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Leon, Oviedo & Updates

I went to Leon and Oviedo awhile ago. Like over a month ago. With Erasmus. I should update you guys about that first.

That was a lie, I should tell you guys first about probably one of the most quintessential study abroad nights I have had first. So I mentioned before that I met the Polish kids from our class for drinks and a concert. I also said that we agreed that we would have an international potluck. Well that potluck happened on the Friday before I left for Leon.

Not knowing what I could make that represented American and could also feed a good number of people (I was not prepared to make 25 cheeseburgers), I decided I would fall back on an easy favorite: Chili and Cornbread. Yea, I guess it is kind of Mexican, but I consider it TexMex cuisine over anything else, which means it is at least part American. Actually, a quick Wiki search just now informed me that it was first made by Spanish Canary Islanders in San Antonio, Texas. I feel like that means it is wholly American.

Anyways, I made chili and cornbread and it was actually a hit. The Italians especially liked it. I was surprised, especially after having eaten the other food made. The Italians made lasagna and pizza, a Hungarian made goulash, and admittedly, I forget what else was there. Regardless, it was all very delicious. I was in food heaven. Either way, I impressed some people and they made me promise to make more chili. Only as long as they make me more Italian food.

LEON

First I would like to point out that after seeing probably around 20 cities in Spain, a lot of them being only for a day or two, Spanish cities are starting to blend together. I do remember a bit about Leon, though.

Leon, like a lot of cities in Spain, has a beautiful cathedral. The one in Leon has pretty incredible stained glass throughout the building. Leon also has the MUSAC, a contemporary art museum that is full of a lot of random things. A few of the exhibition halls displayed what I would describe most accurately as what would happen if everything from a dorm building was emptied into a room and haphazardly organized. There were also one or two Guadí buildings on Leon, but nothing at all compared to those in Barcelona.

Probably the most memorable aspect of Leon is the nightlife. Leon does tapas like they are meant to be done, by which I mean you order a corto of beer (a small glass) and with it you get a small thing of food like a slice of pizza, bread with chorizo, or even octopus (gross and chewy), all for slightly more than a euro. Caitlyn, Hillary and I met some students from Germany also on the Erasmus trip and headed out to a few bars to try their tapas. It was a lot of fun. Like I have probably mentioned before, one of the best aspects of studying abroad and traveling is meeting people from such different cultures. Did you know you have to pay several hundred euros and take intense tests to get just about any license? This includes fishing licenses. That is ridiculous considering obtaining a fishing license in Wisconsin involves paying $20.00 annually.

After drinks and tapas with the Germans we also met up with a group of Italians (the same that hosted the potluck). We partied it up until the wee hours of the morning. I could tell that eventually this group of Italians was going to be the death of me. Luckily they are helping me practice my Spanish.

Oh, did I mention we went for churros con chocolate with the Italians? Delicious.

Anyways, we woke up late into the morning, ate breakfast, and boarded the bus to Oviedo.

OVIEDO

One of our Spanish friends, Pelayo, is from Oviedo, one of the two large cities in Asturias (an autonomous community read: Spanish equivalent of states). He raved about how great the city was. It was clean and much nicer than Santander. It even won a golden broom (or something along those lines) for being the cleanest city. Right, Pelayo. We therefore made it our mission to find as much garbage as possible and take pictures of it. Luckily it was the weekend before Mardi Gras and there was a fiesta the day before. The streets were slightly littered, and we made sure we told Pelayo. Besides being clean, Oviedo, and Asturias in general, is known for its cidra, or cider. You have to pour the cidra from above your head to a glass near your waist. You waste a lot of cidra, get it on the floor and other objects around you, and also aerate it, enhancing the taste. I don’t see the point, because it still is pretty disgusting.

Anways, Oviedo has a cathedral too. It has a street full of cidrarias (cider houses). It has some nice squares. It also has a statue of Woody Allen. That is about it. All in all, a fine city.

