Amber and I headed out to the Sudbanhof train station (on the other side of Vienna) at about 1:00pm on Wednesday afternoon. We knew that we had a very long journey ahead of us, but we were Italy-bound! We had our bags packed, and boarded a train for Bratislava, where the majority of RyanAir flights leave from. Bratislava is the capital of Slovakia, and about 1 hour away by train. We arrived safely and boarded our flight at around 5:30pm, and were SO excited to know that the next time we touched down.... we'd be in ITALIA with Alyssa (my best buddy) and Emily, our friends from UK who are studying this semester in Salamanca, Spain!

THE ITALIAN JOB -- PART ONE, MILAN

We landed in the Milan-Bergamo airport, where we then caught a 45 minute shuttle to the Milan train station. The only information that Amber and I had was the name and street address of our hotel in Milan. Alyssa had booked the hotel, so Amber and I really had zero information. So, needless to say, we were a little nervous that we would never be able to find out where we were staying. My mom always taught me that, when in doubt... ask someone! We leaned over to two guys on our bus and asked them if they knew ANYTHING about where THE BEST HOTEL of Milan was located relative to the train station. Not to my surprise, they had no idea, but Marco and his friend from Spain did have a map. We searched for about 10 minutes for our street, and finally found it.... only about a 5 minute walk from the station! YES!

We got off of our bus, thanked the guys for their help, and set out in search of our hostel. We used their little Google map, and finally saw our hotel in the distance. We walked in, and I attempted to communicate with the woman at the front desk, who spoke very little English. Then, all of the sudden, I heard a familiar scream from the bottom of the stairs, and I saw my very best friend in the entire world running out of a room! IT WAS ALYSSA!!!!! I was so excited to see her! We haven't seen eachother in 2 months, and I definately had butterflies when I finally got to see her! Not even Skype can compare to really getting to hug somebody in person. It was such an amazing feeling.

Alyssa and Emily showed us to our room, which was incredible. We had two twin beds and one king-sized bed. This was an actual hotel, not a crummy hostel! We were so pumped, because the price was super cheap, and we had a private, very nice room. Well done, Alyssa! :) After we got all settled in, the four of us headed out to find some dinner. Emily and Alyssa had been in Milan for a few hours and had already eaten, but decided to take Amber and I back to the restaruant that they had eaten in. Both of us were starving, so we each ate small vegetarian pizzas. My first Italian pizza was soooo much better than anything I'd eaten in Austria! We also all four shared a bowl of the famous Italian gelato, which was even better than I remembered. -- By the time we got finished with dinner, it was pretty late (these Euros stay out way past my bedtime!), so we headed back to the hotel to get a good night's sleep. On the way, we recieved several, "Ciao Bella!" comments.... this was going to be an interesting trip! :)

We woke up very early the next morning, got ready, ate our free breakfast in the hotel, and set out to explore the city. I was the official navigator of the map. We went to one of the Metro stops, and took it to the center of the city. The subway in Milan was VERY stressful. We weren't sure how to use the ticket machines, but this little girl came up to us and pushed the English button and navigated us through it. Well, how helpful, I thought.... OH NO. When I put my money in the machine, this girl tried to keep 4 Euros for herself! What a scam artist! Amber pulled her grimey little paws open and snatched my Euros back, and we hurried off. We held all of our bags very closely, just in case the scamming gypsies tried to snatch anything else.

