Milan

Whew. Back from Italy. I don't even know where to begin. I guess before I go through my trip I will start with a few impressions of the country itself. Italy was exactly what I was expecting in many ways, and so different than what I was anticipating in many ways. There were numerous times when I just laughed because I thought the Italian's could not be enhancing their stereotypes any more. (i.e. When I was showering in a public dorm-style shower room and a bunch of Italian guys were singing obnoxiously loud whilst showering. Really, sometimes the Italian males can be a little bit much.) Also, I think I ate pizza every day. If I wasn't eating Pizza, I was eating some kind of pasta, or perhaps Lasagna. Italian food is my second favorite (behind my beloved mexican which I haven't had since January...argggggghhh...) so I enjoyed the food a lot. As you might have heard however, Pizza is not nearly as good in Italy. It is extremely thin and doesn't have a whole lot to it. It is incredibly simple, yet feels very "homemade." I still miss a good old Woodstocks pizza, which will always be my favorite.

Things in Italy are expensive. Considering that the dollar is absolutely tanking right now (Don't you love this war???) that adds onto the already expensive Italian goods. It sucks to order a 6 dollar meal and realize that you are really paying over 9 dollars in reality. But, one needs to eat, and there is nothing we could do it about it, so we figured, welp, might as well enjoy ourselves.

One of the biggest dissapointments to my trip was not running into these guys:Apparently they are really busy this time of the year. Lots of clogged toilets or something.

Anywho, the trip started off at 4:30am on a Thursday morning. Joe and I cut it incredibly close to missing our plane, which probably would have put quite the damper on the beginning of the trip. We literally were running through the terminal like that awesome scene in Home Alone where the whole family is running through the airport. We reached our terminal right as they were announcing "last call" on the intercom for our flight. I say that I meant to cut it that close, because I like to live dangerously. It makes things more exciting that way. (Riiiiiight...)

We flew into Milan, which all in all was pretty disappointing. This city was kinda dirty, and didn't have a whole lot of sights to see. Howver, the main Duomo (cathedral) in the main square was worth the trip to the city all by itself. Apparently this is the 3rd largest cathedral in the world in terms of ground that it covers. Absolutely breathtaking. We paid a few euros to go to the top and see the view of the city, and we were blown away. Not only was this view a complete 360 degree panorama, but there was room to walk around and explore up on the roof. The weather was so nice that there were people sprawled out catching some rays attempting to tan. Joe and I stayed up there for a good 2 hours or so, just enjoying the view and talking about God and life and all that good stuff.

While wandering around the main square in Milan, just taking pictures and enjoying the weather, Joe and I both had some interesting experiences with some street vendors. (I'm really not sure what to call these guys, maybe "swindlers" would be a better word.) One second I am taking pictures, the next these guys come up to me, ask me if I want my picture to be taken and the next thing I know they are taking pictures with my camera (that I thought they were going to try and steal) and showing birdseed into my hands. Now, I hadn't really noticed the amount of piegons in this main square. About 2.6 seconds later, dozens of pigeons come flying at me like I'm Steve Irwin or something. I'm keeping a very close eye on the guy that is taking pictures with my camera, and am trying not to get my eyes pecked out. The second "swindler" comes up and keeps giving me more birdseed as to make for better pictures. At one point he put birdseed on my head so that the pigeons would land on my dome! Are you serious?!?!? I don't know about you, but Pigeons aren't exactly my favorite animals. They are like flying rats. I don't want flying rats on my head, thank you very much. I ended this madness, took my camera, and gave the guys one euro each, which I still regret. They were asking for 20 euros each! (30 bucks!) Are you kidding?!?!? Just because you swindled me and took some crappy pictures of flying rats eating food out of my hands I should give you 30 bucks? Um no. Sorry. Looking back on this story, it is pretty funny, but I just can't believe some of the things people do to try and get some easy money.

Joe had a guy come up to him, put a little colorful bracelet on his wrist and ask for money for "the children of Africa" or something like that. Joe gave him a euro I think, and the guy started getting really mad at him asking for like 20 euros or something. Keep in mind that this bracelet was essentially a thin piece of string. After our two experiences, Joe and I realized we were tired of being swindled, and decided to get out of the main square.