Eating with the Italians

After our night out with the Italians, we promised each other food. They promised to make panzerotti, a deep fried calzone popular in Bari and the region around Bari. We promised something American (we would think of something). Well, I still haven’t had panzerotti, but they did make us pasta, chicken, pizza, and risotto. All of this was outstanding. I made Luca promise to show me how to make this chicken. Seriously, all of it was the best Italian food I have ever made. So far we have made them pancakes and apple pie. We will be making them chili con carne and white chili after Semana Santa and hosting an American night of drinking chock full of beer pong, flip cup, quarters and kings. I think we are getting the better deal here.

Friends Visiting

I mentioned earlier that Sabrina (with friends in tow), Ben and Eve visited. I went to dinner with Sabrina and her friends one night. The other night I had everyone over to make tortillas. This was my first time being in charge of the tortillas. It might be my last time, too. The tortillas tasted great, but they weren’t exactly how they are supposed to look, and honestly, Hillary and Caitlyn make a better tortilla (not to mention Manila, the restaurant with the best tortilla in Spain, or second best if you ask Manuel). It must have been decent though, because when Sabrina got back to Oxford she told me she made tortilla.

Then day after was Saint Patrick’s day. Being a little bit Irish (one eighth, which is not mostly, Dad), I had to celebrate. I made some of the Spanish kids celebrate too. Well, I invited some of the guys over the drink and then go out with Ben, Eve and I. A few bailed, like usual, but we enjoyed our time. We met up with the Italians (as we are apt to do) and they dragged us to more and more clubs. We ended the night at The Indian, this American themed club, at 6 in the morning. Ben and Eve were tired, I was exhausted. I had class at 9:30 the next day and only got two hours of sleep. This is what Erasmus is all about, isn’t it? I cannot handle Erasmus.

Besides that, I brought Ben and Eve around the city. We did the naturally tourist things to do in Santander (there are not many). We ate kebab and Doner King. We walked along the port. We saw the palace with the penguins and we went to the beach. Eventually their (very) short stay came to an end and before I knew it I was dropping them off at the bus stop.

Sadly it was kind of poor weather for my visitors, especially Sabrina. The next week, though, was fantastic! It got well into the 80s and we went to the beach several times. And before I knew it…

I WENT TO IRELAND

(This will get its own post)

I got back from Ireland and the weather was crummy. Oh well, the beach could wait, by which I mean, stop distracting me and let me concentrate on homework and studying.

Since Ireland, we finalized our exam schedule. This in itself isn’t very exciting, but meant we knew when we could travel, and we are going to NORWAY! Yep, Kristine will have three eager Americans rocking Haugesund and the fjords in June. How lucky she is.

Also, Hillary and I met up with some Spanish kids for tortilla at Manila (the really good tortilla, remember?) and then made apple pie for a second international potluck.

Now I have three days until I see my family. It has been 238 days (or just short of 8 months) since I have seen my parents and sister. I am looking forward to it. It will be nice to finally see them. Being able to travel like a normal person instead of a poor student won’t hurt either. That is right! No hostels. Being able to eat in restaurants. Paying to see things. Taxis. I can’t fathom the difference between the way I have learned to travel and how travelling with my family will be.

Upcoming Travel Plans

Family Trip:

Berlin, Germany

Prague, Czech Republic

Munich, Germany

Budapest, Hungary

Vienna, Austria

Bratislava, Slovakia

Post Semana Santa:

Porto, Portugal

Madrid, Spain

Haugesund & Fjords, Norway

well

I went to Oviedo and Leon this past weekend. I will tell you about it soon. More importantly, Sabrina, a friend studying at Oxford for the year came to visit yesterday and leaves tomorrow. We went out for some pintxos and tonight I am going to try cooking (really just Spanish tortillas or essentially potato omelets for all you haters) for her and her friends and, perhaps more importantly, BEN & EVE!

An Update on Life

So a bit has happened since my last series of posts, but I have been too lazy to write about them until now, and this isn't going to be a great post as it is.

