"All I wanted were some Milano cookies!" - Milan, Italy

Milano, Italia - one of the top fashion cities in the world. As much as I'd love to compare my highly stylish outfits with other sophisticated models, I did not choose to visit Milan because of its prestigious fashion label. Actually, we chose Milan because it was one of the cheapest airports to fly into on April 11, 2014 :) (And we also secretly hoped to receive Milano cookies upon leaving the airplane; sadly, this did not happen.) However, an additional benefit/hassle turned out to be that we were in Milan during one of its "Design Weeks", when a bunch of artists, designers, and photographers come to share, expose, and bond over various works of art. This was a benefit because there was much more activity throughout the city and some pretty cool exhibits that we otherwise would not have seen! But, this was also a bit of a hassle because of the crowded streets which made it difficult to navigate, both on foot and on bike.

I traveled with some of my best & craziest friends, +Caroline Frame  and +Mary Distler, for the entirety of this trip. We left Madrid Friday morning, had a layover in Barcelona, and arrived in Milan around 4pm. It turned out that another friend of ours named Adi had the exact same plans (same hostel and everything!) for Milan and was on all of our flights, so we were able to hang out with her as well! After landing in Milan, we headed to our hostel outside of the city center. When we arrived, we were greeted by a young, friendly Italian guy wearing a deep V-neck that exposed some of his "5 o'clock shadow" shaved chest... I guess he was ready for Design Week! He checked us in, explained the area to us, and suggested a good place to grab dinner. "You go here, it is very good and cheap, tell him you come from this hostel, the owner is my friend," he told us. We kept his suggestion in mind, but decided to walk around a bit first to check out some other places. That didn't last very long because: 1) we were all very hungry, 2) there was a lot of indecision within the group, and I can only handle indecisiveness for so long, 3) it was sufficiently dark in an unknown neighborhood, and was a questionably sketchy place. So we settled on the receptionist's suggestion, and boy am I glad we did! Mary and I ordered 2 plates of gnocchi (1 pesto, 1 cuatro formaggio) and Caroline and Adi each ordered a pizza. We each shared some of our own dishes with each other, and overall it was a scrumptious and cheap meal! It was about 10 Euro for each of us, so not too bad! Throughout our sitting we decided to play  "20 Questions" to pass the time, which continued to be the time-passing game for the duration of our Spring break.

 In our 6-person mixed dorm, there were already 3 other people in the room. However, we didn't see who these people were before we went to bed, we only saw their luggage. It's somewhat strange to be sharing a room with unknown strangers, but when we woke up Saturday morning we saw that the other 3 members were 3 Italian women. Unfortunately, they checked-out that day, which meant that we'd be gifted 3 new strangers when we returned to the hostel that night! How exciting! Despite this surprise that would be awaiting our return home, we headed toward the city center with positive, ready, adventurous attitudes. Mary, Caroline, and I booked a bike tour called "Bike My Milan" for the afternoon from 3pm-7pm, so we had some time to kill in the morning before that. Adi joined us on our trip into the city center and we met up with her friend Jackson. We walked through the magnificent Duomo of Milan, and then we walked throughout the city streets and alleys toward a large park inside of old castle walls. Inside, there was a courtyard filled with variously-placed large, brightly-colorful birds.
The adjacent courtyard had a long fountain and a garden of flowers, and behind the castle walls was the entrance into a grand, beautiful park, filled with ponds, walking paths, little "concession stands", bushes, trees, flowers and some recreational areas, too!
It was a perfectly warm day for us to take our time and stroll through the park.
We got to the end of it and turned back to find some lunch.

Mary, Caroline, Adi, and Jackson posing for a pic!

