Greetings From Milan! 9/28/07

Well, we made it. Nine hours of travel to get to Milan, but we're here. The reservations were, in fact, for the correct year, thank you very much, and we got to the correct airport at the correct time. Already this trip is a complete success.

Funny conversation with Amanda on the plane. Ryanair advertises all throughout the cabin for alcohol and whatnot. It's why the flights are so cheap. Me: Did you know that Bourbon is only Bourbon if it comes from Kentucky? Amanda: Yeah, I think Eric or Troy told me that. Me: I wonder what Kentucky had to do to get that distinction. Amanda: I think that it has something to do with the twigs that are involved. Me: ... Because most alcohols intimately involve twigs. We giggled. The timing was spot on.

So our hotel room is awesome and has free wifi! Milan is pretty nice. We started the morning by going to the Doumo, which is the massive cathedral that you see in the pictures. We then climbed up and walked on the roof (246 steps... I counted). It was absolutely amazing. I wish that I could say the same for the Museum of Science and Technology. It's supposed to be really interactive, but you have to book it with a big group. So the interactive stuff was off limits and the layout was rather confusing. Tonight we walked and window-shopped in a large shopping district. Haven't bought anything yet though. Tomorrow morning we're planning on going to a huge marketplace. The food is amazing. I love Italian pizza and gelati! I did try a cocktail. It was a passion 51, which involves rum, pineapple, lime and sugar. Not liking rum or pineapple, this was perhas not the best drink for me, but I don't speak Italian, so I didn't really know what was in it until it appeared in front of me. It was okay. I'll try to do another blog tomorrow! Ciao!

Wow. It's been a long time... 9/20/07

I know it's been a while since I last blogged, but it's been very busy here. Every day I have a language class from 9:00 to 12:45 and then a culture class for two or three hours in the afternoon. Since the culture class is scheduled to go until at least 5:00 three or four nights a week, I have to balance blogging time with say, grocery shopping. But, fear not loyal readers, I have a (now) funny story.

Two nights ago, Amanda and I decided that we could conceivably take another four day trip next weekend, as long as we left in the afternoon or evening on Thursday and didn't have to skip the morning class. Well, she had a test the next day, so she put everything in my hands (including picking the destination). After the learning experiences of the last trip, I was very, very careful. And here's what I came up with. We're flying out of Frankfurt to Milan next Thursday evening. I don't even have to skip my culture course. There's a shuttle that takes us directly from the airport to the center of town, and our hotel provides a map of where it is with regard to where the bus drops us off. I triple-checked the dates, and the hotel is booked for the right nights. So lets talk prices.

Two Round-trip plane tickets: €130
Two Round-trip Shuttle passes from the Airport to Downtown: €29
Three Nights in a highly-rated Hotel: €195
The peace of mind of knowing that I checked all these things so many freaking times that I memorized all of this: Priceless

So I go home and I'm all excited to tell Amanda about all of this, and she's all excited too, because this is a really good deal. And then she says the magic (and hateful) words. "You know that there are two Frankfurt's in Germany, right? The airport we're flying out of is the right one, right?" !!!??? Well, you can guess what happened.

There were, perhaps, a few curses and a little bit of shared panic, until we pulled out Amanda's gigantic map and tracked down all th airports near either one. And it turns out that I did not screw this up. We do not have to first travel to the border of Poland before flying to Milan. Yay for not screwing up! And yay for Milan!

Then, as it turns out, Ryanair is offering a travel special in October. Flights to and from Spain are around a dollar, and then all on has to pay are the fees. So we're thinking that we will definitely be taking advantage of that. Barcelona, here we come.

Exchange Rates:
$1=€.72
€1=$1.39

That is... less than happy, if I do say so myself. Oh well, maybe they'll improve in the next few weeks.