We rode a few stops on the subway, and came out at the central stop. When we emerged out of the tunnels, we were in complete awe of what we found. The Duomo cathedral was smack dab in front of us.... and it was MASSIVE! I was sooooo impressed. I'd only heard about the Duomo before, so it was very awesome to finally see it up close. I guess we could be labled as tourists, because the four of us immediately started taking pictures. Then, this man came up and opened Alyssa's hand, putting corn inside. Immediately, dozens of pigeons swarmed us, and were jumping all around in our hair and fluttering at our feet trying to eat up the corn. The look on our faces was halarious, and Emily started taking pictures. As we tried to scurry away, that man wanted 10 Euros for payment, too.... FOR CORN!!! Milan was just full of these crazy scammers! We threw a Euro at him to just go away, and then ran into the Duomo for sanctuary. -- Randomly, it turned out to be All Saints Day, so the cathedral was full of Italian people, and music from the mass that was going on filled the rafters. Now, I've heard some beautiful choirs before, but this was one of the most beautiful and perfect songs that I've ever heard. The four of us just stood at the back of the cathedral and listened for about 30 minutes.

Off to the side, people were lighting candles in memory of loved ones, so we lit a candle, prayed, and just watched everyone else. This was seriously something that I needed. One of the things that I've missed the most about America is church. Even though this was a Catholic mass in Italian, I really got something out of it. I could just feel God in that building, and just being there watching was a much-needed spiritual experience. I loved it! -- What a great first stop! :)

Outside and to the right of the Duomo is the oldest shopping center called the Galleria. To enter the shopping place, you go through this giant arch! Inside, the ceiling is arched glass, and all of the stores line the inside of this arch. I was thoroughlly impressed, yet again. The stores inside, however, were Prada, Mercedes Benz (who knew that Mercedes made jackets? If having a car isn't enough! lol), etc. We were merely window-shoppers in this fancy-shmancy place.

we walked past the Duomo again, and got to see an awesome statue of Leonardo DaVinci, who lived and did a lot of his masterpieces in Milan. We sat on a bench under the statue to plan out our route for the day on our trusty map. When we got up, Alyssa turned around and had Pigeon Poo on her jeans! The rest of us nervously looked at our pants, and were clean.... so I guess the Pige man wanted revenge on us and told one of his feathered friends to come poo on Alyssa's seat.... gross. -- We went inside a McDonalds (which are located about every 3 feet in Italy!) and cleaned everything up. Nothing gets Champ down, so we just continued on our exploration of the city. :) Stinkin' pigeons!

As we walked along the famous shopping street (with more $$$ shops) of Milan, we saw a lot of boards set up in rows along the sidewalks, which turned out to be a National Geographic photo display of all of the most famous and intense N.G. pictures taken over the years. My favorite was the one of the younger lady in a red robe who just stares at the camera, called "Eyes of Hope." It was really beautiful and VERY interesting.

After walking down the street, we saw a huge castle/fortress, and a great big fountain. We had to check this out! This castle turned out to be the Milano Castello (also called Castello Sforzesco), a seven-century-old castle, that has been a "significant feature of the historical and artistic memory of Milan." (from tour brochure) The castle was very awesome, but the best part was its location. The back of the castello over-looked a massive park with bridges, streams, and trees that had changed colors for Fall. It was absolutely beautiful! We lauged, though, when we saw a spray-painted side of an electrical box that said, "USA" and then had an arrow pointing down... oh well... you win some, you lose some, I guess! :) At the end of the park was the Milanese Arch of Peace, which we walked to. These Italians are all about their arch's of something-or-other. :)

After hitting all of the important monuments, the four of us were getting a little hungry, so we set out in search of a lunch spot. We walked along the outter edges of the castle and along a smaller street, where we saw a glorious sign: PIZZARIA. We wanted to eat as many different kinds of traditional Italian food as possible, so we went inside. It turned out to be another very cute family-owned restaraunt that served all of the traditional dishes for quite cheap. We were pumped. All of us got some different kind of pasta, and I got spaghetti with real tomatoes and olive-oil sauce. I was in HEAVEN! We all split a plate of Bruschetta, which is so so so much tastier in Italy, that's for sure! Right there, we all knew that our bellies would be in trouble if we stayed in Italy for too long, lol. We hadn't had a bad meal yet.