 
We found a restaurant and ordered 2 big pizzas to share: Prosciutto and 4 Formaggio. Another tasty and relatively cheap meal! After we finished, Mary, Caroline, and I headed out to our bike tour. Luckily we found the meeting spot right on time, and our tour guide Ben greeted us and walked us to the garage where the bikes were stored. There were also a couple of funny British folk with us: Louise and her dad Dave. The 5 of us enjoyed a lot of laughs and bike-riding-struggles along the way together; it was a very fun and interesting way to get to know people! Ben was also a hoot: he's a ~25 year old guy from upstate New York, who spent 3 years in Sweden and is now living in Milan. He attended West Point Academy for 2 years and decided it wasn't for him, but not before he experienced a number of hilarious stories (which he ended up sharing with us about half way through the tour). He was quite the interesting fellow... and was also a great tour guide! Ben took us all around the city, stopping at various points along the way and explaining the history and significance of different buildings, statues, people, and events. We learned about some important family dynasties, mercenaries and dukes such as Francesco Sforza and Luchino Visconti; Ospedale Maggiore Ca' Granda Statale, an old public hospital commisioned by Sforza, which is now a state university;  Basilica di Sant' Ambrogio. We saw the renovation project on a statue of Napoleon Bonaparte (after being gifted the statue, Napoleon complained that it made him look "too athletic" and thus hid it away for many years), and we ended up going back to the same castle walled park that we visited earlier that day!

Bonaparte restoration

We stopped at each of these points so that Ben could explain their history, and sometimes we got to spend 5-10 minutes just walking around and exploring for ourselves.
For example, when we came to the old hospital-turned-university, we stepped into the courtyard where there was a huge design/science exhibition! Apparently it was just a preview for the actual exhibition that is coming to Milan next year - so cool!

In between some of these points, we would stop at a monument or statue or an old Roman pillar and learn some more history. (Again, sorry folks - I don't have all the facts for you, so I guess you'll just have to make it out to Milan yourself and take this tour! I would highly recommend this tour to anyone & everyone visiting Milan!!) There were probably 4 or 5 instances when we would arrive at a building in which had been previously bombed by the British in WWII, and Ben (without fail) would make a funny, not-so-subtle remark about it: "Yeah, and then these 'guys I knew' (*points at the Brits*) bombed the heck out of this place in 1941....", "This used to be a huge (important structure) until SOMEONE bombed it to smithereens..." Dave and Louise were good sports about it though and laughed along with us. At one point, an American-bombed site came up, and Ben willingly took the blame, saying "Alright, that one was on us."

Our tour guide Ben, standing in front of an important building!

Statue of Alessandro Manzoni,
whose novel I Promessi Sposi helped
create a standard and unifying
Italian language for the country.

My bike "Leonardo"; each of our bikes were green, white, and
red, and each had a different famous Italian name on it!

There were 2 breaks in the tour: one where we stopped for a quick snack (which didn't happen for us because we were all still full from our pizzas at lunch!), and one where we could buy some Italian gelato from Grom (I ate pistacchio and chocolate, mmmmm :)......), one of the best gelato places in Italy. It was at this stop when we asked Louise if she could do an American accent (since we, as Americans, were so used to hearing/acting out the British accent), and she did it! I tried doing my best British accent for her, but apparently when I said it I sounded like "an old proper lady"! Hahaha, and all this time I thought I sounded like a regular Brit....
We originally were going to go see what Ben referred to as the "Bone Church", which had interior walls decorated with the bones of deceased members; however, we ran out of time due to time lost trying to make our way through certain very crowded sections of Milan and could not see it. We did get to see the Basilica di Sant' Ambrogio however, which contains the body of St. Ambrose and 2 martyrs in a tomb under the first floor!

St. Ambrose (white) laying next to 2 martyrs (red), one on
each side of him.

One of our last stops was in a plaza near La Scala, Milan's famous theatre. However, none of us had ever really heard of it, so when Ben introduced it with excitement, he was slightly disappointed at our lack of excitement: "And here is the famous theater of Milan!.... Teatro alla Scala!.... Which, by your unchanged facial expressions, I'm guessing you haven't heard about? Come on guys! How have you not heard about this?!" (*Sorry Ben, we're just here because it was cheap to fly into, we're not really theater/fashion/design people.*) Nevertheless, he continued with its history and told us about how the rambunctious Milanese audience once booed a man off stage for a rude, condescending remark he made toward the people before his performance. They were so quick to boo him that his understudy didn't have a chance to change and came out onto stage in his jeans! The understudy then received something like an 8-minute standing ovation! After this we visited an old building (now a church) that used to be the place that the emperor would sit to watch gladiators fight. "Over 1000 years ago, gladiators were fighting right where we stand!...*Deep sniff* Yep, we're breathing some of their oxygen! The very same stuff!" Ben described to us.