About two weeks ago we didn't have class because there was a conference about construction (I believe) that all the Spanish kids in our class went to. Finding out about this, we decided to go to Bilbao to visit the Guggenheim Museum as we kind of got on this kick about visiting all 1000 Places to See Before You Die. Bilbao is only an hour and a half or so away by bus so we thought why not.

Bilbao is a pretty industrial city, but it has a nice old part of town and the Guggenheim is the main attraction anyways. We spent a few hours wandering the galleries of the museum. One of the most impressive pieces of art was this gigantic hangar sized room with equally gigantic steel structures winding around the room. Another piece that really struck me was this series of scrolling LED signs that extended probably 30 to 40 feet into the ceiling above. All in all, the museum was really interesting, full of modern art, but after a while we got hungry and left to eat lunch on the steps. We wandered la parte vieja a little bit before returning back to Santander.

The next day I met up with Kasia and Michal, two Polish kids I have class with. We sat through a little concert in a bar down in the centro. The singer was really good and I met a bunch of Italians and English from Kasia and Michal's Spanish class with whom I agreed to have dinner with. We are all going to cook a dish from home and bring it to share, a little International Potluck. One Italian, Marco, made Kasia promise to make "un monton de pierogies" or literally a mountain of pierogies.

Last weekend we met up with the Spanish kids from our class for a dinner at Pinocho, this pizza place that is Pinocchio themed. It actually had pretty good pizza (much better than Telepizza's) and was nice to finally hang out with the Spanish kids without being the ones to invite them. We all then proceeded to Peter Pan, this bar a lot of students go to for big cheap drinks, and played some dice games.

The following day we had our first excursion for our Prehistoric Art class. This has got to be one of the most dull classes I have taken. Sorry prof. The class is essentially our professor pointing out legs, backs, and horns of animals that were painted 12,000 years ago. Thrilling, truly. The tours of the caves we went on were pretty much the same thing. The caves themselves were really interesting though. The stalagmites, stalactites, and these formations that could be played like xylophones were really neat.

While all of this has been going on, I have been on another quest of sorts. I think I have been getting obsessed with completing lists of somewhat epic proportions. First the 1000 Places list (which isn't going to happen anytime soon, I am at around 50). More recently I have been watching movies from IMDb's top 250 list. In the past two weeks or so I have watched 10 of the movies and am up to a total of 76. Now, I am not going to watch all 250, because most movies made before 1970 just bore me to death (I am ignorant, I know). That leaves me with 163 total. I am almost halfway done and am kind of on a roll (but don't worry mom, homework comes first. Also, I am watching these in Spanish so that should count as productive).

On the cooking front, we have been getting creative lately (and partially cultural). We celebrate Falafel Fridays every Friday. I have to admit, our fried chickpea concoctions have been pretty mouth watering. Not so successful was our attempt at gnocchi. Some of them turned out like mashed potatoes while most of them just were too mushy. I think we have to figure out the cooking time and add more flour to be more successful. Last night we actually ate out. This is a rare occasion because I would rather save money for travelling. I have to admit though, the restaurant was delicious. We went to Dia Delsur and ordered a bunch of different raciones (large portions of tapas) to split. The food was excellent. I was particularly a fan of the patatas bravas we ordered. In Madrid the patatas bravas we got were like roasted potatoes drenched in this delicious red sauce. Here, it was home made potato chips with two different sauces, a red sauce resembling a salsa and this sour cream-ish sauce that reminded me of the Chives n Fries dip you get from Saz's (Wisconsin people know what I am talking about). The Tikka Masala chicken kebab and rice was really good too. The only thing we got that I probably wouldn't order again was a vegetable plate. It was super oily and salty making everything really soggy and heavy. Finally, today, in celebration of Mardi Gras, Hillary and I are going to fashion a King's Cake out of Cinnabon's Cinnamon Rolls. It should be delicious.

Torpedo Hungry

She’s not your grandmother’s southern belle. Well, actually, that is exactly what she is. Hillary was raised to be the perfect southern belle, along with fulfilling every position your grandma should. She is a great cook. She sews and knits. She even sends thank you notes on personalized stationary. Yes, she is a throwback to the good old days when the south had hopes of winning the War of Northern Aggression to assert their right to secede from the Union.

