Milano, Italia
…really not a place to go if you don’t have money to spend shopping because that’s all there is… haha
But Sam and I went anyway. We packed a city trip in about 1.5 days.
We arrived in Milan at 9am and walked from the Central Station to the city center.
We walked down Via Buenos Aires- one of the main shopping streets. It wasn’t much of a sight-seeing place because all we saw were buildings after buildings, very metropolitan.
Eventually, Via Buenos Aires turned into Corso Vittorio Emanuele II- one of the first shopping malls in Europe. It must have been some art exhibit centering on the fall of the Berlin wall because we saw so many pieces that referenced the wall on the sidewalks.
Found the Duomo- really can’t miss it, its huge! The architecture is Gothic and it stands out among the buildings it is next to. Watch out for gypsies though.. they are everywhere. One guy tried to get money from me because he got pigeons to fly around me for me to take pictures (which was very unnecessary and unappreciated…). I just told him I wasn’t there to shop and I don’t have money. Good thing I don’t look rich [=
And as you walk around the city, they have multiple stores in different locations. I swear we saw like many H&M’s, United Colors of Benneton’s, Intimissi’s, D&G’s, (insert big fashion brand here)… I don’t see why you would need so many of the same thing, they sell the same thing.. -_-
Walked to the castle, which was still in use. There was a picture of what the castle used to look like back in the day with the moats and everything.
Sam bought some panettone (traditional Milanese Christmas cake). It was soo fluffly and sweet [= yumm
Then we spent quite some time in the cemetery. It was the coolest place to be in, daunting huh? [= It was special because every headstone was a special monument. There are families buried there together, with room for more members… haha… It was a little eerie walking in the cemetery on a cloudy day, but the monuments were too awesome to not see.
Walked to the Santa Maria delle Grazie to maybe hopefully see the Last Supper but didn’t get to. I didn’t realized (although I should have because C’MON! IT’S THE LAST SUPPER! ugh..) that I have to get a ticket way beforehand in order to see the Last Supper. It’s held in the covenant next to the church and tickets were sold out for the next 2 weeks…/= The Atlantic Codex was in the museum next to the church, but I didn’t want to spend money, so we skipped that… Would’ve spent money on the Last Supper though…
Went through the La Rinascente- the main department store in Italy, like a Nordstrom or Bloomingdales. It was jammed packed, and when I say jammed pack, I mean that they put about 5 stories in a building that should seriously only have 3 -_-. The ceilings were very low and it felt like there was only a narrow space to walk…
We eventually met up with our CS host, Andrea. We went back to his place to rest a bit and met his friend Fabio. They were so nice and welcoming to us! We talked about outlet shopping [= and places to see in Milan. Then we were going to meet up with Andrea’s other friend for aperitivo. We went on our first Italian car ride- seriously CRAZY drivers there… haha but oddly safe too if that could make sense. Got to the bar and met his friend Stefana. Talked about culture, Milan, Italy, Germany, US, fashion… And of course aperitivo- Milanese style. It’s a form of Happy Hour. The bars set their drink prices at 5-7 euros for a 2hour block and they give you a buffet of food throughout the 2hour block (like Spanish tapas?).
Andrea and Stefana took us to the columns and ruins at St. Lorenzo and then we walked to another bar where we met a NY-er and and Aussie. The place was pretty much “the” hangout place. I tried to take pictures at night, but failed ]= haha
They were telling us the history about Milan during WWII and stuff. They showed us one of the gates to the city that was left up after wars and a series of governing changes. The columns at St. Lorenzo were ruins from the WWII bombings. They left some other buildings in ruins and rebuilt St. Lorenzo. You can see the different architecture on the church- very interesting [=.
A friend of Stefana’s was calling her to meet up, so we called it a night- I was freaken tired anyway… Got back to Andrea’s place and knocked the heck out…
In the morning, we had tea and biscuits with Andrea while listening to his neighbor practice the piano. How nice to have free music every Saturday [=
We tried to look for the fleamarket, but we got lost, so we went back to St. Lorenzo to take pictures of the columns during the day. Then we went to Santa Maria presso San Satiro, but the church wasn’t opened yet. Andrea and Fabio told us to visit it because it isn’t well known so it’s hard to find and not a lot of people know about it. The church is known for the structure of the altar- its built and painted in a perspective that makes you feel like its soo big when it’s really small.
Decided to call it a day and walked back to the train station. Bought sweets - most importantly my first canolli. Got back to Bolzano before 8P and slept in the next day [=
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I’m so freaken excited
… just gotta get through today- study mad hardcore
… and pack for the weekend
… final tmorw morning
… then I’m London/Paris bound with Serena!!
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