Andrea i København

So now I will try to give a brief overview of what’s been going on in Copenhagen since my return. Or at least, what had gone on since my return when this update was first written 2 weeks ago…(By the way, ff you’re seeing this post first, you should go down the page and read about my trip to Italy and Austria. I did it city by city due to the technical difficulties I was experiencing, so start at Milan and work your way up to Vienna.)

Well, first of all, the weather has required some adjustment. I don’t mind the cold, but it rains constantly. We see the sun maybe once or twice a week, if we’re lucky (no exaggeration here). Plus, the sun starts going down at around 3:30-4:00. By 5pm, it’s night time. It’s very strange to not see the sun for days on end, and bike home from class at 5:00 in the darkness. I’m not sure I would want to live here year-round, it’s very bleak. And I’m so tired of being wet. One day Bri and I met a friend in the city for coffee. When I left the house it looked okay outside – no sun, but no signs of rain. So I left with no raincoat. But by the time we left the coffee shop to go home, it was pouring. Bri and I biked home in pounding rain, and it was awful. I was nervous because everybody gets more aggressive, I can hardly see, I worry about people seeing me, and I was soaked! Mascara all over my face, hair drenched…But by the time we got inside it was so funny we had to take a picture:

Bri and I after the terrific bike home, with our angry faces on (being silly). But notice the mascara that ran all over my face..

And a full body shot, notice the jeans...

Besides the weather, autumn in Copenhagen has been gorgeous. The trees turned all sorts of brilliant colors, and it was a fall like I haven’t seen since I lived in Virginia. I loved it, and it helped to cheer up the dreary weather. Now all the leaves are falling off, so that sucks.

One day as a class excursion for Danish Culture we visited Frederiksborg Slott, an old castle turned Danish history museum. It was a very interesting place actually. But I'm showing this picture of the castle's gardens so you can see the pretty autumn colors.

Another picture from around Frederiksborg's gardens.

And one more, because the colors were so pretty..All of Copenhagen (or Denmark for that matter) was full of trees with brilliant red, orange, and yellow leaves. I actually wish now I had gotten more/better pictures.

Oh and by the way, the wind is still my nemesis. It is still the bane of my cycling existence, and I still hate it with a hot fiery passion.

One cool event that has happened: “J-dag”. Every year, the breweries here in Copenhagen release a “jule øl” (Christmas beer). On the day of its release around the city, each of the big breweries is out in trucks or horse-drawn carriages, “delivering” their beer to bars/pubs and spreading holiday cheer. At each stop, they give out a certain number of free beers. My friend Patrick told me that this event is pretty much the beginning of the holiday season here. So of course my friends and I went out to partake in this holiday tradition. More important than the free beer (which we only got at one bar because they were all so crowded) is the holiday atmosphere around the city. All of the breweries hand out santa hats, and one was even handing out flannel shirts bearing their logo. Some bars had artificial snow blowing out of an upstairs window, and there was Christmas music playing. Everyone was just out in the streets, celebrating and drinking beer and welcoming the holiday season.

Artificial snow!

The horse-drawn carriage the Royal Beer company was going around delivering their beer from.

I very badly wanted one of the shirts and hats that the Royal Beer company was giving out. We came upon this square, where there was a Royal Beer trailer set up, with a huge line in front. I had a feeling something big was going to happen in there. I pretty much cut in front of the whole line, and was the 3rd to enter the trailer. A Royal Beer girl led me in individually, gave me a gingerbread cookie, then a shirt, then a hat, then another girl stamped my cheek with a kiss and with a flurry of snow released me back onto the street! So here I am still celebrating my victory.

So, the day after that was Halloween, which was great fun. A friend of ours threw a huge party, and me and 4 friends dressed up as the Spice Girls. I was Sporty, and we were a hit.