After we finished our lunch, we sat and just talked for a little while... since that's what the Italians do! -- Then, we left the restaraunt and walked along the side streets. We saw a pretty wooden door at the front of this stone building, and decided to duck in to see if anything cool was going on. We found ourselves in the San Maurizio Monestary! The walls inside the monestary were covered with 16th-century Milanese paintings. There were wall frescos of all of the famous stories out of the Bible. My favorite was the entire wall covered with Noah's Ark. It was so nice. There were also several scenes of the life and death of Christ, and those were also very well done. This monestary, we found out, stands in the heart of one of Milan's oldest and most prestigious complexes =the Benedictine convent that they call Monestero Maggiore. It dates back several centuries and was so nice. -- I was glad that the other girls who came were also very interested in ancient churches and art, because I was in constant awe of the beautiful churches that we found ourselves in. :)

We tried to go see The Last Supper painting by DaVinci, but you had to have reservations for several months in advance to even get in... so we all got a picture of the building, waved to Leonardo, and kept on exploring.

A little ways down the street from the church we'd just seen, there was another gelato shop.... well, we hadn't had some in about 15 hours, so it was high-time! I HAD to try a different flavor! This time, I got some Nutella-flavored gelato, which was probably the most amazing ice cream that I've ever tasted in my life.... WOAH, is all I can say. You guys HAVE to try this stuff.

Around 3:00, we turned a corner close to the Duomo and saw an exhibit for an artist called David LaChapelle (sounded like Dave Chapelle to me, the comedian from America.... but it was a different guy). Alyssa and I didn't really like the examples that I saw outside, but Amber and Emily really wanted to go in and check it out. We agreed to meet back up at 4:30. -- So, Alyssa and I grabbed our map and set out to look for some of the other monuments in Milan. We saw that there was a tower located somewhere near the center of the city, so we thought that might be a fun site to see. Along the way, we found a beautiful castle that had a courtyard covered in yellow leaves! The entire walkway under the trees was golden! SO PRETTY! :) Yet again, we had found another random hidden treasure by just walking around. -- We were determined, however, to find this tower. After walking around forever, all we were seeing were tall apt. buildings. We went inside this place that looked like Patterson Office Tower at UK to ask where this ancient tower was located. The guy at the front desk laughed at me, and said, "You are in it!" ARE YOU KIDDING?!? In such a historic and beautiful city, one of the sites located on a city tour map was an office tower? Seriously! Alyssa and I just laughed at eachother! We had been walking around for 30 minutes look for what we thought was going to be some ancient tower of wisdom or something, and it ended up being an office building, lol. Oh well!

We had been out and around the city for the better part of the day, and the it started to get late. Our flight for Rome left at around 7:30 that night, so we started to meander back to the hostel. We walked back down the main shopping street and heard a lot of music. When we got closer to the source, it was a short little Italian man singing like Josh Groban. His voice was incredible, and it filled the plaza. -- Then, a little ways again down the street, I heard an Indian man playing the flute. As I got closer, I immediately realized that he was playing the theme song to Last of the Mohicans -- mine and dad's favorite movie!!!! I was so happy, and videoed the whole thing! :) Dad would have loved this! :)

After a great first day out in Italy, we went back to our hostel, packed our bags, and headed to the airport. While on the bus, we met a guy named Brad from the University of Denver, who was studying in Milan for the semester, but was heading to Prague for the weekend to meet some friends. He was really nice!

Around 7:30ish, we boarded our RyanAir flight without any problems. It was a smoothe airport visit. While standing in line waiting for our flight to arrive, I saw the craziest-looking person EVER. Stacey and Clinton would NOT have been impressed with this man's attire. He was about 25 years old, had bleach-blonde hair, which was formed into a small mohawk. He was wearing a black shirt that was unbuttoned very low, and also unbuttoned to reveal his belly-button (gross). The kicker was that he was wearing a leather coat with a HUGE fur collar... seriously, what was this guy thinking? I snuck a video of him, too, because nobody would ever believe this back home! lol. He kept me entertained, needless to say.

Anyhow...... next stop....... ROMA!