Milano

Warning: Due to the fact that I'm leaving Siena in a matter of days and I've almost completely stopped writing in my journal or communicating with anyone...these posts will now be void of pictures, since they take forever to upload. I'm just trying to get as much written down as I can before I leave here or else it could be forever. So hopefully my humor will be enough to make these interesting.
Friday morning I went to Milan with my travel buddies; Anna, Autumn, and Shannon. We were on a bus for about 4 1/2 hours. Gotta love public transportation. Once we got to Milan there were four stops. We finally decided to just hop off on the third stop because there were metros all over the place. We ventured down to the metro and were immediately overwhelmed. Milan is definitely the busiest and least friendly place I've been so far. We sat there for like 20 minutes just trying to figure out where the heck we were and then finally realized we were in the main station! Something that is common sense to a resident of Milan, so no signs explaining this are thought to be necessary. 20 more minutes later we realized that we were just a stone's throw from the Last Supper, which is what we were looking for. Sadly we had reserved the last three spots about a month ago and Autumn didn't get to come in with us. We got to be herded in like cattle through about four air locks and then BAM, there it was. We had 15 minutes to stare at it and then a guy started yelling at us to exit the building...it was a little strange. It was amazing though, it hasn't held up very well due to Da Vinci's experiments with the medium...fool. Like so many sweet things I've seen there were no pics allowed so all I have is my memory and a picture from the outside.
We went down by the Cathedral to visit the lucky bull. I'm not sure how this got started but you are supposed to spin around on your heel on the, what used to be, testicles of the bull, for good luck of course. Italians are so superstitious!! Obviously I participated in this. As we walked out to the Cathedral there was a massive gathering of people with signs...immediately we thought we had stumbled upon yet another protest. Then we realized they were all girls in the 'tween' stage. A massive t.v. screen behind them caught my attention and we soon realized that we were about to be on Italian TRL! For the non-MTV generation, that is an MTV show that shows the top music videos and often has musical guests. Well we were in luck! LOST was there!! I can only explain them as the Italian version of the Jonas Brothers. Man am I a lucky girl. We stood in the crowd and screamed and waved at the little fetus boys. The one will straight gelled bangs totally made eye contact with me.
The Cathedral was as awesome as expected. I had a little run in with a thief outside, let me explain. So there are these guys with bird seed, meaning popcorn kernels, in the piazza because it is also known as pigeon central. Apparently they try to get pigeons to attack you and then do what they want with you, I don't know. Anyways, I spot these guys a mile away so I'm holding on to my bag tightly. Probably like five of them approach us in five minutes and I shooed them away. Sometimes I have a problem controlling my facial expressions and apparently I was giving the main guy a dirty look. Out of nowhere he comes up and starts yelling at me in what I think was English. Although I only understood a few words I got the point. It was something like...'Why are you looking at me like that, I'm not a thief!' blah blah. Well clearly you are a thief if out of the blue you decide you need to tell me that you aren't. So in Italian I tell him that I don't understand him and I walked away. He then proceeded to say gross things to me in Italian, what's new. So many dirty men here. Liz, it was reminiscent of what the bagger at Smith's would say to you. That is only the first fiasco.
Second fiasco. After the Cathedral we decided to go to our hostel to change for the opera. After walking for like 30 minutes we find it...or so we thought. It's like some super sketchy apartment complex and no hostel to be found. There was however a hotel on the second floor. When I ask the guy at the front desk where the Fashion Hostel is he replies with a "No". With further investigation we realize that "no" means that the Fashion Hostel that we had reservations with was closed down by the police on the 28th of October. We made our reservation online on the 29th. I love attempting to stay in the cheapest place possible. So at this point I just want my Dad there to take care of things for me. Luckily front desk man jumps on it and calls a hotel around the corner...a HOTEL!! They have plenty of room for us and they only charge us what we were going to pay at the sketch hostel. Then this guys boss comes in and calls the hotel again just to double check, they give us directions, and BAM! I have clean sheets, a t.v., a bathroom, and there isn't a bunk bed in site. Shannon and I just collapsed on our beds laughing...what a life. Front desk guy at the Medusa Hotel is number one on my list of people that have saved my life in Italy.
Then we book it to La Scala and without waiting in line got 12 euro tickets for the opera that night! La Scala is the most famous opera house in Italy. It was beautiful and amazing and although I was seated with the birds I could see just fine. Luckily it was in German so I understood the plot perfectly. I think there were two love triangles, or maybe just one pentagon.
The rest of my time in Milan consisted of shopping. Obviously I enjoyed myself. We went to lake Como on Saturday but I'll save that for another post.

I'll end this post with my final fiasco in Milan. Considering that we got off our bus at a random stop, we thought we would go to the main bus station Sunday morning to figure out how to get home. That whole thing is just a blur of confusion, bad maps, construction, and Italian spoken too quickly to understand. So we decided just to go back to the stop we had gotten off on. Here we found the store where we buy our tickets. In an awesome Italian conversation that I fully understood, the guy asks if we can come back later because he doesn't know how to work the computer but his son is coming in at eleven. I tell him our bus is leaving at 2:30 and it seems to be peachy. FALSE. We return at 2 and it is closed as is the other store nearby. It has also been made clear many times that you cannot buy your tickets on the bus. So we talk to a taxi driver about where the last pick up spot is in Milan and we hop in a taxi...going to the last stop buys us 30 minutes and hopefully produces an open place to buy tickets. We get there and it's closed. Horrible visions of attempting the train system, running from train to train, waiting endless hours, getting back at midnight, and waiting for an hour for a bus to take me home start flooding my mind. We decide to wait and see if we can cry or flirt our way onto the bus. As we wait I keep pointing out that I think we are in the wrong place. The bus is late. Finally we decide to call time of death on this thing and get started on the certain fiasco that a train will be. Literally as we stand up we see our bus fly around the corner and we are in fact not in the right spot. Luckily Autumn is not willing to give up and she starts running. Taken by surprise Shannon and I almost cause a few car accidents while crossing the street. As Autumn turns the corner I hear her yell..."It's still there!" We start going off about how the stores are all closed to the bus driver, he doesn't care, but the bus is jam packed, so he goes on the bus to see if there are four seats. At this point I can't breath and I want to throw up. He comes back and delivers the news that in fact we are going to get on this bus. I've never been so happy. He had to tell me to calm down has a dropped all of the changed in may wallet. Then the kid behind me threw up on the bus. Good times.