Wednesday, August 14, 2013

First Day of Exploring Milan

This morning I had breakfast at the hostel, since it was included. I also tried to read a book about Barack Obama that was written in Italian. I could understand a surprising amount of the text.

(The bus is in some of my pictures so Jake - my brother - could see it traveling around with me :))

Barack Obama: The Dreams of My Father

Federico sat down with me and pointed out each place on the map that I should go (there were about 20) for landmarks, shopping, gelato, etc. He was so wonderful! Of course, I walked in the complete opposite direction of all of the cool things he had pointed out on the map and didn't realize it until I was about 15 minutes in the opposite direction in a less nice part of town. Still, it felt pretty safe and once I realized I turned around.




Once I was headed in the right direction, it was only 10 minutes past the hostel that I reached Il Duomo, a cathedral dedicated to Santa Maria Nascente and the fifth largest cathedral in the world. The road (Via Torino) curves a bit and all the sudden there is the hugest, most intricate cathedral. I knew that I would be looking for something big where "Duomo" was written on the map, but I was not prepared for this beautiful building. There were pigeons in the Piazza del Duomo and I sat for awhile before I went in the cathedral just people-watching. It was a bit gray out, but the temperature was perfect.




A guy approached me, probably in his late twenties and asked where I was from, because I must have looked like a tourist. I talked to him briefly and he gave me his number and offered to show me around (no thank you...haha), then I left to go into the cathedral. It was full of people and there were paintings and candles on either side. What I was most amazed by was the stained glass. Each panel was an extremely detailed picture - none of my photos really did it justice. Every surface was beautiful, from the floor to the ceiling. It was dark and a bit creepy there, but peaceful.








I walked through the Galleria Vittorio Emanuele II, the world's oldest shopping mall. I wasn't very interested in the stores since I don't like shopping very much, but the building itself was incredible. There was a large dome in the middle with four entryways going outward. 




There were tons of tourists (especially Asian tourists) stopping to pose and take selfies or get their pictures taken. It was hilarious. Galleria Vittorio Emanuele II connected Piazza Del Duomo to Piazza della Scala, where the Opera House and Theater are located. There is a statue of Leonardo Da Vinci in the center. There was also a poster for The Color Run which looked identical to the ones in Denver. 

I turned back after that and headed back for the hostel, because I had been out for a few hours at that point. I stopped on the way for pasta - it was the cheapest I found so it wasn't great. 

When I got back, I took a nap then met my new hostel roommates - two girls from Canada, Tara and Emily, and a boy from Russia, Grig. None of us really had plans so we ended up walking around for awhile and we passed Castello Sforzesco. 

The moat


In front of the castle, two men tied bracelets on us from Africa (They kept repeating "Bunga Bunga" - which apparently means Good Luck). Earlier that day, a man had tried to do the same thing and I said no, but since everyone else was accepting them I thought they might be free. Once they tied them on us and cut off the ends they started demanding money - "Five Euros, Five Euros!" I claimed I only had English Pounds which did not deter them because apparently those are worth even more. I ended up giving them a euro which they were not happy about, but oh well. 

We walked around the castle to a very large park. There were a ton of people dancing under a tent - it looked like square dancing. We stood and watched until a man came up and stood super close to me to talk. He didn't speak English but I could understand some of his Italian. It looked like he was gesturing towards his ring finger and asking me a question. We left and got gelato on our way home. 
 My first Italian gelato! (But not the last...)
Back at the hostel we had apertivo and beer (for 5 euros you could get a drink and unlimited food). We were all too tired to go out, so we drank wine that Grig had bought on the terrace instead. I went to bed around 12:30. Two new people came into our room at around 2am, but I never ended up meeting them because I left early for my tour the next morning. 




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