My Defining Decade: "We're basically just turtles going through Italy"

Our day started off moving again! We hauled our luggage the 0.7 miles back to the train station (which isn't that far but when you're a pack mule, it seems long!). We were moving fairly slowly (stopping a lot, re-situating our luggage, going up stairs and bridges) and one of the guys says to me, "We're basically just turtles going through Italy." I don't know why it struck me as so funny but it's so fitting! Our group is a good size so getting places seems to take three times as long as it would by ourselves. We all have about ten times the luggage that a European native has, which greatly slows us down in every city. We get lost almost every time we try to go somewhere, although sometimes GPS helps. We're slow, we carry everything we have around with us, and we usually can't all cross the road before the light changes again. I think we really are turtles just trying to make it in Italy. Against all odds, we made it though and had time to spare! A few girls and I went into KIKO, a make-up store based in Milan that had really cute, decently priced make-up. I only brought my bright red lipstick accidentally so I got a cute neutral while I was there. Then, it was onto the train to Milano!

It took about 2.5 hours to get to Milan, and we had a coach bus waiting to take us to Lake Como, which is about an hour outside of Milan. We got of the bus to a warm, beautiful day and picturesque view of the lake. Allie and I sat down at a restaurant right by the water to people watch, eat some lunch, and enjoy the incredible view! I got a pizza called Bufalo which had tomato sauce, buffalo mozzarella, and basil. It was pretty similar to pizzas back home because it was actually covered in cheese! It was so yummy. So some background - there are pigeons everywhere here. Literally every city has had them outside, wandering around restaurants, swarming in the squares...it's disgusting. I also don't love birds near me though so I'm biased. Anyway, we're sitting there after we've finished and this tiny (kind of cute) bird flies onto my plate, takes a piece of cheese, and is just chilling there eating my cheese. I'm frozen in my seat thinking "ew ew ew get off get off get off!" Luckily Dr. Weisbrook was sitting at the next table and shooed it away! I think I would've just taken off running had she not been there. I think the only thing I won't miss from Italy are the many many birds.

The rest of the group went to go swimming, but unfortunately learned that there's no beach swimming there, only swimming in the middle of the lake after being taken by boat. Pro tip: don't expect beaches or swimming. The entire coast (at least what we could see) was an endless dock. It was fun to see boats come and go, look at people's cute boating outfits and even see some little ducklings! Afterwards, we walked passed the duomo (church) and got some gelato on our way. I tried something different this time - limone and fragola (lemon and strawberry). It tasted like a strawberry lemonade Italian ice! It was the perfect refreshing finish to our lunch.

Then we headed back to Milan. By the time we checked in and got settled, it was around 7pm and we were ready to eat again! We walked around Milan at dusk and saw the duomo here, beautifully surrounded by a grand square. It was the first cathedral I've seen that had stained glass windows, so that was neat.

We wandered back the way we came to find a place to eat and ended up getting really lucky! I found a menu that seemed to be within everyone's price range (10 euro can get you a decent meal here). The lucky part was happy hour! After we ordered drinks, our waitress came with potato chips, peanuts, rolls, ciabatta bread, and olive oil. In Europe, they have what's called a service charge here which can be anywhere from 2-5 euro depending on the place, and it usually includes the bread or chips before your meal when you order drinks. Some places advertise "no cover charge" or "no service charge" to say that you simply pay for what you eat. I was looking at this spread thinking that we were racking up our service charge and even though the entrees were reasonable, this could make all of that irrelevant. We had already ordered our meal though and not speaking the language hardly at all, most dinners are kind of a crap shoot anyway.

Tonight, I had spaghetti pomodoro which is just spaghetti and tomato sauce. Classic. I tried someone else's pasta carbonara and it was delicious! I think I'll try that next time. We all ate our fill of the spread and our meal, and the waitress came over and asked if we wanted separate checks! (This literally never happens. You usually just pay for what you had off the one check and hope that you have the correct change to cover it). That made things much easier and after the first person paid, she came over and told everyone there was no service charge!! We actually got all of that food complimentary because it was happy hour. Great surprise! I'm sure the waitress had told us that but she barely spoke English and we barely speak Italian so most of our communication was body language and pointing. I spoke Italian to her first so she kept coming over to me to speak in Italian thinking I could translate for the group. She was wrong...maybe someday! I have to admit though, if I don't know how to say something, I go for the Spanish version and it usually works. That's made things a little bit easier.

After dinner, we wandered some more and found an awesome fountain with a (probably important and meaningful) beautiful state building behind it! We actually got a group picture with those of us there - it's one of the few any of us have. We're working on getting a few more before the end of the trip, which is in four days! The days have been packed and I'm exhausted but the trip has gone by so fast!