Milan

So, when we were starting this trip, we knew no matter how much we planned, some things would go a little wrong- this happened in Milan. Let me start this post saying: WE ARE ALL SAFE AND WELL.
One more time- WE ARE SAFE AND WELL. Please keep this in mind as you read this story!!

 We arrived in Milan at about 7:00pm by train. We had to check into our hotel, currently being ran by a woman who spoke three words of English. Wanyue quickly noticed that she was Chinese, and after a struggle to communicate, it was effortless. She instructed us to get to the city center quickly via metro, as we planned to go to a concert- a solo recital by the famous soprano, Edita Gruberova at 8:00pm, giving us about 30 minutes to purchase subway passes and get to La Scala. Upon our arrival at Duomo, our subway stop, the subway was densely crowded. We unexpectedly exited the subway into the heart of a suffocating crowd of what appeared to be at least 7,500 people, giving quite a poor first impression of Milan. The crowd bled into the stairs exiting the subway, and it took about 20 seconds to take a single step up the stairs. Upon reaching ground level, a rock band began playing from a stage, which explained the crowd. We pushed through to the nearest open space we could find, and received vague directions to La Scala from a police officer (essentially, "go that way then turn left into that big arch"). We fought through the crowd, but Kramer unfortunately got separated from the group as the crowd became dangerously dense. Kramer was able to get out of the crowd, and went to La Scala waiting for the rest of the group to come. Unfortunatly, the rest of the group didn't get out as easily. For them, it really became a fight to simply escape the crowd rather than to get to La Scala. According to Dan and Nonoka, Dan had to wrap his arms around Nonoka and keep her from being crushed by the crowd as he pushed their way through the crowd. In the process, Dan accidentally stepped on a woman's foot, she screamed, and Dan was swiftly punched in the face by an angry Italian man. He kicked him off and continued to push his way out. Once Dan and Nonoka escapeded, Wanyue escaped seconds later, and Dan went through the crowd 3 times to find Kramer. He was harassed by an officer upon hopping a fence to get to the other side of the crowd, and nearly arrested when he was running with his own wallet, which appeared to be stolen, having to pull from it his passport to prove that it was his. Dan could not find Kramer from his searching. So, after seeing that all nearby entrances to the subway had been sealed, the three found a cab back to the hotel, where Kramer luckily showed up minutes later. It was then that Nonoka realized that she lost her phone- most likely pick-pocketed out of her purse. All of that took the duration of an hour, and it was 9:00. So much for the recital.
Our second and last day in Milan was nice and easy going- we gave ourselves the luxury of sleeping in, until about 1:30 pm. We once again took the subway to Duomo, expecting death, to find a lovely courtyard, filled with an acceptable amount of people, and birds. We ate at an outdoor restaurant, waited by an extremely charming Italian man, who coaxed out of us a 48 Euro appetizer, which which turned out to be worth its money.....for tourists (see photo of pasta!). After that, we did about 7 hours of walking around the whole city, and saw as much as we could. We also ate as much delicious gelato as we could, eating the famous Italian dessert three different times, at three different places (It was difficult not to, since it was being sold every 100 yards- also, see photo of Gelato!). The Gelato made us feel much better from the night before too.

 Milan overall is a beautiful and historical city- without crazy rock concerts.

And, for the last time- WE ARE ALL SAFE AND WELL.   :)

Gelato :D

Mozzarella Appetizer! 

Concert Last night (photo from news station)

MORE GELATO!!! :D :D

Daniels Battle Scar from Night before!

Fun Advertisement in Metro!

Beautiful Cathedral in City Center

View of City Center, minus crazy Rock Concert

Grape farms and mountains outside of Milan, photo taken from Train

Park in Milan, by an amazing Arch! Check out reflection of everything in the water, cool photo!

Close up of Arch!

Inside the Church

Nonoka's Pasta!