Martyna aka Ginger, Bri aka Baby, Me aka Sporty, Wiktoria aka Scary, Edyta aka Posh

 

Now I have one last piece of news, and it is sad. A few days ago, on Saturday November 7, I had my first bike accident. I was riding home from Caitlin’s apartment, where we had had a quiet evening eating candy and watching a movie. It was about midnight, and I was on the bridge from Amager (where Caitlin lives) over to the city center. As I came up to the apex of the bridge, I saw that the police had pulled someone over into the bike lane. I had awhile to decide what to do. I considered going into the stree around them, but it’s a busy bridge. Even though no cars were immediately behind me, I wasn’t sure if that was the right option with the police there. Then I considered getting off my bike and walking it onto the sidewalk around the police (in retrospect, I should have opted for that one). But no. I looked at the curb and thought, “Hey, I can get up on that. It’s a bit bigger than usual but I handle the others fine, I think I can do it.” So, thinking I’m some big professional curb-jumper, I swung my bike out and headed toward the curb. I promptly found myself on the ground, half on the curb and half on the street, with my bike on top of me. I immediately got up, and realized that my ankle hurt a bit. Some people walking a bit behind me came up and asked if I was okay, I assured them I was and started collecting my belongings.  I took a step and realized that my ankle definitely hurt, so I walked my bike for a bit. After about 5 minutes the pain faded and I thought I had just twisted it and it was fine. I biked the rest of the way home, and realized that my ankle really did hurt. But I could walk on it alright, with a bit of a limp. So I iced it and went to bed. The next day I woke up and it was really swollen, with some bruising. I tried to  stand and couldn’t put any weight on it. Thank God, Bri got home from her trip to the Czech Republic and was there to take care of me. She got me some frozen veggies to put on it, and basically tended to me all day. But I was horrified, because on Wednesday I was set to leave for a trip to Germany with Caitlin. Well, the next day (Monday) I could walk on it a bit but it was painful. I called a doctor I was assigned to, and they told me to give it another day. So today (Tuesday) it was pretty much the same. I went in to the doctor, who then sent me to the ER for x-rays. Bri was with me the whole time by the way, and I’m so grateful for her! Anyway, they took x-rays and found that, fortuntely, there were no fractures. Just a bad sprain. The doctor told me I could go to Germany, but that it’s going to be painful (duh). So anyway, I’m walking on it, slowly and gingery and with a brace. And I’m headed to Germany tomorrow, so that I can limp my way through Berlin and Hamburg. I can’t believe this happened. Most people I know here have fallen off their bikes while drunk, and walk away unscathed. I fall off my bike completely sober, and end up with a sprained ankle? Not fair, world. Not fair at all.

But, it did give me an insight into the Danish health care system. Since I’m legally a resident of Denmark right now, I had full coverage under their government health insurance. That means I was seen, x-rayed, and treated for free. Absolutely free. When I first realized I might have to go to the hospital I felt sick at what the cost might be. Even though I have insurance, and travel insurance, I was sure it wouldn’t cover x-rays and such here. Then some people told me it would all be free, and I couldn’t believe it. But it was true. I won’t say anything political, obviously it’s a matter of great debate in the US right now, and I think even those who support universal healthcare are waiting to see how this new bill pans out for us. But an exchange student in the US in my position, would have been screwed.

So anyways that is the end of my original update, which was supposed to be posted over 2 weeks ago. Since then, I have limped around Germany on my sprained ankle, but had a great time. The ankle is doing alright, by the way. Still not 100% but I’m getting around just fine. I’m even going down stairs normally again. This morning I picked up Mallory, one of my best friends in the world, from the airport. She’s here to see me for a week! I was overjoyed to see her. And she brought me American snacks (goldfish and reeses!). So this evening we are leaving for Amsterdam! We will be back on Tuesday, and then I will get to work on my next update regarding Germany and Amsterdam and the Copenhagen Thanksgiving we are planning.

Until then!

Filed by andreab at 10:42 am under Uncategorized
No Comments

We arrived in Vienna early in the morning the next day. We were couchsurfing there too, with a girl named Kira. She’s originally from Lithuania, but settled down in Vienna a few months ago with her cute little dog, Tuzku. Again, first thing we did was have coffee and take a shower. Then we headed out to explore. In Vienna there is a street, Ringstrasse, which circles the central city, and a lot of its sights are along that.

We started at Karlskirche, which is an absolutely stunning church. The inside was fantastic also, but my pictures are all kind of dark so I'll leave them out.

Next big thing: The National Library. It's pretty impressive.

We went further that day, but it was getting dark, and we revisted the places again the next day. That night we went back to Kiara’s and played a board game with her, then went to bed early. The next day we got up and went back to some of the sights we saw only in the dark the day before.

