This week in Milan has been much more eventful than my first week here. For the sake of time and your attention spans, I’m just going to focus on the fun stuff that I’ve had going on, because it has been pretty amazing.
On Friday night I went to an area called Navigli for dinner, which is quickly becoming my favorite part of Milan. According to wikipedia, the navigli used to be a system of navigable and interconnected canals around Milan, but now the area is just a ton of restaurants, bars, and shops that make for a good way to spend your spare time, and the view is an added bonus.
My friend and I decided to go to a burger restaurant that had excellent reviews, along with beer as cold as your exgirlfriend’s heart, per their window decor.
I can’t speak for the beer, but my burger very well could have been the best one that I’ve ever had. I loved it so much that I’m not even ashamed to admit to you all that I’ve now eaten two burgers in Italy, the land of fresh fish and world-class pasta. Oh well.
That night we went to a club where I learned a couple of very valuable lessons:
1. If an Italian boy wants your number, he will not stop asking for it until he gets it. Tell him you have a boyfriend? He won’t care. Tell him you don’t have an Italian phone number? Still doesn’t care. This situation can be avoided, however, by asking for his number instead… and then promptly deleting it (sorry “Leonardo, like Leonardo DiCaprio but cooler”).
2. If you have a bus ticket ensuring you a ride home at 3:30 in the morning, and at 3:30 in the morning said bus is “full”, just tell the guy who won’t let you on the bus that “that’s bullshit.” You will be allowed on the “full” bus.
With that being said, I’m going to go ahead and jump to Sunday, the day that will forever be known as the day that I went to Lake Como and didn’t see George Clooney.
In all seriousness, Como was amazing. I didn’t realize how much I needed to get out of Milan until I actually did. Don’t get me wrong, I love living in and exploring the city, but I much prefer the picturesque views of Italy’s finest to the graffiti covered buildings in Milan.
We started our trip off by going on a boat tour of Lake Como. We saw a lot of really cool houses owned by famous people from around the world, but for the life of me I can’t remember who went with what house. I was too concerned with finding George Clooney. Unfortunately this never happened, but we did see the house where Ocean’s Eleven was filmed as well as George’s tequila commercial, so I’m dealing.
After the boat tour we went on a tour of the city of Como. I’m not much of a history girl, but I still found that I was completely interested in everything our tour guide told us for the entire two hours that we were together. It turns out that Alessandro Volta, the guy who invented the battery, is from Como, so there was a big statue of him in the city center and numerous roads/schools/restaurants were named after him. There was also a lot of really old architecture scattered around Como, and by really old architecture I mean walls circa 1192. It turns out that Como was never bombed during WWII because it is so close to Switzerland that the Allies couldn’t get Como without risking bombing the Swiss, which is why they still have so many historical sites intact. Super cool stuff, I know.
After the tour we were starving and went to lunch, where we were served the worst food that I have ever eaten. My plane food on the flight over was better, to give you an idea of how horrible it was. It’s okay though, because afterward we got gelato. I opted for chocolate, caramel, and coffee, and I don’t know if it was the combination of the three flavors or the gelato itself, but it was the best the I’ve had so far.
We ended our day by taking a funicular to the town of Brunate, which is located about 750 meters above sea level (thanks, Google.) This gave us a chance to experience some of Lake Como’s best views, and we took a lot of pictures to document it.
And that’s pretty much all for now! Stay tuned for next week’s post to keep up with everything that I’ve been up to in Italy!
Hayli
On Friday night I went to an area called Navigli for dinner, which is quickly becoming my favorite part of Milan. According to wikipedia, the navigli used to be a system of navigable and interconnected canals around Milan, but now the area is just a ton of restaurants, bars, and shops that make for a good way to spend your spare time, and the view is an added bonus.
My friend and I decided to go to a burger restaurant that had excellent reviews, along with beer as cold as your exgirlfriend’s heart, per their window decor.
I can’t speak for the beer, but my burger very well could have been the best one that I’ve ever had. I loved it so much that I’m not even ashamed to admit to you all that I’ve now eaten two burgers in Italy, the land of fresh fish and world-class pasta. Oh well.
That night we went to a club where I learned a couple of very valuable lessons:
1. If an Italian boy wants your number, he will not stop asking for it until he gets it. Tell him you have a boyfriend? He won’t care. Tell him you don’t have an Italian phone number? Still doesn’t care. This situation can be avoided, however, by asking for his number instead… and then promptly deleting it (sorry “Leonardo, like Leonardo DiCaprio but cooler”).
2. If you have a bus ticket ensuring you a ride home at 3:30 in the morning, and at 3:30 in the morning said bus is “full”, just tell the guy who won’t let you on the bus that “that’s bullshit.” You will be allowed on the “full” bus.
With that being said, I’m going to go ahead and jump to Sunday, the day that will forever be known as the day that I went to Lake Como and didn’t see George Clooney.
In all seriousness, Como was amazing. I didn’t realize how much I needed to get out of Milan until I actually did. Don’t get me wrong, I love living in and exploring the city, but I much prefer the picturesque views of Italy’s finest to the graffiti covered buildings in Milan.
We started our trip off by going on a boat tour of Lake Como. We saw a lot of really cool houses owned by famous people from around the world, but for the life of me I can’t remember who went with what house. I was too concerned with finding George Clooney. Unfortunately this never happened, but we did see the house where Ocean’s Eleven was filmed as well as George’s tequila commercial, so I’m dealing.
After the boat tour we went on a tour of the city of Como. I’m not much of a history girl, but I still found that I was completely interested in everything our tour guide told us for the entire two hours that we were together. It turns out that Alessandro Volta, the guy who invented the battery, is from Como, so there was a big statue of him in the city center and numerous roads/schools/restaurants were named after him. There was also a lot of really old architecture scattered around Como, and by really old architecture I mean walls circa 1192. It turns out that Como was never bombed during WWII because it is so close to Switzerland that the Allies couldn’t get Como without risking bombing the Swiss, which is why they still have so many historical sites intact. Super cool stuff, I know.
After the tour we were starving and went to lunch, where we were served the worst food that I have ever eaten. My plane food on the flight over was better, to give you an idea of how horrible it was. It’s okay though, because afterward we got gelato. I opted for chocolate, caramel, and coffee, and I don’t know if it was the combination of the three flavors or the gelato itself, but it was the best the I’ve had so far.
We ended our day by taking a funicular to the town of Brunate, which is located about 750 meters above sea level (thanks, Google.) This gave us a chance to experience some of Lake Como’s best views, and we took a lot of pictures to document it.
And that’s pretty much all for now! Stay tuned for next week’s post to keep up with everything that I’ve been up to in Italy!
Hayli