Hillary and my story starts back about a year ago. We met in CEE 3610 Introduction to Transportation Engineering with Professor Turnquist through our mutual friend Mo(town). We suffered through most of that class together ignorant of the fact that we would be spending the next year studying together. Several weeks into the class Hillary asks me, “Are you doing the Santander program next year?”

“Yeah, you too?” I responded.

That pretty much ended the conversation. We talked a little bit about our coming year in Spain, but very little like, what do we need for our visa application, where are we going to live, etc. Like in the case of Caitlyn, the first time we actually hung out was upon my first night arriving in Spain.

Also like Caitlyn (since they share a flat), she subjected me to Desperate Housewives at the beginning of the year, but repaid me with some delicious food. As I noted before, we are trying to compose a list of why Caitlyn is useful, but Hillary, hands down, wins her place in the gang with her food. She makes killer falafel, pumpkin and apple pies that shame my mom (sorry mom), pancakes that are just downright delicious, and she even has come close to mastering the Spanish tortilla (potato omelet for all you posers). She also is a good travel planner (perhaps rivaling me at times) with her organization and research. And while I did say that Caitlyn is good for schadenfreude, Hillary takes the cake with this, too.

When we look back fondly on our past trips, it is usually at some random trouble I get into because of how much I stick out for being a blonde male, or for Hillary’s series of unfortunate disasters. Yes, she entertains us endlessly with her tripping, her slips of the tongue, and her spilling food all over herself. One of the best memories of this year so far is thanks to Hillary. I remember being bent over, crying from so much laughter as Hillary tried to put the broken slats of the bed she just broke back together. Not wanting to pay for the damages, she instead brought the evidence to Africa to dispose of.

Another, equally ego damaging occurrence happened when we were on a bridge of Venice, wanting a picture of all three of us. Sheepishly, Hillary approached a passerby, politely asking if she could take our picture standing in front of the canal. She thought quickly on her feet and soon stammered, “Uhh… the train…” and ran off. We all knew she had no train to catch. No, Hillary was one of the first people in Venice to get rejected for taking a picture. Even simple tasks like eating a Nutella filled doughnut end disastrously with Nutella covering her coat, sleeve, and umbrella.

Eventually she took on the name Torpedo, a combination of the words torpe (Spanish for clumsy) and Fredo (the infamously worst brother from The Godfather). Probably the best example of her clumsiness is one of Caitlyn’s favorite stories. One day, we were walking up the stairs to Geo Lab. Trouble ensues as she misses the step, trips, and plants her face directly into Caitlyn’s ass as Jon, a Spanish kid from our class, watches on. She ends up hugging Caitlyn’s rear to prevent her face from meeting the step. Oh yes, she is quite the graceful lady.

Guapa Caitlyn

Halfway into the year, I am now realizing most of you don’t really know any of the other people I mention in my blog apart from perhaps the occasional “Hillary and I did this” or “Caitlyn went to the store and ate all the All Bran she could find.” Seeing as I am all the way caught up with my travel updates and don’t have more travel plans for awhile, I think I will start profiling each of the important players of my study abroad experience. Without further ado, I present you with: Santander’s Most Wanted.

CAITLYN DEWITT

My first installment was spurred by some comments left on Facebook by Caitlyn DeWitt. As we are apt to do, we exchanged some put downs and empty physical threats. In the end, I declared I would write my next blog entry Caitlyn is a dumb whore because… Now don’t get me wrong, we all like each other (mostly) and we get along very well. All of our put downs are in jest and form an integral part of our peculiar group dynamic. At the end of it all, Caitlyn being a dumb whore and I having no social skills are as serious as a very large bruise, it looks brutal from the outside, but look at it from the inside and there is no internal bleeding.