Throughout the entirety of the tour, Caroline had some real issues with her bike; it was a constant & funny struggle for her to keep control of her bike. I think her seat was a little bit too high, and she hadn't ridden a bike in a long time; whatever the reason was, there were numerous funny occasions during the tour. Once she almost ran into a woman walking in the park! She avoided collision, continued riding, and said "Sorry, I don't speak your language - 'Arrivederci' though!" Another instant was when we had to walk our bikes through a street and she dropped hers, including everything in her basket, and as we tried to quickly pick it up, everything just kept falling again, which prompted 2 very nice (looking) Italian guys to help us out. We walked to where Ben was waiting for us and Caroline and I just burst out into laughter.

The tour ended at the Duomo di Milano, where we had previously visited with Adi and Jackson. The square outside of it was filled with tourists and low-flying pigeons, which highly annoyed Ben. "You'll see me in the news one day: 'Thousands of Pigeons Found Individually Strangled'... when you see that, you'll know it was me." Luckily we were able to take some group pictures without too much

The tour group: Mary, me, Caroline, Louise, & Dave.

Us & Ben

We biked back to the garage to put the bikes back in storage and Ben gave us some advice on where to eat, and what to try to see on Sunday if we had time (which we didn't). Mary was a little worried about taking the metro back at night for fear of pick-pocketers, so Ben also gave us his phone number, saying "Here, if anyone tries to mess with you, just call me up and I'll talk to them. I'll be like 'Yo bro, come at me! You better leave my girls alone or I'll mess you up!'..." This was probably the 3rd or 4th time of the day when I was laughing with tears falling from my eyes. We said our final goodbyes to Ben, Dave, and Louise, and we headed back toward the Duomo to try to meet up with Adi and Jackson again.

It turns out we just missed each other at our meeting spot: we stayed from 8:35 ~8:45 and figured they must have already left; they apparently arrived at the meeting spot ~8:45, looked for us, and then figured we'd already left - Oh well, a little missed meet-up never phased a veteran study abroad-er :) So Mary, Caroline and I headed toward a young, hip area of town that Ben suggested, and we ate dinner. Unfortunately, I do not have a tale of delicious food for this part; even more unfortunate was that we ate burgers - I felt so ashamed! We were all so tired though, and this place had big hamburgers for only 5.50 Euros, so we filled our bellies and called it a night. 

Upon returning to the hostel, we discovered that we our new FOUR roommates (that's right, 7 people in a 6-person dorm: they had added another bed) consisted of a Spanish couple and an Asian couple. Luckily they were all already there and getting ready for bed, so we didn't have to worry about any party animals coming in at 4am. 

The following morning was Palm Sunday - woo! - so we attended mass in Italian at the Duomo! We were confused at first because the reading was not the normal Palm Sunday reading. "Must be different in Italy....?" We thought. However, after leaving the Duomo, walking around for a bit, and returning to the Duomo's plaza, we saw a huge procession leading into the church! It was awesome!

 What an interesting sight to see! There was music playing, tons of cameras and tv people, giant palm branches (much different than the ones we received upon entering the church), and many different groups processing into the Duomo. "Ahh, HERE'S the real Palm Sunday mass," we concluded.
Soon after this we hopped on the metro to go back to the train station. We were saying Arrivederci to Milano and Buongiorno to Venezia in a couple hours, so we didn't want to miss our train.

Overall, Milan was a very interesting city; the bike tour was extremely informative and entertaining, and if I ever went back, I would gladly take the tour again. That being said, I don't really have the need or desire to ever return to Milan.

Grazie, Milano! Arrivederci! Ciao!