milan, italy

Boy were we glad that we had snagged a reservation for our train into Italy. The train was packed! It's a nice feeling knowing that the seat is yours and no one can boot you out of it! We had a hotel booked for Milan ahead of time as well, and hopped on a tram and found it no problem. It's been getting dark realllly early now, like around 4:30 so we haven't been having as much time to walk around and sight see as we used to. That evening we just went to check out an English bookstore and to the area of town nicknamed "little Venice" because of the couple of canals that are there. It was actually kind of gross because the canals were dried up and filled with garbage. We had a charming dinner at McDonald's before heading home for the night.

We had heard that in order to see DaVinci's "Last Supper" painting, you had to make a reservation months in advance, but we were hoping that since it was kind of getting to be the off season for tourists, we would be able to see it anyways. No luck there, they were booked up until the end of November. That was too bad because I think we will have seen pretty much every other masterpiece in Europe except that one! haha.. We then headed to Milan's huge cathedral, the Duomo. The architecture was so detailed and intricate; we were glad we spent the money to climb to the rooftop to get a better look at it as well as get a great view of the city. There is a huge square right in front of the church that is always has a fluster of activity going on. It was there that we experienced our first little scam artist on the trip. There were a ton of pigeons in the square, and this guy came up to me and put some birdfeed in my hand and was getting the birds to come so Mike could take a picture. Right away I knew this guy was going to ask for money, but I was ok with it because the pigeons were cool and I wanted a picture with them. Mike and I both burst out laughing though when he said we owed him 5 euros. 5 EUROS?! for a few kernels of corn? IIIIII don't think so.. haha. I gave him a few bits of change like I was planning on doing anyways and we walked away. There were also these guys that would ask if you wanted a free little braided bracelet for "luck" and put it right on your arm as you were walking by. Of course by free they really meant they wanted money. We saw so many people get sucked in by that one, mostly couples where the girl would be interested and the guy would start getting mad at the scammer and drag the girl away, haha.

We also walked around one of Milan's main shopping areas, although I think we missed the one main area somehow. Everyone in Milan seemed quite concerned with their appearances, and everyone was SO well dressed. Milan was also where we were introduced to the fact that Italian people like to STARE. It felt like everyone we passed would look us up and down, and you could see other people doing it to each other as well. While sitting waiting for the tram or train or whatever, just watching people walk by almost felt like you were watching a fashion show. It was definitely a different atmosphere! There were so many gorgeous stores with gorgeous clothes.. and the shoes! My goodness, shoe stores everywhere! If only I had a massive suitcase to store them in (and another suitcase full of money to pay for them, haha)..

We read in our guide book about a cheap restaurant where you could get really good pizza and pasta and we spent a good chunk of the evening trying to find the darn place. It was WELL worth it though once we finally tracked it down because it turns out you get pasta ON TOP of the pizza, literally! The pizza was huge and the pasta was delicious. Oh yea, and we had gelato! mmmm... On the way home we walked through this little night market thing which was full of guys from Senegal selling knock off designer purses, wallets, etc. They were so persistant and pesky. I guess they were just getting ready to pack up for the night so they were all the more desperate to make the sale. We actually started talking to one of the guys on the subway (they carry their goods around in these huge blue bags) and he was super nice. He told us how he came to Milan from Senegal looking for a better life. He was so genuinley friendly and we enjoyed talking with him. It was funny how talking with just that one guy changed our opinion on all the other guys that had been hounding us to look at their purses. They were just trying to make some money, and everyone would brush them away like flies. I guess we realized that all these people we look at as "scammers" are just that.. people. They don't mean any harm.