Day 3-4: Milano

So after New York was all said and done, we boarded our plane to Amsterdam which lead us straight to Milan. Thankfully we had free movies to watch for the duration of the flight, it kept us awake in efforts to adjust to the gruesome time change (9 hours...).

We landed, and were so excited. As some of you know, we decided to use Airbnb which essentially allows you to stay in someones house/apartment for a really really budgeted price. We stayed at some amazing places over our trip and overall I highly recommend it. Airbnb mainly consists of single people looking to rent out their room or extra apartment. We felt 100% safe and most of the places were much cleaner than some of the hotels we stayed in. 

I cannot express to you how much panic I felt once we landed in Milan. We planned out our bus travel to get to our accommodation (Alessandro's apartment positioned 20 mins--by bus--outside of Milan's center) but if you've never traveled before you may feel a bit overwhelmed by the fact that no one is speaking English and all the signs are indecipherable. 

Unlucky for us and with being new to Airbnb, we did not arrange the house number before arriving to Alessandro's place. We arrived at the street name and spoke with a few locals, even tried calling Alessandro himself, but no luck. We had no internet access, no data, nothing to help us get in contact with this guy. Okay, so we take the bus back into the center of town to try and find internet access in a public place. Except, we don't want to pay 20 euros for a meal so we can be granted access. PSA: Italy is not America.

Ultimately we decided to sit down in a little shop and order a coke for the internet access. We were able to contact our host and get the ball rolling. We met Alessandro and his "friend" at our bus stop and they took us to the "Green Room". We get there and talk to the two guys a bit, they give us cherries, all is well. Also, they are gay and like to smoke weed. (Picture: our first room! Sleeping on the floor, but it felt like the most comfortable place based on our exhaustion)

We pass out at about 6:00 PM that night and wake up early the next day to see Milan! The duomo, several piazzas, gelato, dancing guy, pigeons, castles, etc.

For the most part we ate at our place, didn't eat at any of the restaurants. We found a really cheap market where we bought stuff for pasta and tried our fate with the cold meats (FAIL,FAIL, FAIL). We also seemed to be really into the two liter soda's. Again im telling you, REALLY cheap. Anyway. That is Milan. The duomo was amazing. We listened to a Rick Steves guide on the significance and it was honestly so beautiful. This is the place where you're supposed to pay like $3 to take pic's. Well Steven and I are cheap, so we just snuck pictures and it was funny watching Steven's guilty face while filming. Im sure I have a video somewhere.

Anyway, Milan is the place I will always remember as my first experience trying to figure out a new transportation system (or any really, because who takes the BUS in the US unless you have to??), the dirty streets of Italy, and feeling truly panicked when we didn't have internet access. Thanks for reading. Next time: Malcesine at Lake Garda.