed, we would've had to wait another half an hour and we probably wouldn't have made our flight checkin time. Lucky us. At least from now on we don't have to travel to get to our flights – all the airports are in the same cities we will be in, so it's just a short metro or inner-city train ride.
Bologna train station in the snow - other than this, we were too exasperated to take pictures. Sorry
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