My first encounter with Caitlyn was brief. People we meet traveling or through Erasmus will sometimes ask us if we knew each other before coming. Typically we say no. This isn’t really the case. I met Caitlyn at a meeting for this program probably a few months before actually coming to Spain. What I remember is shaking her hand upon introducing myself. If any of you watch 30 Rock, you may recall from a very recent episode that a handshake conveys a lot of information about the other person. Caitlyn, whether she remembers or not, gave me a dead fish hand shake. It left me disappointed. In the end, I wrote her up to a dead fish.

Later a few of my friends (actually, Audrey is the worst, not really someone I want to call my friend) told me that Caitlyn and I were doing the same program and that they knew her from being her sorority sister or such and such. Great! I thought. I love sorority girls. (To be fair, I know many sorority girls and they are all very cool, although, for some reason, I assume all of the ones I don’t know to have come straight out of The House Bunny or The Girls Next Door.)

Well, I would say Caitlyn and my first meeting (that counted) was here in Santander. The three other Cornell kids met me on my first night in Santander and we went out to some bars and clubs for a little bit of welcome fun. I don’t recall anything that stuck out about our first encounter, but a week later I started going over to her and Hillary’s apartment. What did we do? Well, they subjected me to watching Desperate Housewives, but also fed me.

Pretty soon after I found myself at their apartment pretty much every day or every other day. Not having any other friends forced me to make the most out of these ones. Well, I found out quickly that Caitlyn had the same humor as me. We found ourselves muttering the same things at the same time after which I would shout at her, “ GET OUT OF MY HEAD!” We went out partying together, and one of the first weeks of class we met up with the Spanish kids. I promptly told them, “Ella es facil, sabes?” Despite my knowledge that she is indeed not (wholly) a whore, this idea permeated our friendship.

Hopefully you are starting to get the idea of what kind of friendship this is.

But enough about our friendship, what you should really know is how she acts. Caitlyn, for one, is very easily entertained. She will say a joke (usually aloud, but really only she cares), she will be the only one who finds it funny, she will continue to laugh (hard) at her own joke until she realizes she is the only one laughing. She then finds this hilarious and proceeds to laugh harder. A typical joke of hers is the “That’s what she said.” In high school this was a favorite. I repeat, in high school. Now, I am always a fan of a creative and very filthy That’s what she said, but that being said, Caitlyn goes for the easy ones.

“This is so hard.”

“That’s what she said.”

“I’m coming.”

“THAT’S WHAT SHE SAID!”

She says it so quickly, as if she is afraid somebody is going to steal this joke from her. We will even phrase things as a set up for her, and not realizing, she jumps at the easy bait we set for her.

In addition to her love of that’s what she said jokes, she is also a fan of most things that can be taken sexual. She has a filthy mind to match her filthy mouth. We all agree (including her) that she is not a lady.

She drinks like it’s her job (well, she is a sorority sister…), she sleeps twice a day, and every day eats enough All Bran cereal to feed a small (pygmy) family for a week. When the grocery store is out of All Bran, she spirals into a hole of depression and disorientation. Her biggest fear is not that the world will run out of All Bran, but rather that we pour it all out the window in front of her. When planning trips, she takes the back seat. She will complain when something is not to her liking, but usually will not do anything about it.

She has some good qualities (I am sure of it). We are just trying to make a list. What we have determined is that she is fantastic for schadenfreude, her missteps are our little pleasures. She is our social chair (yes, because she can’t leave all of her sorority tendencies behind) and plans events to get us friends and ultimately out of the house. She can make a mean chicken parm and loves the Godfather.

And that is it.

Oh, she likes to make up nick names for people, too. The usually end in bunny. Like smart bunny. Or cooking bunny. Or hungry bunny.

Bologna & Milan Pics

Northern Italy 2

Bologna, Italy

As a man gently kisses my neck in the basement of an unmarked building hosting an anti-fascist concert, I try to figure out what series of decisions I made that led to this highly unexpected situation. Let me rewind a little.

