A month or so ago this fantastic girl named Alice posted in a facebook group for Au Pairs, about the convention and asked if anyone else would want to go with her. For some reason I was like, "hey sure, why not?" even though for years I had sworn to myself I would never go to one. This one wasn't like a comicon or anything though, it was a YouTube convention and I LOVE YouTube, I spend a little too much time on it to be completely honest. I have a few YouTubers I watch religiously like Danisnotonfire, Amazingphil, Tyler Oakley, and Marcus Butler.
Sadly for me only 50% of my favourites were at this specific convention but, that's okay because Marcus and Tyler are fantastic.
So my weekend in Milan for ItaTube started on Friday when I took the train from Mantova to Milano Centrale at 13:55. The train ride went well but this was the first time travelling by myself and as a girl that can be scary. I was definitely hit on more than I am when I travel with friends, I did that whole "I can't hear you because I have headphones in" thing most of the time and a couple other times I just awkwardly smiled because, lesbihonest, I am quite the awkward person. Once I got to Centrale I had to take the metro to Garabaldi to get to my hotel, the ever so fantastic Holiday Inn (and honestly I can't say the name Holiday Inn without singing the song). While walking to the hotel I realized something very important that I forgot back at my casa. My passport. Who the HECK forgets their passport while they are abroad? Rachel that's who. I had my VA License on me but I had a sneaky suspicion that that would not work and alas I was correct. Luckily for me the people were very nice and waited for my host family to send me a photocopy of my passport so I could check in to my room. While waiting my friend James came and he proceeded to learn and then demolish me in my favourite Italian card game, Briscola. I felt so stupid because for weeks prior to this I had been telling him I was going to slaughter him at this game, which I do to everyone else, by the way literally no one beats me at home. But of course he just HAD to win. It was very frustrating, you could feel his smugness throughout the hotel. That night Alice met up with us at the hotel and we proceeded to go out to eat and then walk around that area of Milan and being special people, that includes playing on a playground at 430 am. Twas quite a good night if I'm being completely honest!
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| The park Alice, James and I played in during the wee hours of the morning |
Saturday! Alice and I had planned to get up a little bit earlier to eat breakfast and and get ready to head over to the convention but, we didn't get in until really late the night before so we were a bit slower in the morning than planned. When we got to the venue, as we suspected there was a massive queue with 100's of teenagers, we got in fairly quickly though and it was fun to be around a ton of like minded people. Once in we immediately game planned to see who we wanted to go to first and then who to go to after that and we thought we were set. First we went and saw Oli White, that went smoothly and was pretty cool. Then I wanted to see Tyler Oakley, like literally everyone else in the building, I got up really close to the beginning, like I was almost on stage and they cut off the line and they said no more. I was so sad but Marcus and the YouTube boy band were still and option so I queued up for that and waited for a bit but had a bit of a claustrophobia induced panic attack. I went and sat down for awhile where there weren't a ton of people and calmed down. By the time I decided to get back in the queue Alice was at the very front and they (once again) cut off people going up to see the boys. They relented and let a handful of girls on the stage, (including Alice) but there was no way I was getting on, SO 
Sunday! The final day in Milano *insert super depressed face here*, anyone who has talked to me recently knows I have an extreme love for Milan, almost as much as I love pandas and trust me, that's a lot of love. We got up later than we planned (again) and headed on over to the event just like on Saturday. This time when we got there the outside of the venue was queue free and we just got to
waltz right in. There were way less people there than the day before and the organization, at the beginning of the day, seemed to be a lot better. Alas I was wrong, it went downhill fairly quickly and I didn't end up seeing anyone that day because I had another panic attack and my feet were killing me. I literally wore the worst shoes possible and now my pinkie toes are torn apart, I would add a picture but it really is just so disgusting. Alice got to meet Louise though and promptly had a meltdown after she got off of the stage, it was so cute! haha To be fair though I would probably have one if I met one of my favourite people ever. We ended up leaving early because we were just so frustrated with everything, we went to McDonald's for lunch *barf* and then caught trains to our respective towns.
In the end am I a little blown about the event? Yes. Do I regret going? No. Why you may ask? Because I made an awesome friend and got to stay in Milan again for the weekend! Anyways I don't have anything really exciting coming up so if my posts won't be as long. Sorry if this one was ridiculously long and boring!
<3 Rachel
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