The Parlament building, with little me standing in front of it. It's very Roman-like..

Rathaus (City Hall) - it's so beautiful with its red flowers! We thought it was a castle from afar.

Don't know how well you will be able to see this, but it's Rathaus by night. This is how we first saw it, and it was beautiful!

Next we took the metro here - the Hundertwasserhaus. This artist/architect Hundertwasser built these apartments, and an art museum. He believed in a different type of architecture, obviously, that he believed connected man to his surroundings. This is by far one of the coolest places I've ever seen. If you want to read more I found this article about it: http://ezinearticles.com/?His-Most-Famous-Architecture---The-Hundertwasser-House-Vienna---Friedensreich-Hundertwasser&id=2346355

This is in the art museum he built (KunstHausWien) - see the rolling floor? An exerpt from the sign about it: "An uneven and animated floor means to recover the dignity of man, which has been violated in our unnatural and hostile urban grid system." Pretty cool right?

Next we visited Schloss Schönbrunn, the summer palace of the Habsburg family which pretty much ruled Vienna.

We got to the palace late in the day and the museums were closing, not that we would have paid the 18euro it cost to go in. Instead we toured the amazing gardens, seen here. There is big famous hedge maze too, but unfortunately it was closed for the day.

On our third and last day in Vienna we woke up early to go to perhaps my favorite event of our trip. The Spanish Riding School, home of the famous Lippizaner stallions, is in Vienna. If you don’t know what I’m talking about, go here: http://www.srs.at/index.php?id=265 or here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Pn6Jmqs9IHQ (and I highly suggest watching the whole thing, or at least to the 5:30 mark). Unfortunately they didn’t have a performance while I was in town, but they let people come watch their morning training sessions. It was so cool! As a rider myself, I really appreciated watching them train, and I was able to see some of the nuances in their training methods. I was in raptures over what they can make those horses do (I’m certain Bri thought I was crazy as I went on and on about how hard that is, how much training that takes, look at that head carriage, look at that gait transition…etc). They are so amazing, both the horses and riders are incredibly talented. It really was a treat to see them, and it was one of my favorite things on our whole trip. I didn’t really get any good pictures because my camera sucks, and about 10 minutes in they asked people, out of respect for the horses, not to take pictures. And I may sneak pictures in the Sistine Chapel, but I will not disrespect the  Lippizaners! Oh and by the way I have a new life goal: to someday become a rider at the Spanish Riding School. They just recently accepted their first female rider, and I think I could do it if I really wanted to. Then I could live in the Hundertwasser house too!

Here's just one picture, that I took at the end of the last set, as the horses lined up to be untacked.

So after the amazing Lippizaners we went out for a "traditional" Austrian meal. First a traditional bread/broth soup, then schnitzel (too lazy to check the spelling on that), and then up there is me, looking fairly dorky, with my favorite part of the meal- the apple strudel dessert!

After our lunch we made our way to Zentralfriedhof, where many of history's great composers (Beethoven, Strauss, Schubert, and Brahms) are interred. Mozart also has a memorial tomb here, although he is buried in another cemetery which we couldn't find. But here I am with Beethoven

 After the cemetery we headed home. It was dark, COLD (it was so cold in Vienna) and we were dead. tired. I think at that point, the last day of our trip, we were just so tired we couldn’t even think. We got so silly. We caused a scene on some stairs down into a metro, and earned many disgusted looks from passing Austrians as we were paralyzed in a laughing fit. But thank God we got silly instead of irritable. That could have ended the trip on a sour note. The next morning, at some ungodly hour like 6am, we flew home to Copenhagen.

All in all, our trip was awesome. I love traveling! Of course, I have left so much out here, which I hate, because every little thing was so great. But if I tried to show every little thing we saw and did over those 9 days, I’m pretty sure the whole internet would collapse. People have asked me which city I liked best, and I can’t answer that. Each city has its own unique features and charms. I hope someday I can return to all those places!

Filed by andreab at 9:54 am under Uncategorized
No Comments

So we arrived in Venice early in the morning, and met our couchsurfing host, Christian. He’s in his mid-20’s, lives right in the heart of Venice, and was a really nice guy. The first thing we did in Venice was drink some coffee, and take a shower! But then we felt pretty refreshed (I slept surprisingly well on the floor of Rome’s airport), and went out to explore. Christian came with us because he was heading in the same directions to do some errands, and he suggested we stop for “spritz,” the traditional Venetian drink. I don’t know exactly what’s in it, but it’s delicious.

