Day 56 - Milan

So last night was a lot more fun than I thought it would be. I said goodbye to my family and walked over to Kelsey's house, where Johanna had already arrived and was eating dinner. I joined them for a little bit of food and we figured out what clothes go where. After redistributing our luggage, we sat down and watched Frozen, singing along with all the sings that we've come to know and love. It was pretty awesome. After the movie, we all sat around and tried to figure out some of the things that we could do in all the port cities that we'll be visiting and any deals that the cities offered to tourists staying for the day or weekend. One by one, we stopped looking and drifted off to bed, ready for the early start the next morning. 

Today we woke up really early and quickly got everything packed and ready for the trip to the airport. Kelsey's host dad was kind enough to drive us to the Köln-Bonn airport early enough that we were able to reach our gate on time. Once we flub out gate, we hung out and listened to the guy with the guitar a little ways away from us until 6:30 came around and we decided to get some food. While in the food line, some LMU students found us and we discovered that we were all going on the same flight to the same city. Then the final two people joined us while we were finishing up our breakfast. We got on the plane and had a comfortable ride all the way to Italy. Oh, did I mention that it only took 1.5 hours? Sometimes I really like how small Europe is. It allows us to get to places so much easier than in the USA. 

When we landed, we could see the alps rising in the distance over the airport. We made our way inside to grab the one bag we checked, and walked out of customs to find Johanna's parents who were meeting us at the airport. Kelsey, Aaron, Austin and I took some time to figure out where our hotel would be and the best way to get to it. Then we bought bus tickets to and from Milan and took another hour ride into the city. 

In the city, the first thing that I noticed were the flower sellers. From the moment that we stepped off the bus, there were people shoving flowers in our face trying to get us to buy some. Sometimes they were really aggressive in their pursuit if trying to get us to buy something, but we all got our bags and bought our transport pass without going through too much harassment. We separated into two groups; Johanna and her family went to their hotel while the rest of us went to ours to drip off our stuff. We promised each other that we would meet up an hour from when we separated, and said goodbye before going to fin the metro. We used or new passes to get onto the train and paid careful attention to the stops. 

When we arrived above ground, we consulted the map to find our hotel and set off down the street. 10 min later, we found the number address, but not the hotel and were really confused. That is, until we looked at the sign across the street and saw we were not going the right way at all. In fact, our hotel was back all the way we had come from and turned out to be about a 5 min walk from the train stop. That was really convenient once we gained our bearing. When we checked into the hotel, our rooms weren't ready yet, so we needed to store our bags in a room right next to the checkout desk. It was alright though, that meant that we could walk around Milan without lugging around our numerous bags. 

When we met back up with Johanna and her family, we figure out exactly where we wanted to go. The large church in the middle of the city central called the Duommo. When we walks out of the subway station, we were immediately swamped with peddlers, costumes, and confetti to the face. Some of the sellers were rally aggressive and at one point, the girls had to walk away from a guy who followed us trying to give us "free" bracelets. One of the guys made the mistake of engaging them, and they slipped a bracelet on his writ, tightened it, and held on to his arm as they demanded a donation from him. Needless to say, from that point on we just pretended they didn't exist and they didn't bother us any more. We took a lot of pictures in front of the Duommo and used the confetti that the numerous kids were throwing around to get some really cool pictures. The reason why there was such a huge party in the city was because that day just so happened to be an ancient roman holiday that carried over into the modern day. It was kind of like we stumbled onto Karneval part 2 in Italy. 

 In front of the Duommo

 So much confetti!

 We had a lot of fun throwing it

This guy was selling his stuffed animals. It also doubles as a cool costume!

Anyway, we went for a quick lunch at a nearby restaurant and tried out real Italian pasta. It was really good, but I figured out a really important thing:everything in Italy is expensive! After our lunch, we went inside the actual church, but they didn't allow pictures inside. I got a souvenir pin for Milan and we walked into a huge square with beautiful mosaics and paintings with a lot of good quality stores around like Gucci, Prada, Armani, and other stores. Once our shopping was done, we walked to the huge park that was in the middle if the city and enjoyed being in the sun and watching the sucks and fish in the pond. It was sort if like a small natural paradise that was out there just for people that wanted to relax for a bit. People were playing, going to the nearby amusement park, hanging out, or had dogs and it was absolutely glorious. Just a few feet away, there was a huge castle that housed a bunch of museums. The castle was really cool, it even had a moat around the entire structure and the walls were so big!

 The beautiful park

 This just shows how great a day it was outside. And it's a good picture.

Inside the castle

The castle walls from the museum window

Inside the castle, we went to look at the museums, but didn't have to pay or the tickets. I don't know if it was because it was a holiday or because we only had an hour left before the museums closed, but when we went to pay, the lady smiled at us and gave us two tickets before sending us on our way without accepting payment. The museums were about everything from architecture to music, painting to Egypt. It was absolutely amazing to see such a diverse collection within one small area. Soon, we had to leave and we made our way back to the hotel to check in ad get our luggage into our room. Once in our rooms, we realized that one of our suitcase wheels was completely stripped of the rubber on one side and the wheel was pushed all the way to one side, making it impossible to turn at all. We worked on it for over an hour and eventually got it moving, but we had to sacrifice the rubber to do it. 

After fixing the suitcase as much as we were able, we went out to look for a place to eat. We walked for a long time and eventually an into the group that went into Milan the day before and walked into a restaurant. Because it was a celebratory day, they were serving a special 6 course meal that featured fish. We split into two groups of four to make it easier on the staff, and each group shared two of these specials. The food was amazing and we slowly came to realize that we were in a super fancy restaurant and eating really good quality food. On the way back, we talked about all sorts of topic, and that didn't stop when we got to the hotel. Finally, Kelsey and I went to our own room and went to sleep, ready for the start of the cruise the next day.

Erin Z

*Written March 8, 2014 on my phone