January 20th, 2013 - Milan Trip
Everyone before our first night in Milan!
Ciao! I just got back to Lugano from Milan today! And by just got back, I mean got back at 4pm and slept forever and now finally have enough energy to make a blog post...oops. Like I said we went to Milan this weekend. Our trip started out a little rough considering we were supposed to get on a train at 2:30 and found out there was a transportation strike in Italy...which we've now learned happens on the reg. We were only pushed back a couple hours so it worked out. We got into Milan around 6 or so, and well it took us about an hour to find our hostel. We established we probably should have taken a taxi instead but...I'm poor and we learned that a map is key...which we didn't exactly have. Anyways we get to our hostel which turned out to be surprisingly nice considering how cheap it was (11 euros/night)! The only bad thing was that they only turn the heat on at night, and its still freezing. And it didn't help that we found the extra blankets the morning we left...oops again. Just FYI, this was a trial and error weekend. Finally after we got settled into our room and got ready for the night, we headed to a local restaurant down the street and had our first official Italian food. I had some orecchiette pasta with tomato sauce YUM! Afterwards, we had heard about a "large" dance club called Alcatraz that we decided to try out...see Facebook for more of that. This place was literally a dance club the size of a Walmart, I can't even describe it. We thankfully all managed to get home safely...at 4:30am. On Saturday, even though we had a bit of a late start, we saw everything we wanted to, but the constant snow/freezing rain made it a little hard to walk around without stopping to go inside somewhere every few minutes. We walked all around the Piazza della Duomo and inside the Duomo which is incredibly gorgeous! Everything from the floors, ceilings, windows were incredibly detailed, which I later found out was built in 1386, WOW! We then continued onto shop in all the stores at the Galleria Vittorio Emanuele...I mean window shop. Prada, Louis Vuitton, Gucci, Fendi, Valentino...AND H&M, haha. We found a fur coat in Prada that was 17,400 Euros...just FYI that means that costs about $23,000...for a COAT, insane. We found a couch in the store and spent about 15 minutes just watching women with their Louis purses and long fur coats and their husbands shop. Inside the GVE, there is a part of the floor in the middle of the mall that has a bull on it and it is tradition to spin on the "bull's balls" for good luck, literally, sorry for the language. Kinda weird, but naturally we had to do it.
Panzerotti from Luini!
We continued on walking all around the center of Milan with a stop at a cute, modern coffee shop and boutiques. We also tried out Milanese favorite, panzerotti from a place called Luini which if anyone gets a chance to go to Milan, you have to go. Panzerotti is hard to describe. It's a slightly sweet and spongy piece of flat bread that has an assortment of fillings (we got spicy salami and mozzarella) that is folded in half and then fried. I didn't say it was the healthiest but it is a must, and it costs less than 3 Euros, help me I'm poor. After several hours, we headed back to our hostel to take a break...and a much needed nap. Around 8, we all went out for dinner, but my friends Jackie, Lindsay and I didn't find the Chinese and pizza place that everyone wanted to eat at very appetizing so we went a little exploring and found a gold mine. Milan is known for a tradition called "aperitivo" bars. A short explanation for it is that you pay around 7 euros for any sort of drink, and with that you get the "buffet" of assorted appetizers for free...yes for FREE! I wish I had taken a picture of all the food they had, but I didn't exactly want to stick out as a typical American more than I already do, but anyways it was amazing, and it's also a must when it comes to Milan. We continued onto the night with a visit to another popular bar called Club Hollywood. We happened to run into a woman who worked for PR for Club Hollywood near the Metro and got all of us in for a slight discount...so we got in for 20 Euros instead of 25 Euros, but hey we'll take it. It only got better from there. All 13 of us, somehow managed to get into a Reserved section of the club and made friends with some Dutch people...let's just say it was fun (See Facebook for some of the fun). It was definitely a great first weekend trip, and one I will never forget. Next weekend we are off to Munich! Ciao!
April 22nd, 2013 - Florence Trip
The Duomo
After our 2nd 10-day trip, we decided to take a trip that wasn't too far from Lugano so we went to Florence! We left Lugano Thursday afternoon and arrived in Florence after about a 3-hour train ride. We ended up staying in the Eurostudent Home hostel...quite the interesting experience, but I'll get more into that later. When we arrived, the hostel had free sangria every night, so we of course took advantage. The 5 of us stayed in a 10-person room. So we had also staying with us: Antonio from Brazil studying in Germany, Yumi from Japan studying in London, a guy from Colorado studying in Prague, a random Chinese guy who was never really there and then a girl from Virginia Tech! How crazy is that?! She was studying in the southern part of France, but it was so weird that we happened to be staying in the same hostel in the same room! Hokie Nation woo! The first night we decided to go to a bar called the Lion's Fountain Irish Pub. This place was completely Americanized. I don't think we met one European there, haha. On the ceiling, they hung t-shirts from essentially every university in the States, even VT! So it was fun to meet some Americans for once.