Bri and I with our Spritz! They're even colorful.

So then we parted from Christian and navigated through Venice’s ridiculously complicated streets toward Piazza San Marco.

There we were met by this: Basilica di San Marco. It's gorgeous! My camera doesn't do it a bit of justice.

A closer shot because really, it deserves one. The colors on this church are really stunning, and make it stand out from a lot of the other churches we saw. The horse statues don't hurt either.

After that we had a gelato (just like every other day) and then navigated through Venice’s streets (really, they are impossible!) toward a point we could see from nearby Basilica di San Marco. There was a church there (there are a crazy number of churches in Venice, like 500 or something I don’t feel like looking it up but there are a lot) but really we just went so that we could walk through the streets and see the canals of Venice. That’s really what the city was about to me. That night we got home and ate dinner with Christian, getting to know each other. Originally we planned to go out on the town, but Bri and I were so so so tired, and we went to bed at like 11.

Me and Bri out on the point we walked to, as the sun set.

The next morning we  got up early(ish..) and headed back toward Piazza San Marco to visit the Palazzo Ducale.

Palazzo Ducale, adjacent to Basilica di San Marco, is the doges palace. If you don't know about the doges of Venice you should go read about them. Very interesting. We walked through the palace, the old governing halls of Venice, and the old dungeons (where Casanova was once held!) Very cool!

After that we grabbed a gelato, naturally, and headed back to Christians for lunch. Then, he had a special surprise for us. He belongs to a rowing club, and took us out around Venice on his boat!

Before beginning our boat tour, Christian took us out to a safe place and let us try rowing. I was uh, not very good. If you can see, Christian is sitting behind me, and has his hand on his forehead. That's pretty indicative of my boat rowing skills. I have great respect for the gondoliers now. And Bri also, who was at least able to make the boat rotate.

After our rowing attempts, our lovely boat tour began. Here we are in the Grand Canal, coming up to the Rialto.

Another picture from our boat ride.

This is also from our boat tour - I love this picture because that is a lone gondolier standing on a bridge waiting for some business. If it was bigger you could see the blue ribbon on the back of his hat. Very Venetian.

Just a random picture I'll throw in, because I like it. There's flowers on the building, a gondola in the canal...

After our lovely boat ride (which also saved us from having to take a 80euro gondola ride) we headed out for dinner. Originally I wanted to go out for a really nice dinner, and planned on spending a bit too much money on it. It was our last night in Italy, and I wanted it to be memorable. But the first place Christian took us to wasn’t serving dinner yet (it wasn’t a very nice place anyway) and then we were running out of time. Bri and I had to catch a night train to Vienna that night, so we ended up eating at this sort of cafeteria-style fast food Italian place. Not what I had in mind for our last night in Italy, but what can you do? It’s probably for the best, because I was liable to spend way too much money on a good Italian dinner.. Anyway, we said our goodbyes to our gracious host Christian and got on our way.

Overall, I loved Venice. Honestly, I thought it would be a bit more beautiful though. A lot of the buildings are a bit run-down, although I suppose it’s hard to keep buildings in good shape with all that water. Also, we weren’t there in the summer, so I don’t think we got the full effect of flowers on window sills and all that. But, that said, Venice has a charm all its own, just the way it is. It has a very cool atmosphere, an interesting history, and there’s no other city like it in the world.

Filed by andreab at 9:37 am under Uncategorized
No Comments

Yay, my Milan update worked! I guess altogether it was just too long and that’s why it kept deleting it when I tried to publish..Wish I had figured that out earlier. I still think something is just not right with the website, because I have seen people do super long updates on here…Oh well, it’s just like 10 hours of my life I’ll never get back. No big deal. Let’s move on.

