After a rather late night, I was not surprised to find myself awake at the ungodly hour of 5am. Unable to get back to sleep I admitted defeat and jumped online to wish my twin sister a Happy Birthday. It has been 3 years since we last celebrated our birthdays together as this time last year I’d just arrived in the USA and this year I’m in Italy…When you put it that way, life sounds kind of tough :P

So I had a long chat to my sister and she revealed that for part of my birthday present she’d hacked into my blog and totally redone my layout and so VOILA :D Although I was angry she’d hacked into my account, I forgive her because I think that the layout is bloody awesome, gold star for effort :D

On the agenda today was a 4hr ride with some SE climbs. Have only being been here for less than 24hrs, I was exempt from the efforts and so casually ‘tapped’ up the 10% climbs taking some happy snaps as I went. After we’d finished the efforts we rode round the Swiss border and round a beautiful looking lake (pics below) before riding though a rather hectic Varese back home to Castronno.



Later that afternoon, Lauren suggested that we go out and find ourselves an authentic Italian hot chocolate (ciocolata) to try. Rumour has it that they are so thick that you put a spoon in the middle of it and it stands straight up…needless to say it wasn’t long before we’d jumped on the townies in the direction of Bar Cavour. Our journey did not go incident free mind you, lets just say that I may have lost a little skin on my leg and that the score is Townie 1, Miffy 0. There will be revenge!



So we ordered our ciocolatas and Lauren got hers with panna (cream) and my draw literally dropped when the waiter placed my order in front of me. Sitting there was a cup of chocolate ‘sludge’ which tasted exactly like chocolate pudding…apparently these things are everywhere and it’s simply how the Italians do hot chocolates!! Yummy :)

Loz and her Ciocolata con Panna


Me and my Ciocolata


We then casually rode the townies back home so that we could greet out newest addition to the family, Chloe who had just arrived from the Netherlands after a tour with her Moving Ladies team. It was great to finally see her again as I haven’t seen her since she left Canberra nearly 3 months ago!


the Townies

For dinner that night we embarked on a journey to Varese to go and sample what was some of the best Italian pizza by Dave McPartland, our coach until Marv arrives on the 1st. After trying to decipher the 100 different types of pizza (pizza with mozerella, tomatoes and basil or mozerella tomatoes and oregano etc..) and with the help of the very patient waiter, I managed to order a pizza with fresh tomatoes, basil, artichoke, mushrooms and mozerella. Oh my goodness. Apart from being close to 3 dinner plates in size, the pizza was probably the best thing that has happened since the invention of the Italian hot chocolates! Each of the girls devoured their pizzas whole and were all in agreement that they could probably eat more! Pizza is never going to be the same again. Ever.

After rolling ourselves out of the restaurant, we jumped back on the train to Castronno and dinkied the townies back home where the girls had bought me a delicious chocolate cake and card to celebrate my birthday which was unexpected and very sweet of them :)

So not a bad way to spend my birthday. Nice weather, good ride, yummy food and probably some of the nicest company you could ever ask to spend your day with. I just wish my sister was here to enjoy it all with me!

Tomorrow we have an easy ride and our first Italian lesson! I’ll be fluent before you know it :p

Until next time,

Ciao
xx