Milano

Final stop on this European Adventure 2015 was the bustling northern Italian metropolis of Milan. Like most of the other stops we've made, this location was chosen because I have a friend living here that we could visit. M has this sweet apartment in a building on Piazzale Loreto with an inner courtyard that I just love and that she says is typical of Milanese apartment buildings. On the ground floor, there was a bakery and a barbershop. What more could you need?

On the final day of validity of the Eurail pass that we've been using for the past month, SR and I decided to milk it for its final worth and we took a daytrip by train out to the town of Como, on the lovely lake by the same name.

The view of the lake and the town from the mountaintop (there's a funicular that runs up from along the waterfront) was even better.

Rail pass finally expired, we spent time exploring Milan itself. I loved this "vertical forest" progressive apartment complex.

We made and ate a bunch of delicious meals with M, who generously took time away from her busy PhD studies to hang out with us.

And M even took her Saturday to show us around the city.

The fun continued when SR got the two of us tickets to a soccer game (when in Italy...). We really lucked out, as we were in town for a match between the two rival Milan-based teams. The stadium was filled to capacity with 80,000 people and the noise was like nothing I've ever heard before in my life.

I don't know much about soccer, but as a cultural experience, this was completely fantastic.

Also, we found out when we were already on this trip and had already scheduled this stay in Milan that the city happens to be hosting the 2015 World's Fair (Expo) right now. So SR and I took the metro out to the outskirts of the city and spent a day exploring the whole world via the fair. The topic was food (of course, since it's being hosted by Italy!). My favorite part of the experience was seeing the interesting architecture of the buildings that were built by the various countries to house their exhibits.

But it was a little disturbing to know it is all going to be ripped down in another month when the fair ends. And to be honest, I was a little disappointed by the quality of most of the exhibits, as far as content goes. World food production is such an important, interesting topic and it's exciting that there was this forum for bringing essential issues to the foreground in a context that reaches a lot of people. But at most, it seemed like just lip-service was being paid to these issues and the real point of the fair was commercial/profit rather than an exchange of innovative ideas, which is what I thought Expo was supposed to be. Also, we were there on a Monday after school is back in session in most of the world, and it was still CROWDED. Not as bad as the 4-hour lines to enter some exhibits that we heard horror stories about before coming here, but still--after one hour-long line, we decided to visit just the exhibits that didn't have lines. Which were maybe some of the less exciting ones. Which was maybe part of my disappointment. Still, I'm so glad to have had the experience and know what a World's Fair is like.

There was much more sightseeing around Milan itself and time with M (and, of course, gelato), but I think this draws my picture-sharing of the Europe trip to a close! It has been such an amazing time here, and I'm planning to revisit all of these experiences in memory during the unusual isolation that the next year is going to bring for me. But that's the topic for the next post...