We flew that evening to Rome, where we were picked up by a young couple we were couchsurfing with. Couchsurfing is a relatively new idea, where people traveling stay with people who live in whatever city they’re going to. It’s all run by this website, http://www.couchsurfing.org,  and it’s very legitimate. We found Francesco and Adriana through that, and even video chatted with them on Skype before deciding to stay there. Couchsurfing is great because you meet and get to know locals, which gives you a cultural aspect you probably wouldn’t get in a hostel, plus it’s free. Well, it’s supposed to be free. Francesco and Adri made us pay, but that’s an exception to the rule. So they picked us up from the airport, which was really nice. They are 31, getting married in the summer, and just a really warm and friendly couple. Their apartment was also really nice, and we had a surprisingly comfy pull out couch bed to sleep on. The next morning Francesco and Adri made breakfast for us (part of the reason they make people pay, I assume, is the time and service they give their guests). They make THE best cappucino I have EVER tasted in my LIFE. It was UNbelievable. Anyway, they gave us a map and some tips, and we headed out. Our first stop was the Colosseum. Adri warned us that when you get out of the metro at the Colosseo stop , the Colosseum is right there towering over you. Well, she was right. We walked out of the metro and BAM! there it was. The freakin Colosseum! I read in my guidebook that the Colosseum (and many other things in Rome) can be disappointing to some tourists when they actually see it, because it’s a landmark that is so famous and built-up. Well, in my opinion, it was every bit the wonder I expected. It really was breathtaking, and powerful, and impressive.

Bri and I inside the Colosseum.

Me outside the Colosseum. I have always been fascinated by the Romans, so it was one of my favorite things on our whole trip.

Next we walked down the street to the Roman Forum, which was really cool as well. The columns on the left are the remains of Tiempo di Saturno, the big white arch in the middle is the Arco di Settimo Severo, and the tan square building to the far right is the Curia.

Standing by Tiempo di Saturno, looking back at the Forum. There are ruins everywhere it's very cool.

From the Forum we climbed up Palatine Hill, where the most powerful Romans built their houses.

Next we visited the Pantheon. Originally built in 27 B.C. as a temple to all the Roman gods, it is now used as a Catholic church. Still today the Pantheon has the largest unreinforced concrete dome in the world.

Then we went to the magnificent Fontana di Trevi, which "depicts Neptune's chario being led by Tritons, with sea horses representing the moods of the sea" (according to my guidebook). It's really a spectacular fountain, AND it has horses.

The tradition is to throw a coin over your shoulder into the fountain to ensure your return to Rome; a second coin grants a wish. So here I am ensuring my return to Rome!

Then we bought a gelato and ate it while gazing at the Trevi Fountain. What could be better? (Mint chocolate and Nutella - yum)

After this we visited several other big beautiful piazzas, but for my sake I’m going to leave them out. That night Francesco and Adri took us to a local bar, where we had “aperitivo” for dinner. Basically, for about 6euro you get a drink, and then they bring you several rounds of food. It’s not heavy meal type food, but more like enough appetizers to make a dinner out of. It was a really nice night. The next morning we dragged ourselves out of bed, sucked down another delicious cappucino, and headed to Vatican City.

Standing in St. Peter's Square, looking at St. Peter's Basilica

Me standing inside St. Peter's. It's rich ornateness can't be captured, so this is the best I will even try to do.

Then we went into the Vatican museums, which you have to go through in order to get to the Sistine Chapel, which was our ultimate goal. But the museums were very interesting as well. The best part to me was the 4 Raphael rooms. This is a picture I took of his most famous fresco, School of Athens

Finally, the Sistine Chapel! I got this picture of the ceiling as we walked in, before the security guys (who were quite rude, in my opinion, for people who work in such a holy place) snapped at me that pictures weren't allowed. Bri said it's out of respect for the artist? And/or the Lord?

But then I just had to sneak a picture of the wall behind the alter, bearing Michelangelo's "The Last Judgement". Sorry Michelangelo, I meant no disrespect. But yes, anyway, the Sistine Chapel was absolutely beautiful and amazing.

