Cupid's Arrow Landed In The Gelato...

Friday morning we took a train and plane (with other forms of public transportation in between) to Milan! I got sick right before we left which was annoying, but it was still a very fun weekend! When we arrived in Milan we tried to find the hotel that Shannon, and Kim and I were staying at. It should have taken us 30 to 40 minutes to walk there, but we got lost...I think we walked for about 3 hours until we found it! The other girls were Couch Surfing so they went to meet up with the guy who was letting them stay at his apartment.
(wwww.couchsurfing.com ---You create an account and ask people who live in the city you're planning to visit if they have a couch you can sleep on. It's free, but most people give the host wine or take them out to dinner. It can be risky since you're going to sleep at a strangers house, but that's part of the adventure! lol I haven't couch surfed yet, but I'm sure I will soon) When we got to the hotel the three of us crashed for a half hour or so..we were exhausted! We knew the other girls were eating dinner with Marco (the couch surfing host) so we went to get some pasta at an Italian restaurant by the hotel. It was delicious!! When we got back to the hotel we called Marco to see what their plans were for the night and to get in touch with the girls. It was a little difficult communicating on this trip because we all have French phones and we couldn't use them in Italy. We realized (after we had eaten dinner) that Marco was planning on cooking dinner for all 7 of us!! Luckily dinner wasn't ready until 9:30pm so we were able to digest our dinner and enjoy more pasta :) We hung out at Marco's apartment for awhile with his roommate and a couple of his friends. It was interesting hearing what the stereotypical American was to them. One of them said a cowboy, which was just a little embarrassing.

Saturday we walked around the park and went to a castle.
The castle was really nice and I'm sure we would have spent more time there, but there were a ton of guys trying to sell us bracelets (it was just a piece of thread that they braided) and asking us if we wanted a husband. I came really close, but don't worry I'm not married! Due to the fact that they were all coming up to us trying to sell us something we were speed walking through the castle. We went to the cathedral called Il Duomo.
It was beautiful! We walked inside and climbed to the very top to see the skyline of Milan. In the mall area around the cathedral there were piano steps which we found to be very entertaining. As you walked down the stairs they made the sound of keys on a piano. We did a little more shopping and then met Marco for dinner at a place called Noon. It kind of reminded me of restaurants in Atlanta.They had a buffet set up on the bar of the restaurant and if you bought drink, the buffet was free. So I had to get a drink! After dinner Marco took us to a couple bars. It was a lot of fun! They played American music in both bars which surprised us.

Sunday We went to the Steve McCurry photography exhibit. It was really powerful! The pictures were amazing! I could have spent a couple more hours there. Afterwards we did some more shopping and then we went to two Leonardo Da Vinci museums and saw the original drawings of the Codex Atlanticus. We went to a restaurant near the cathedral and had pizza and pasta for dinner and gelato for dessert :)