Milan (MEELANN)

The next morning after the pub, we had to wake up at 6:30 AM! (ROUGH) I put my hiking backpack to use and tried to pack light (or what I thought!). And we got on our 7:15 Train to Milan! We have one train layover and had about 45 minutes left. We got to Milan around 9 am and I was absolutely famished. Obviously the group was in unison about getting McDonald’s breakfast. Much to our dismay there is no such THING as a McDonalds breakfast abroad!? But in case you were wondering McDonalds does serve shrimp or beer if you’re interested. After finishing up a delicious 5 Euro meal, we headed out for some site seeing. Looking like complete tourists with camera’s attached to our hands we began to walk around. After a little bit of getting lost we found ourselves in the heart of Milan, at the beautiful square. This had everything from Gucci to Prada and every other major designer you could think of. Through this square was the duomo. This was a HUGE church, something out of a storybook. Next thing we knew we were completely surrounded by the GYPSIES. They were either complete guidos or black men trying to give us bird feed or “obama” bracelets (which were just rainbow string bracelets I used to make in middle school). They want to take our cameras to take pictures of all of us, it was kind of terrifying but you had to be harsh with them and say NO! After taking a bunch of pictures outside we decided to go inside. We couldn’t take any pictures inside, so sorry I don’t have any documentation, but it was absolutely BREATHTAKING. I was in complete aw of the beautiful paintings, candles, high ceilings, stain glass, beautiful pews and confessionals. The entire thing was stunning, we slowly paced the church for almost an hour. After we examined every last bit, and even prayed, we decided to head back outside to the bitter cold. Greg, Scott, and Chris decided to pay 5 Euros to go up to the top of the Duomo, but we decided to stay down and walk around a little bit. While we were walking around the square, mainly avoiding the gypsies, we noticed a big limo. A few minutes later we realized that there was a wedding processional. It looked as if Asian royalty had just gotten married! The woman’s dress was BEAUTIFUL old lace. After walking around we tried to find the boys that had gone up top. After about 2 hours of pacing around in the cold, we decided that it was going to be impossible to find these boys (even with our cell phones that we’re never going to figure out how to use). Instead, Stephanie, Claire James, Josh, Meredith and I decided to go to our hostel. Easier said than done! It took us about an hour to figure out the metro, which line to use, which way to go, it was all so confusing! We finally got on the right train and got off at a stop 2 minutes from our hostel! Hostel Greco, had a buzzer outside of the apartment complex with a big wooden door outside. We then checked in, to this tiny tiny, old hotel. When we were let in to the hostel it was our first glimpse at our first hostel. Luckily the only other people in the hostel were our age, one guy named Tom from Australia, and the another named Evandro from brazil. When we got to the hostel we unpacked and just hung out for a little and waited for the other 3 to get home. After an hour or so of sitting around we decided to start getting ready for the night. Dinner slipped our mind (or we just economically decided against it). We hung out in the hostel for a little bit, pregamed, and then decided to go out on the town. Our first plan was to look for “Discotopless,” clearly a classy European strip club. After about an hour of searching, we gave up and headed into the first irish pub we found. We stayed there for about an hour and then decided to head into Milan for the Discotecha! We got there and it cost 15 Euros for a free drink and to get in! Josh and Claire decided to walk back so me… Greg, C-ham, James, Chris, Scott, Stephanie, and Meredith went in and started immediately ordering LITs. We all then moved to the dance floor. I look over and see Greg already found his dancing partner for the night. He was getting his freak on with “a 350 pound black woman who was easily the same age as his mother.” After a few minutes of bumpin’ and grindin’ she moved out of the way and Greg flat on his face, and TWO TEETH were lost in the process. At the time we just laughed about it and stayed at the club till about 3 am. Before this happened Chris Meeks tried to get into the club without paying so he could relieve himself, yet he hadn’t paid, so walking out of the club he was tackled and almost arrested! Everything was fine once he paid the 20 francs they wanted from him! I woke up in the morning and was so confused, everyone was in different beds, Greg was missing two teeth and Meeks somehow found the hostel last night by himself, I felt like I was in the movie hangover fo real. We packed our bags and got out of that shitty hostel and went to the store, got some Heinekens, and walked towards the stadium for the AC Milan futbol game ! We each bought a jersey (I got Rhonaldino), met up with some other people from Lugano, and headed into the nearest bar. The game was SO much fun and seeing DAVID BECKHAM from the stands was well worth the 38 Euros! Right after the game we headed to the train station. Unfortunately we didn’t buy a round trip ticket, and when we went to get our ticket home, the ticket window said that the earliest trip home to Lugano was 5 AM THE NEXT MORNING!!!!!! We began to panic…. A LOT. We thought about being a stowaway but decided against it. As the 7pm train pulled away we noticed that two members from our group was ON THE TRAIN! We thought that they would for sure be kicked off (of course no! they got home safe). As we nuzzled up next to a heater, assuming we were sleeping in the train station, we got a phone call saying at another train station there was a train home at 9:15. Everyone in our group got their stuff and started running (Me and Josh stayed behind to find James who was missing, but that was a whole other story). Finally around 1am we were back to the home sweet home of the Hotel Montarina! It was so good to be at our home away from home!