We woke up on Friday morning to one of the workers from the hostel pounding on our door at 9:30am...turns out every day at this hostel they kick everyone out from 10am-5pm. By the end of our trip we were convinced that the workers were involved in some other sort of business...catch my drift. So that was a bit of an interesting morning...needless to say we weren't out of there on time exactly. After a bit of shopping through the leather markets near our hostel, we decided to get lunch in the Piazza della Signoria which is the main square in Florence. I had gorgonzola gnocchi, yum! Afterwards we headed to the train station to meet up with my friend Torie's parents who were spending about 10 days in Europe. We walked them to their apartment and hung around there for a bit. It was nice to actually sit on a couch for once instead of hunched over in a bunk bed in a hostel, haha. Since they had not eaten lunch yet, we all went and sat with them and enjoyed some red wine. Afterwards, we headed over to the Ponte Vecchio for some window shopping and to watch the sunset. For dinner, we just picked up a few things at the market and ate at the hostel.
On Saturday morning, my friend Caitlin wasn't feeling all that great, so I ended up staying with her in Florence instead of taking the train to Cinque Terre which my friend Torie and her family had planned on doing. I wasn't too bummed since I'll be going there once my family gets here! We headed out and grabbed some pizza to-go for lunch. Caitlin and I spent most of the day shopping, site-seeing, shopping, picture-taking, oh and shopping. I didn't even buy that many things but Florence has sooooo many markets and stores to explore that we were kept pretty busy. We took tons of photos around the Duomo, back at the Ponte Vecchio and everywhere in between. We waited about an hour to see the David statue too, which yes it's great and wonderful, I have seen it before, and I'm not sure I'll be spending the money ever again to see it, haha. For dinner Caitlin, one of the guys staying in our room, Antonio, and I all went out to a place called Rex Bar which had aperitivo! I know I mentioned this in my Milan blog but basically you buy a cocktail for around 7 euros and then you get all the appetizers that the bar puts out for free. Usually its anything from chips and salsa to pesto pasta to bruschetta and grilled chicken jambalaya. We hadn't had aperitivo since Milan so it was fun to experience that again.
On Sunday, we spent most of the day with Torie's family just walking around some more. There really is so much you can do in Florence, so we kind of found ourselves seeing the same things. But we did get to see the beginning of mass at the Duomo which was really cool because they all walk out of the building with the gold doors (can't remember the name of it?) and walk into the Duomo. In Florence, on Palm Sunday, they were carrying olive branches instead of palms, which I thought was interesting. Afterwards we attempted to go to the Gardens of Boboli which apparently has great views of the city but we didn't want to pay the 12 euros...sorry I'm poor. But I'm hoping we could maybe do this when my family comes. Side note: I also missed out on Central Market of San Lorenzo which is this huge food market that I need to experience when I go next.
We woke up on Friday morning to one of the workers from the hostel pounding on our door at 9:30am...turns out every day at this hostel they kick everyone out from 10am-5pm. By the end of our trip we were convinced that the workers were involved in some other sort of business...catch my drift. So that was a bit of an interesting morning...needless to say we weren't out of there on time exactly. After a bit of shopping through the leather markets near our hostel, we decided to get lunch in the Piazza della Signoria which is the main square in Florence. I had gorgonzola gnocchi, yum! Afterwards we headed to the train station to meet up with my friend Torie's parents who were spending about 10 days in Europe. We walked them to their apartment and hung around there for a bit. It was nice to actually sit on a couch for once instead of hunched over in a bunk bed in a hostel, haha. Since they had not eaten lunch yet, we all went and sat with them and enjoyed some red wine. Afterwards, we headed over to the Ponte Vecchio for some window shopping and to watch the sunset. For dinner, we just picked up a few things at the market and ate at the hostel.
On Saturday morning, my friend Caitlin wasn't feeling all that great, so I ended up staying with her in Florence instead of taking the train to Cinque Terre which my friend Torie and her family had planned on doing. I wasn't too bummed since I'll be going there once my family gets here! We headed out and grabbed some pizza to-go for lunch. Caitlin and I spent most of the day shopping, site-seeing, shopping, picture-taking, oh and shopping. I didn't even buy that many things but Florence has sooooo many markets and stores to explore that we were kept pretty busy. We took tons of photos around the Duomo, back at the Ponte Vecchio and everywhere in between. We waited about an hour to see the David statue too, which yes it's great and wonderful, I have seen it before, and I'm not sure I'll be spending the money ever again to see it, haha. For dinner Caitlin, one of the guys staying in our room, Antonio, and I all went out to a place called Rex Bar which had aperitivo! I know I mentioned this in my Milan blog but basically you buy a cocktail for around 7 euros and then you get all the appetizers that the bar puts out for free. Usually its anything from chips and salsa to pesto pasta to bruschetta and grilled chicken jambalaya. We hadn't had aperitivo since Milan so it was fun to experience that again.
On Sunday, we spent most of the day with Torie's family just walking around some more. There really is so much you can do in Florence, so we kind of found ourselves seeing the same things. But we did get to see the beginning of mass at the Duomo which was really cool because they all walk out of the building with the gold doors (can't remember the name of it?) and walk into the Duomo. In Florence, on Palm Sunday, they were carrying olive branches instead of palms, which I thought was interesting. Afterwards we attempted to go to the Gardens of Boboli which apparently has great views of the city but we didn't want to pay the 12 euros...sorry I'm poor. But I'm hoping we could maybe do this when my family comes. Side note: I also missed out on Central Market of San Lorenzo which is this huge food market that I need to experience when I go next.