I had heard about couch surfing way before leaving for Europe, probably from reading up on travel blogs about cheap travel. My mom also suggested it. I kind of wrote it off for a while, thinking, there has to be some catch. Also, I didn’t want to try it alone and had never met someone who had actually experienced it. That is, until I met Ross in Monaco. Ross raved about his experiences with couch surfing. He loved it and actually got me excited about it. I always recognized the merits of couch surfing, you get to meet somebody who loves interacting with travelers and they can tell you all the great things about their city (not to mention the money you save), I guess I was just hesitant. Well, I finally thought I was ready and dusted off my old Couch Surfing profile and started contacting hosts. I tried to get hosts all through Spain and Italy, but we were only lucky enough to be accepted in Bologna and Milan. Disappointed with Spain, we were very excited to start our experiences.

To be entirely honest, I had no idea what to expect from my first surfing experience, but as a large bearded Italian man approached us in the Piazza de Nettuno, we were about to find out. Four of the seven people who lived in the apartment we stayed at walked us back to their place. We chatted about ourselves, shared short stories about our travels as we wound through streets lined with arcades and red and yellow buildings. We made it to their apartment, which was admittedly much like many other college places. It was dirty. It was political. It was cheap. If frats cared more about anti-facism and spoke Italian, perhaps that is what you would get.

Well, Merko, the aforementioned large bearded Italian guy, guided around Bologna a bit, showing us this beautiful library and parts of campus. He brought us inside his faculty building to introduce us to some of his friends. One of the people he introduced us to was my new, heroin addicted friend. Although I never caught his name, I did find out a few interesting things about him. Introducing himself, “Hi. I used to teach at NYU… That is, until they fired me… Because I did too much heroin.” Oh god. “Yea, but now I am attending lectures put on by Johns Hopkins. I hope that if I show interest they will hire me. So I can make lots of money… and buy lots of heroin… just kidding.” No, no you are not joking. You want to do heroin.

Anyways, we leave our new acquaintances and walk through Bologna. We were told that there could be a protest going on, so we go buy some gelato and head towards the square to watch the scene go down. Not much happens so we head back to the apartment.

The next day we get all of our site seeing of Bologna in. We climb the tower that Bologna is famous for. We walk through a market and relax in the park. We even climbed all the way up to San Luca’s Cathedral, like 4 kilometers uphill, to find out that it closed a half hour before. Oh well.

On our way back to the apartment we pick up some makings for an Italian feast. Bread, tomatoes, mozzarella, pesto and wine. I cannot get enough of this! We ate like kings for like three euros. I could get used to this!

After dinner and killing the bottles of wine, we meet up with Merko. This was the start of the adventurous night. First, he takes us to a poetry reading in this bar/café. Everything was in Italian (expectedly) including the anti fascist posters on the wall and the ramblings about the pope and the terrors of capitalism. Finally a guy starts to play guitar and is actually pretty good. Apparently that is our cue to leave. Damn, I was getting into this.

Our next stop of the night is the previously mentioned basement. We enter through an unmarked door guarded by two guys. We head directly into the basement where they make us fill out paperwork. I think I may have joined the anti fascist army or became part of a cult. Either way, just a bit strange. In the other room there is a concert going on. The band is actually pretty good. They are play very upbeat rock and crooning their Italian, getting the crowd pumped up. Eventually their set ends and a DJ starts taking over. It is some time after this point that my friend the heroin addict shows up. All of us are dancing and enjoying our time. Then, the heroin guy picks me up, lifting me and spinning me in the air. Okay, strange, but nothing to be concerned about. Later, he tells me and the girls that we should come over later.

“Ah, no we can’t, we have to catch a train early in the morning.”

“That is okay, I could drive you.”

“No, they are hosting us, we should stick with them.”

“Come on, just for a little bit.”

“Um, no, thanks, we are tired.”

A little later I thought he was going in to whisper into my ear or shout to get over the music. No. As you know, he softly kissed my neck. Oh, I forgot to mention, he must have been in at least his 30s. Now, I was uncomfortable. We quickly found Merko and told him we were ready to leave. He told us to wait while he settled some things with his friend. Did I mention they had all been drinking since around 6 and his friend was completely trashed? He was belligerent, yelling at people in the street and walking in front of cars.