When we checked into our "hostel" (I call it a hostel very loosely) we realized that hostels in Italy were going to be a very different experience than our hostels in Germany. First off, no one really spoke any English at this hostel, so that was our first obstacle. After a lot of gestures and pointing at things, we were finally checked in. The maid, this younger girl who spoke the most English, took us to our room. Joe and I were extremely tired after a long day of traveling and walking around, so we decided to go to bed pretty early. We met this guy Gerry who was staying in our room with us, a young black dude from London, who was backpacking around Europe. He was a great guy and we made plans with him to go to the Leonardo Da Vinci National Science and Technology Museum the next day.

I was the first to wake up the next day, and I soon learned that our door had no handle. I guess it had either broken off, been torn off in a fit of rage, or some other crazy scenario I can't think of. There was no way to open our door from the inside. After quickly dismissing some thoughts as to if this is how any of the horror scenes from the movie "Hostel" (which I have never seen and never will) start, I realized we were on the first floor, and being the young agile whippersnapper that I am, I could just hop out the window and run around to open the door from the other side. Thus, this is what I did. I chuckled to myself at the ridiculous situation I was in, and ran around and heroically opened the door. This story, in a nutshell, sums up our first hostel in Italy (which was called "Medusa Hostel" if you ever plan on going.) A few other things led to us not being so fond of this particular hostel, for example, no hot water in the shower, a joke of a continental "breakfast" and the fact that our welcome to the hostel wasn't exactly warm and cuddly like we had been spoiled with in Germany. The one plus side was that this was one of the cheapest hostels in Milan, so I guess we were saving some cash, but getting what were paying for. Hey, we had semi-comfortable beds and a roof over our heads, it could have been much worse...(which as you will read later, it will...)

Once Joe, Gerry and I got going, we started our trek to find this museum we had heard about. After spending a while looking for this museum which was supposed to be equivalent of the Italian Smithsonian, we finally found it. Once I get my pictures posted, you will see very clearly why this museum is not exactly what we were expecting. It was interesting in some respects, but I think the main reason it was disappointing was because we were all expecting to see some of Da Vinci's actual works. There were a lot of replicas and models built based off of Da Vinci's works and drawings, but nothing original, crafted by Da Vinci's own hands himself. Oh well. The museum was entertaining for the most part, but was pretty unorganized. I don't think I have ever been to a museum in the states where things are so randomly scattered and poorly labeled. The best way to describe this museum is random. Maybe I was just disapointed because there weren't any sections devoted to this guy,who was always my favorite:

Leaving the museum, I realized I needed some more Gelato. If you have never had Gelato, it is basically Italian ice cream, but for some reason tastes soooo much better. After grabbing some more Gelato and another Pizza, Joe and I were ready to leave Milan and catch our train to Florence. We said our goodbyes to Gerry, got his contact info (this is a more professional and classy way of saying that we would just add him on Facebook) and peaced out of Milan. Oh, except leaving Milan was not so easy. You would have thought that we would have learned our lesson from our Airport experience the previous day, but nope, I guess we just aren't that intelligent. Joe and I barely made it to our train. Running through the train station, at full speed with our huge backpack on, this must have looked like a chase scene from The Bourne Identity or something. You would have thought we were being sniped or something. Catching the train minutes before it left, we jumped on and realized we might have been on the most crowded train in all of Italy. Finally we found an open compartment, and were able to relax. About 3/4 the way into our train ride, more and more Italian's keep piling onto this train, regardless of the fact that there are no more seats, and our compartment fills up with this huge Italian family. This happened right when Joe got up to to go to the bathroom, so his seat immediately got snagged. I guess you snooze (or you pee) you lose. The fact is, we made it, by some miracle or another, to Florence.

Since I write way too much about the smallest details, this blog has already gotten a little lengthy and I will end this one here. I think I am going to split this up into three different entries, one for each city (Milan, Florence and Rome, each having more to write about than the last...) So stay tuned!

To be continued...

P.S. Pictures are coming ASAP, I took over 300 in Italy, so obviously I will only post some of these. My computer is broken (the motherboard flipped out and died on me) so I have to get that repaired. I have no idea how long that will take, and until then I am using my generous roommate's computers and won't be able to upload photos...