Milan

The station

So after about 9 hours we arrived in Milan at 5:30am.  I actually didn't mind the night train, but then again I just fell asleep for the whole time so I didn't have to suffer much (except for a few pictures that were taken when my guard was down...)

For some reason all the French I'd forgotten was starting to return and whenever I needed to use Italian, French or Japanese came up as the default.  It must have been when we crossed the border.  Some how this keeps on happening; forgets Japanese in Japan, but uses it in France, forgets French but remembers it in Italy... Yeah, too much culture shock. I think traveling between 4 countries within 1 week is starting to make me crazy.

Anyway after waiting for the metro to open, we went and dropped our things off at our inn and went into the city to do tourist stuff.

First we went to the Duomo cathedral, which was in the city center.  For once it was awesome waking up early, because we made it before rush hour and was able to take photos without there being a crowd.

In front of Duomo

Inside Duomo

After that we went looking for breakfast, but for some reason noting was open... Nothing at all (except for the church).  Eventually after walking around and wasting time we decided to go to McDonald's since we were pretty desperate.

That McDonald's was the poshest McDonald's that I've ever seen in my life.  The normal restaurant part was closed and everyone ordered from the McCafe section.  I got a strawberry frape and jam filled croissant.  Lucky Italian uses the same characters as French or English, other wise we would have really been screwed.  Either way, I'm going to be spending a lot of my free time learning Italian.  I swear I haven't felt this dumb since I first went to Japan... actually dumber.  It's weird that I only know how to say "My name is..." in Italian, considering that I did 3 years of Italian in primary school, but then again I think out teacher gave up on us.

Anyway, after that we just walked around the whole day, especially since we had to wait until midday to check into our hotel, the only problem is that everything was closed until about 10am at least.  Apparently things open and close late in Italy, but I'm not exactly sure how the system works here, at least not yet.

Also, it's true.  So many people ride vespas here.  Lots of people in suits were zooming around on them like gangs of businessmen.

Wasn't fast enough to take a picture of the moving ones
but you get the idea

Then we got fed up of feeling like zombies and got some gelato (making the most of the Italian experience) before heading back to the hotel to sleep.

 

suffering from train- jet lag

Finally we ended the day by waking up at around 10pm feeling incredibly hungry, so we went to the store next door and get a Kebab Pizza.  I have no regrets.