That night Adriana cooked a delicious meal of pasta carbonera. And this is when the bad night happened. We had a flight out to Venice the next morning at 6:30am. Right after we arrived in Rome, Francesco and Adriana expressed their concern about us getting to the airport. Apparently, all of Rome shuts down from about midnight to 6am. Coming from Copenhagen, where the metro runs all night, we thought this was crazy. But it’s true. So we came up with this plan…Francesco and Adri thought there was a night bus that ran from around their house and could take us to the central train station. And from the train station we could get a bus to the airport. So before going to Vatican City we went to the train station and bought bus tickets for 4:30am. Then, that evening, we tried to determine where the night bus left from/how often/etc. Except, we couldn’t find out for sure. We asked people at the metro station, we looked online, everything. We couldn’t say for sure when or from where a night bus ran. So it was 10:30pm and Francesco presented us with 2 options:  either he could take us to the train station at midnight and we could wait there until 4:30 for our bus, or we could catch a few hours of sleep, then call a cab at about 3:30 to take us to the train station for our bus. He said the cab would probably cost us 20euro total. I was leaning toward the second option, until I looked at Bri. As soon as she heard 20euro, her face said “hell no”. So…we had Francesco drive us to the central train station at midnight. They said their goodbyes and drove away, then we walked up to the train station only to find out that the whole terminal was closing until 4:30. Basically, we were out on the street. We called Francesco and Adri, but they didn’t seem so keen on driving back to us (nice of them right?) SO…Bri started talking to this sketchy taxi driver who kept bugging us, and using her Spanish, talked him into taking us to the airport for 35euro. I looked at his poor excuse for a taxi and said, “Bri. I don’t think this guy is legit.” But she said, “No he has a taxi license around his neck.” And I said, “Yeah, that MUST mean he’s for real…” But, in the end, I put my bag in the trunk, got in the car, and just hoped he was really taking us to the airport. Well, he did, but I’m still convinced he wasn’t legit, because he had to drop us off outside the airport- he couldn’t go in. Yeah, so Bri and I walked into the small arrivals area that was still open, and slept there for a few hours. So, to put things in perspective: instead of getting a few hours of sleep in a nice bed, then taking a 20euro taxi ride and catching a bus, we paid 35euro for a taxi, slept in an airport, and wasted our 5euro bus tickets. Really swell. But – like I said, if that was the worst thing to happen to us on our whole trip, we did alright.

Overall I really loved Rome, and was happy with what we got to do there. People said that 2 days wasn’t enough for Rome, but I got to see all of the things I really wanted to see. Of course, I wish I could have stayed there for weeks, but, I have wished that about every place I’ve  been to.

So next we have Venice…

Filed by andreab at 9:22 am under Uncategorized
No Comments

As you can see below, my latest attempt at publishing my Italy/Austria post was, yet again, a bust. I’m really fed up…The only thing I can think of is, it’s too long. So I’m going to try to update each part individually, so they’re shorter. By this time, my entry has accumulated several “update:” parts to it, but I’m just fed up and want to get everything on here, so I’m just going to talk about the trip. Please note that all of this has been written for over 2 weeks now…Ok, here is the first part of my update, hopefully…

Our vacation was fantastic – really, really great. There was only one night that went wrong, and I think if thatwas the worst thing to happen to us we did pretty good. But more about that later. I’ll start from the beginning, and narrate largely through pictures.

We landed in Milan at 10:30pm on Monday night (Oct. 12) and went straight to our hostel. It was midnight by the time we found it so we went straight to bed. The next morning we woke up early and went to explore Milan. We were leaving for Rome that evening, but fortunately one day is pretty sufficient for Milan. Our friend in Copenhagen, Guiseppe, is from Milan, and he wrote us a complete day’s schedule of what to do – it was a really great guide, complete with where to eat. He even had us go into this really high-end grocery store, just to “walk around and appreciate all the delightful smells”. So anyway we took the metro into the city, got out at Piazza del Duomo and began there. 

Milan's landmark, Duomo. This is the world's largest Gothic cathedral. It's pretty stunning.

Also in Piazza del Duomo is this huge shopping arcade, called Galleria Vittorio Emanuele II. It houses some of the finest stores in the world (Gucci, Prada, etc.), and Milan is known as one of the world's fashion/shopping capitals. So later in the day we walked through it and its stores, just for a little bit of torture.

