We got to Milan on Friday afternoon, after a FULL night of sleep in Venice. Our bodies were confused as to what we were doing in bed so late. We got kicked out of 1st class (oops) and moved to the commoners area on the train, where it was packed the entire time. We're used to traveling like vampires, so it was strange seeing people awake on a train car. To get to our hostel, we had to take two metros. The first metro was so-so, but the second metro was AMAZING! I would have willingly ate a meal off of the floors of this train. It was so clean, and modern and not disgusting! I'd prefer to sleep there than in some of the hostels we stayed in :) We arrived at our hostel, only to be informed that there was a "small problem" and that our room was given away because it was fashion week.... GREAT! When I asked the clerk why he didn't contact me about the "small problem" he said I "wouldn't understand". In turn, he sent us to a hotel a 15 minute walk away where he reserved us a room that's much nicer than his... It seemed like trouble. Milan is confusing, because unlike the other cities we've been in, there are a LOT of small roads. We were wandering around with luggage and a map speaking English and looking confused when a young guy approached us and ask "Are you speaking English?!?".... why yes sir... we are. Turns out this lad was from Cali and teaching English in the schools there, he said never in his whole year there had he heard someone speaking English in that area of Milan. He nicely walked us to our hotel, because let's be real, it would have taken us another hour to find, and let me use his phone to call Jacopo. Again, GREAT PEOPLE ARE OUT THERE!
After showering and settling into our hotel, which turned out not to be half bad, we realized that we hadn't eating since 10 that morning and it was now 4 o'clock. Jac came and collected us from our hotel and took us to get toast (a glorified grilled cheese and ham) and Coke before taking us back to his apartment so he could get ready for the evening. Jacopo is a friend of mine that came to Plainwell during my junior year of high school. He's a pretty alright guy ... okay, he's amazing... and is the best tour guide we could ever ask for! He's studying medicine at the university in Milan, so after changing, he took us to get aperitivos with his fellow med students. Now this aperitivo thing is the BEST THING IN THE WORLD! You buy a drink, and you get a whole buffet of foods for FREE! This was WELL worth the wait. We also got in over our heads, telling Jacopo's friends to order us something really good, then whining when it was too strong. After gorging on sushi, pizza, dips, crackers, and breads, we left the bar. We snuck into an EMT building to use the restroom (as the bar had a Turkish toilet ... http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Squat_toilet ... said to be hygienic, I find it g-ross) before heading to their version of a plaza mayor. This plaza has walk up bars, where you order, then meander through the streets sipping on your drink. We found a nice spot to sit on the stairs and people watch. We talked to Jacopo's friends about everything from fashion to politics. They kept apologizing for their English, which was fantastic, so I'm even more jealous of their early language learning! Next, we stopped for crepes. YUMMM!
After that sweet treat, we walked to the main church, and saw some tents set up for fashion week before catching a bus back to our hotel for the night.
The next morning, we checked out of our hotel, and lugged our bags down the street with Jac as our guide until we found breakfast. Chocolate croissants and cappuccino ... I love Italy! We dropped our bags off at Jacopo's apartment for the day, collected his roommate Francesco and headed to lunch. We had wine and pasta (all chosen for us by Jacopo the Decider) and coffee after desert before meeting up with his friends again to visit the church. We didn't think about visiting the church hours earlier when we were dressing ourselves, and thus were denied entry for our spaghetti straps and exposed upper leg area. We were still allowed to climb to the top of the church and see all of Milan. Marta, the girl next to Monica, took some amazing photos on top of the church that she nicely shared with all of us later via facebook! <3 her!
The city is more industrial than any of the other cities we had been in, and thus there's much more smog. They're also preparing for the World Fair in 2015, so lots of new buildings are being built to accommodate that. After the exhausting climb, we stopped for gelato (any excuse to eat it) and Coke. Hannah and I opted to split cannoli filling flavored gelato mixed with berry flavored and a Coke and a fizzy water... the best of all worlds. Nora, another friend, also met up with us for the tasty goodness, then took Monica, Hannah and I shopping while everyone else went home to watch the football (soccer) games. We shopped for hours, buying makeup, accessories, unmentionables, and clothes! The stores were closing, so we finally got kicked out!
We went back to Jac's apartment, watched TV, football, and YouTube videos, ate pizza and got ready to go out to a disco. Our flight wasn't til 7:30 AM and we didn't have a hotel, so we had some time to kill. We made it to a disco, and got to pass right by the line, thanks to the well connected boys we were with. Inside we also got free drink tickets (the drinks were 10 euro ... $13... so they were very appreciated). The music was all American pop, and all of the people we were with we amazed that we knew all of the words to all of the songs... we're pretty darn impressive! The DJ kept trying to sing along, but with her accent it was more humorous than effective. We left the disco at 3:00, and went back to the boys apartment to get out bags. At some point they had decided that they were going to drive us to the airport, so we sat around for a few hours before heading out. They bought us waters, and made sure everything was good with the ticket counter before leaving us to find our terminal.
Jac and Fran were such great hosts and let us mentally coast on the last leg of our adventure!
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