Milano!



My pizza



Friday morning was Milan! I was so excited to go.... but not so happy to wake up at 4:30 in the morning to do so. We called the night before to try and make sure it was at our appt by 4:45 but they never showed up so we had to walk down Rue Oberkampf trying to wave down a taxi before the drunk people did. It was packed at that time in the morning which was crazy. We finally took a taxi to the bus station, then a bus and hour away to Beauvais airport. Since we flew Ryanair and they don't fly out of the main airports it took soooo long to get there. After weather delays we had to take another bus 2 1/2 hours away to Lille, France to try and fly out of that airport. Finally after waiting over an hour at the airport we then took a plane to Bergamo and then a bus for an hour to Milan. Not a fun trip. We were supposed to get to Milan around 11 Friday morning and we didn't get in til 5 or so. Our hostel was actually a lot nicer than I expected for 22 euros a night. We had 5 beds in a room, 2 bathrooms for the whole hostel and it included breakfast. Since we got there so late Adrianna and I just went and got something to eat. I ate Lucca pizza which was amazing!!! I am so used to Paris being so expensive that I was shocked that a whole pizza was only 5 euro. Crazy! After a delicious meal with lots of bread and pizza we went to get some gellato.... It made ice cream look like crap. It was so creamy and delicious and after not having ice cream in forever it was nice :) After desert we just walked around our area for a while which was about 10 minutes from downtown Milan.

fountain near our hostel



Saturday was our only day of sightseeing so we were up and out by about 10 am. Near our hostel was a really neat market so we stopped by and sampled some italian beer, honey, sausage and cheese. It was great to hear everyone speaking a language I had no idea about.... learning experience. But the food was awesome and everyone was so nice.... different from your average Parisian. We then walked to Duomo, the 3rd oldest cathedrale in the world and it was amazing. I have never seen anything like it in my life and it was huge.  It is also the largest gothic cathedrale in the world. Since there were so many tourists, we didn't wait to get the guide in English but just wanted around by ourselves. After spending some time at the cathedrale, we walked around the city center of Milan and got some delicious lasagna for lunch. We saw some amazing stores such as Prada, Louis Vitton, Givenchy, etc and I bought a nice Italian leather jacked (really cheap actually) from one of the stores in the shopping district. We also saw Castello Szforensco, a 14th century castle in Milan. 



Duomo cathedrale



 It was really cool to see something so old still exist in the city center. Some other cool things about Milan is everyone dresses so well. I thought the Parisisians dressed nice, but Milan is supposed to be one of the fashion capitals of the world. After seeing the castle, we walked around a Carnival that was going on right next door.... It was nice to buy some souvenirs and people watch there. It looked exactly like the ones in the states except everything was in Italian and the snack food was a little bit different. Past the carnival was a really pretty park where people were playing soccer, sitting and reading and just hanging out.The weather was a lot warmer than Paris, about 55 degrees so it was a lot better to walk around when the sun is shining and the weather is warm. The buildings were so beautiful and artisitic looking, which is a big change from NYC or Atlanta . 

 We decided to go out to eat at a nicer restaurant for dinner and we had some wine with our pizza. Our waiter was really nice and tried to be patient with our basic Italian. Adrianna knew more than me but we both had some issues haha. We had this amazing chocolate desert thing and I was in heaven. We got a drink at a bar near our hostel and met some really cool people from all around the world such as Poland, Mexico, Germany, Cameroon and were thinking about going out but decided against it since we had to wake up at 3!!!! so that was a no go haha.  The next day was super early and then we flew back to Paris. It was a much easier trip back but it was kinda hard to go back to the real world without vacation and going out to eat all the time. But it was nice to have the day to relax and get some homework done. Somehow I fixed the internet at our appt which hadn't been working for 2 weeks so was really happy about that. Last weekend of travel for a while so it is nice on my budget and my energy level bc it wears me out!!!