And your pants are hanging up for what reason??

Well where do we start! We arrived in Milan Malpensa airport and found to our relief that our bikes had made it with us. Apart from the fact that Abby's box had a massive hole in it and Jane's was open...maybe the baggage men got a little suspicious! After basically cheating our way onto a bus which was practically full by shoving our bikes in the hold before anyone else had a chance to get on, we managed to reach Milan Central Station with much ease. But then came the fun part...putting our bikes back together!

We luckily found a place to do this and after befriending a parking attendant to help us carry the boxes we set to the task. Right Jane's bike first.

Do not stab your best friend with a penknife when trying to open your bike box!

1st Problem - how to detach the front wheel which was attached to the pedal lever. After struggling for about 10 minutes and attracting quite a crowd (future references italian onlookers are not subtle!) a very helpful Morrocan man came to the rescue - cue him struggling for another 10 mins before we managed to free the wheel.

2nd Problem - we put the brakes on the wrong way! So cue another friendly bystander who appeared to be an expert in bikes, to help us fix Jane's bike so that it was perfectly put together again! It took forever and there was a lot of laughing but eventually we had one bike, 2 new friends and a little gathering of onlookers.

Then we started to tackle Abby's bike on our own.

Things we have learnt about putting a bike together -

1) Do not stab your best friend with a penknife when trying to open your bike box

2) Always pack a saddle!

Yeh so everything was going smoothly until we realised that Abby did not have a saddle! Easily attachable wheels and pedals yes but one vital piece of equipment known as a seat no! Don't think we have laughed so much in our lives - at least we could see the funny side of it after Jane blasphemed in perhaps the most religious country in the world! Fair enough she had been stabbed but then she had run a trolley over Abby's foot previously.

Right so next task - dispose of the bike boxes. Having been sent on a wild goose chase for a bin by a very unfriendly and mean old italian woman, Jane finally gave up and with the help of another man, dumped them by a smaller bin much to the dismay of our onlooking granny. Ah yes and then came Susan....

Wearing all black in the middle of the day, up trotted this bolshy American woman asking for directions. We discovered that we were in fact looking for the same hotel and so, with hindsight not the best idea, went looking together. Turned out our hotel was being renovated so it was on to the next one where we ended up having to share a room with our American friend. Everything seemed to be fine and despite the saddle mishap going well until our mate Susan hung up her pants outside the bathroom....?!Why??? Its not as if she was using the shower they were just hung up....If thats not enough to make you question somebody she then proceeded to snore like a combine harvester on steroids through a loud speaker, even drowning out the noise from outside which in itself was damn loud. So much for a decent nights sleep! Now anyone who has ever shared a room with Abby will know that she cannot sleep with anyone snoring so rest assured we will not be doing that again. All kinds of plans came into our heads of trying to wake her up and just for the record neither whistling, nor kicking the bed, nor shining the light of our ipods in her face woke this woman up. Tonight we are resorting to sleep talking since sleeping with our ipods on and pillows over our heads still doesn't drown out the fog horn.

But for now its off to the football stadium San Siro (yes that was Jane's idea) and hopefully a nicer side of Milan than we have seen in this red light district which even the guide books  have called "shady". Hopefully we will find a way to tame the snoring beast and a lot of yummy ice cream as well!