After that we checked out the high-end foods store (which I mentioned above), and its delicious-looking and smelling food almost caused us to recklessly buy out the whole store. Luckily we were able to not spend any money, or cause a scene, and we continued on to see the University of Milan, which was lovely. Then, according to Guissepe’s plan for us, we walked back toward Piazza del Duomo to get our lunch. And along the way we found this church…I think one of the very best things about traveling is when you find something really cool without even meaning to – when you just happen upon something unexpected, not mentioned in the guidebook, decide what the hell, let’s go in, and find something really interesting inside. As we walked back from the University we saw these 2 churches side-by-side. They were fairly modest, but pretty enough for me to stop and take a picture of them, as one had a tall bell tower. We stood there wondering if we should go in, so we asked a man passing by, who suggested we go into the church on the left. Although it was nice to look at, it was just a simple, unassuming (by Europe’s standards) dome. But we shrugged, and went inside. Like all churches I have seen in Europe, its interior was beautiful. But as we left the church, we saw a small sign pointing down a hallway that said “Ossaria”. What’s that? We had no idea, but followed the sign. What we found was this:

This is one wall of the Ossario - if you can't see, those are human skulls. Other bones also adorned the walls decoratively, and on one wall there was a display of Mary and Jesus after his death.

So yes, a bit shocking, a lot creepy, and strangely beautiful. On the way out of the church I was sure to find its name, which was San Bernardino alle Ossa. Later, I looked up what an ossuary is (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ossuary) and also San Bernardino alle Ossa (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/San_Bernardino_alle_Ossa). Turns out, we had happened upon one of the best-known ossuaries in the world. It was a really cool and unique thing to see, and we found it without even trying. Ok, so now to continue: 

We got paninis for lunch, at Guiseppe's recommended place (I got the spinach and ricotta cheese one, and it was TO DIE FOR!) then ate them here, in front of Teatro alla Scala. According to my guidebook this is the most famous opera house in the world. But honestly I was more concerned with my heavenly panini.

On our way to our next destination we came across this small outdoor market and walked through it. There were a bunch of vendors selling their candies, cheeses, meats, breads, etc. A lot of them had samples out, and I ate them shamelessly. With the exception of this one kind of cheese that made me gag, everything was delicious.

Our next stop was Castello Sforzesco, built in the 15th century and the former residence of the Sforza family which ruled Milan. Now it houses several museums. We didn't go into them, but we walked through the castle, which was very impressive.

So after our gelato we headed back to Piazza del Duomo and looked around the shops (in the arcade I showed above). Then we found ourselves standing in front of the Duomo again, just admiring it. It was getting late, and we only had a few minutes before we had to head back to the hostel and then to the airport. We were standing there when, suddenly, a man literally came out of nowhere, grabbed Bri’s arm, turned her hand palm-up, and poured corn kernels into it. I was really confused for a second, thinking “why is he giving her dried corn…?” Until the first pigeon landed…As Bri shrieked and pigeons flocked around her, I was paralyzed by laughter. The guy just kept pouring more and more corn into her hand, and the pigeons were everywhere, and she just kept screaming about diseases – it was hilarious. And then, I felt my own hand being lifted and turned, and before I knew it, pigeons were landing on me! The two men stood back while pigeons landed on us and ate from our hands. Bri continued to shriek, although with a little less fervor, while I continued to laugh uncontrollably. Somewhere in the chaos of it all, Bri was able to hand one of the guys her camera, and he took pictures of us with our pigeons. Of course, when it was all over, they demanded payment and we refused. We didn’t ask them to do that, we didn’t even give them permission! They were pretty angry, and followed us to the metro stairs about 50 feet away. But it was pretty funny!

Next, Guiseppe's guide led us to "the best gelateria in Milan," Chocolat. And this is me with my first real Italian gelato (chocolate and hazelnut combo). I think the glazed over look of my eyes speaks for itself. And thus, gelato became a dietary staple for the remainder of our trip.

In the chaos of pidgeons

When the birds calmed down a little the guys had us turn so we could get this awesome shot with the Duomo in the back. It's one of my favorite pictures.

So that wraps up Milan. We flew that evening to Rome and…

To be continued in my next post about Rome.

Filed by andreab at 9:08 am under Uncategorized
No Comments

Filed by andreab at 7:54 pm under Uncategorized
No Comments

This is a test update. I have tried to post my Italy/Austria blog 3 times now. Each time when I click “publish” everything is gone, and I have had to go back and put the pictures back in and attempt to post it 2 times now. It has consumed more hours than I care to think about in the past week. I don’t know what’s going on, but this is a test to see if a new post will work…

Filed by andreab at 2:35 pm under Uncategorized
No Comments