Exploring Milan

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Monday evening here in Italy which means I have enjoyed another weekend in Italy and have loads to share with you, my fans! I will try to write all that I can remember but yikes, Jennie and I have been busy bees! .....which is the best was to bee when traveling in my opinion! Here's the buzzzz.......

As I have written in past blogs, dinner is on the later side in Italy and one style of dinner that Italiens enjoy is apperIchena. My host brother Davide introduced me to this the first weekend I was in Turin, and it was jaw dropping mouth drooling love At first sight of apperIchena. This is 'dinner brunch' (put in English terms) and includes all you can't eat food with the purchase of an adult beverage. The food is Ofcourse delicious, so I spent both Friday and Saturday enjoying this Italian eating style. Sometimes it is called apprentivo because it's not as much food offered, but the same idea. I think it's one of my favorite Italian discoveries as far as dining out goes. How can you go wrong with all you can eat Italin food food for 8 euros?!

Saturday was well spent with a walking adventure to one of the largest outdoor markets in Europe, Porta Palazo. If you ever come to Italy I highly recommend going here to do any shopping for low prices. I found shampoo& condinner for 2 euros a piece at the market whereas at the supermarket i have seen prices close to 4 euros. A long walk is worth saving a couple euros! I must admit our navigation to the market took some time because I had directions that got us off track.....we went a wee bit too far at first. We ended up at one market that was an entire street long and I thought hey this must be the market! Jennie and I began strolling through the market by my persuasion and soon found out that this was not where we wanted to be. Last time Jennie wanted to ever listen to directions from me....! It's a shock that with the handful of traveling I have done that my navigation has not improved one bit. I consider myself a wanderer when I travel.....I always have a destination in mind but getting there is the adventure for me. Navigators and good friends by my side are always a pleasure to have however!

Here is Sunday now. Please tale a cafe break if necessary! Jennie, Yulia (she's a friend from the program, a Canadian, eh!) and I hopped on a 845 am train to Milano. It is just a 1.5 hour train ride to Milan from Toino. Yes, early risers on Sunday morning, we are dedicated. Especially after an evening of out and about in Torino the previous night. Who needs sleep when you have cafe and Nutella?

Arriving in Milan was breathtaking, as the first view out of the metro (metro is equivelant to subway system) was the Velasca church. This is one main attraction of Milan (besides all the designer shopping. It's hard to miss This church! I easily can chose to admire this church over shopping at high end shops. You know me guys.)

Let me rewind before I get too far Into our Milano day. BEWARE OF GYPSIES! I read this over and over on the Internet prior to traveling Europe, but unfortunately we still got scammed. Want to know the story? Ok. When purchasing our metro tickets, a woman offered to help us, and we noticed her helping others with the metro Purchase-tickets-yourself machine. She was helpful in the process of purchasing our tickets on the machine, we received our tickets, and walked away. A few short seconds after we walked away with tickets in hand we realized we did not get our change back. Since she was helping us with the machine, she was quick and took our change too. I was totally upset and wanted to go back but my friends assured me the money was gone, it is not worth the battle which can be dangerous too. Tourists are easy targets so just be aware and on guard, it happens quick too. Luckily it was just 5 euros rather than phones/purse, etc. We all learned!

We got a lunch in Milan and I was shockingly unimpressed by the pizza I ate. I thought I would never eat bad pizza in Italy but this had overloads of cheese and did not taste freshly cooked. It was too touristy of an area I think. Very overpriced for cafe too.....3 euros verses 1 euro for cafe in Torino. The price of being a tourist.

There was loads to see and do in Milan and we spent a large amount of time walking around navigating ourselves a few places...one must see in Milan is the castle sforza. There was loads of events going on inside the castle gates for tourism, and one that caught my eye was a sukkah. Inside the castle there was a sukkah set up for the Jewish holiday sukkot. So, I was able to celebrate Sukkot in Italy with some orthodox Jewish men from Israel who were set up in the sukkah for that whole day (and probably more than one day. It was shard to ask them too many questions because they spoke minimal English....Hebrew!) I was able to tell them 'ani lo metzibert ivrit' I do not speak any Hebrew. Did not think I was going to use that Hebrew phrase while in Italy!

We also saw the arco Della Pace in Milan. I had seen photos of this but little did I know it was in Milanuntil we started walkino towards it! It was a day well spent in Milan and will probably have to return for one more day trip because there are many attractions we did not get to. So friends and family, I hope I have written all I wanted to in this long entry! Cheers to a new week and lots of love from Torino! I even leave you with a video this time...

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Photos

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Inside the Church

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Castle

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Arc

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Sukkah in castle