Well, we went outside to wait for Merko. Afraid our heroin buddy would follow us outside, we walked to a nearby piazza to wait for our host. On our walk back to the apartment my host told me, “Oh, the guy told me he wanted to invite you over to stay the night. But I forgot to tell you, I am sorry. But I don’t think it would have been a good idea. Because if you sleep there, for sure he fuck you.”

“Oh, don’t worry about it Merko, we gathered as much!”

The rest of the night I laid in bed praying to god that the man would not walk in the apartment and peek his head into our room (The previous night he was over at the house. Not only did he know where the apartment was, he knew which room I was sleeping in!).

Still in one piece the next day, we made it to the train station and boarded our train to Milan. That was certainly enough excitement for one city. I hoped the next couch surfing experience was different.

Milan, Italy

Right away we could tell that Milan was much different from any other part of Italy we had previously visited. Rome was big, but still had very old buildings and monuments. Milan, on the other hand, was modern and cosmopolitan. It had sky scrapers and a comprehensive metro (that was burdened by having to dig around Roman ruins at every turn). Our next host directed us towards the Duomo (arigato, Mr. Roboto) to meet up. We take the metro and upon leaving the station we are greeted with a spectacular, imposing white cathedral contrasting against the blue sky. I had heard from a lot of people the Milan wasn’t that nice. Well, I certainly was impressed so far.

We meet up with Andrea, our host, and he walks us to a great restaurant. We eat padines with his friends and after he tours us around Milan a bit, going inside the Duomo and showing us the galleries and the castle. In the galleries there is this bull tiled in the ground that if you spin around on his balls with your heel three times you will have good luck. We all gave it a go. He even bought us gelato! He was definitely feeding an unhealthy addiction.

Later we split up for dinner. That night we finally ate out at a decent restaurant, and the food was fantastic. I got some butter and sage ravioli. De puta madre.

After dinner we met Andrea and one of his friends at a bar for karaoke. Besides the 5 euro beers (seriously! 5 euro?) we really enjoyed ourselves. We even went up to the stage to sing a great rendition of Queen’s Don’t Stop Me Now.

The next day we went out to explore more by ourselves. A friend of mine told me we must go on the roof of the Duomo, saying the view was fantastic. We heard that you could see the Alps on a clear day. Well, it was not a clear day and we were turned away for mass (one of the girls was wearing shorts with tights) so we did not see the view from the roof. We did, however, see a good bit of the castle and its museums, including a temporary exhibit about Michelangelo and his architecture. One thing I noticed about Michelangelo, he did not finish anything. He would start construction on one building, get bored, and go start something new. Yes, even one of the greatest minds in history had trouble finishing things. I feel like that is a good sign if nothing else.

Fun fact about Milan, they have the Last Supper stowed away in some random building next to a church. The church does not own the painting apparently, but it does get a lot of visitors because they think it does (including us). Actually, it is quite difficult to see Da Vinci’s famous piece. You have to book months in advance, it costs 8 euros (for only one painting, come on, in Europe, all art is free!) and you go in at an allotted time (I think). Needless to say, we did not see the painting, but we did see the building where the painting is kept. I think that counts as at least trying.

Another fun fact about Milan (and perhaps Italy), many of the young people have had enough with the current government. They are upset with the image it gives the country. This was evident by the large number of people who gathered to protest. Apparently 1 million protested in Rome, and hundreds of thousands protested elsewhere around the country. So many countries protesting!

Well, we saw just about everything we expected from Milan, so that night we stayed in and watched a movie with a few of Andrea’s friends and one of his friends’ really nice apartments. We just relaxed, drank beer and ate pizza. What a great way to end the trip!

We flew home the next day and had a several hour layover in Madrid. Iona met us for lunch. It was fantastic getting to see Iona after six months and the Indian food we ate was equally delicious.

I believe this now catches me up to essentially the present.