Allison's Wonderland

It was Goodbye again for me at the Milan Grand Central Train Station, but this time I was saying goodbye to my travel buddy, Megan.  Our Ryanair flight, which if you've ever flown Ryanair is cheap but really terrible, got in on time so Megan and I hopped the bus into town.  We were extremely tired, but I was meeting Simona in Milan for a little sight seeing and to get my loads of luggage in order to fly out of Milan Malpensa the next day.  We said our goodbyes and than I was left alone in a strange city, with a strange language and no idea of how to get to the Duomo which Simona had designated as our rendezvous station.  No problem!  I'm an expert.  Haha...not really...

Me, La Duomo & the boots

Megan gave me some tips as to buying a ticket at this tabacchi and than taking a tram to a stop and than hopping on another tram.  I found it pretty easily.  I looked like an idiot because when I checked the weather for Paris it said it was going to rain most of the time.  So I packed my rain boots.  Well I didn't really pack them, I had to wear them.  Here I was in the middle of Milan with a tank top on, jeans and rain boots.  It was about 85 degrees out and my legs/feet were seriously sweating in those puppies.  I looked like one of those weirdos.  I was a bit early to the rendezvous, so my first course of action was to find La Scala Opera House.  It's on my bucket list to actually see a show there.  Well, I wasn't about to do that today.  Plus the tickets were uber expensive.  I wanted to come home with a little bit of cash.  Sat outside the theater just looking.  I peeked my head inside at one point

Galleria Vittorio Emanuele II

and time, but got yelled at a little.  WHOOPSY!  Don't care because it was beautiful!  Simona was running a bit late, but I headed to the Duomo to just take a gander.  It was absolutely stunning!  So gothic looking and cool.  Now I've seen quite a few of the big churches like St. Peter's in Rome, St. Francis in Assissi, San Marco's in Venice, Sagrada Familia in Barcelona, Sistine Chapel, Notre Dame in Paris and Basilica di Santa Maria del Fiore (Duomo) in Florence, but this one was probably one of the coolest from the outside.  I loved all of the gargoyles that surrounded the church.  You were also able to go to the top of the church, but I didn't want to ask Simona if she wanted to go.  She's probably done it before.  It was disappointing though because they had some big concert going on that night and there was a huge stage in the square that was being set up which didn't make for good pictures.

McDonald's!

I finally found Simona in the crowd of people.  She was hungry and I was hungry...so where do you go for your last meal in Italy?  Why McDonald's of course!  It was absolutely wonderful.  I hadn't had McDonald's in about  7 months and here I was eating it for the last meal of my Italian experience.  Oh the irony!  During our conversation, I asked Simona what time the airport would accept my luggage.  I was planning on hanging with Simona and then having her drop me at the airport so I could have a little sleep over there.  I was definitely NOT looking forward to it as I got three hours of sleep the night before and would be loosing lots of sleep on my way back home in the plane.  She got a funny little look on her face and said, "Well I was going to wait and tell you, but I booked a Hotel room for the night."  Seriously I could've sat right down there in the middle of McDonald's and cried.  That seriously was the nicest and best gift she could've ever given me.  Here I was thinking I would have to sit on guard in a crazy foreign airport with my three bags of luggage overnight, all the while I had a hot shower and warm bed just waiting for me.  I could've kissed her!  But I totally didn't.  A hug will do in these type of situations.

Galleria Vittorio Emanuele II from the inside

 

Spinning on Bull Testes

After lunch we started walking through the Galleria Vittorio Emanuele II shopping center which is absolutely huge and houses many Italian Designer shops.  The four huge corner shops are Prada, Gucci, Louis Vuitton, and you guess it, McDonald's :).  Simona and I did quite a bit of window shopping, because that's really all we could afford.  I didn't even want to step foot in any of the designer shops with the way I was dressed.  It also was odd that most of the people in the shops were Asian.  I guess they're the ones with all of the money.  After our window shopping was done it was time to find the Bull.  Now tradition in Milan is if you spin three times on the bulls testicles which are in the floor tiles of the shopping center, you will have extreme good luck.  So of course I had to do it.  I did my three spins and I could feel the luck just spreading all through out my bones. 

In front of La Scala Opera House

We made our way to La Scala again just to get a quick picture.  Than it was off to do some serious window shopping in one of the major fashion capitals of the world.  It was really cool to be there as I had seen a lot of the shops and roads in shows such as "America's Next Top Model" and "Project Runway."  None of the stuff was remotely affordable.  It was just nice to pretend.  After walking for what

Posh Shopping Street

seemed like forever we got some gelato at the Opera House Cafe.  Two gelato's and two waters cost us about 25 Euro.  Yikes! That's like a lot!  We were so tired and sweaty so we both had had enough and we picked up the metro and got to the car.  That's where we had the next adventure of trying to find the hotel when we didn't have an address just a city name.  Simona is kinda weird in the sense that she always gets lost and she kinda likes it.  I have never known anyone to be that way, but whatever. :)

The Opera House Cafe

Sweet Sweet Bed

We traveled past Milan Malpensa, which was the airport I was flying out from, into this little podunk town called Oleggio.  It was a very nice hotel called Aer Hotel, with free shuttle service and I wasn't happier in all my life to see a bed.  Seriously it was amazingly wonderful!  I had to carry all my huge heavy luggage up, which was a pain in the butt.  It was then another goodbye for me.  I'm

A Sweaty Goodbye Pic

starting to get good at this goodbye thing but I kind of hate them.  Simona had been a wonderful host Mom to me for the past seven months.  She treated me like a member of the family and not just like an outsider who was an employee.  It was hard to say goodbye, but it had to be done.  We hugged, got a picture and both got a little teary-eyed.  What can you do?  After all that, it was a shower for me and than bed at 8:00 pm.  Bed never felt better!