Week 5: Lake Como and Milano

WOW. What a week! or at least weekend. The week was rather normal. Dinner with Katja, who moved back to Denmark on Saturday. Lunch with a dynamic coworker from Panama. She met a Swiss guy while going to grad school in Spain, and is now married and living in Switzerland! It rained almost everyday this week, but in spite of the Rain, Luzern is BEAUTIFUL! (or maybe that's because of the rain...)

Ah, but the weekend! For me it came a day early because I didn't go to work on Friday. Instead I woke early and took a beautiful train ride through the Alps and the Italian section of Switzerland and into Italy, ending at Lake Como. Many people are not aware there is an Italian part of Switzerland. In fact, Italian is one of the 4 official languages of Switzerland. The difference between the Italian section and the rest of Switzerland is surprising. From the moment the train passed through the Alps I thought I was in Italy because the architecture had completely changed, as well as the language of the writing on the buildings etc, but I noticed all the licence plates were still Swiss.
I was also amused that although there was only one Italian stop before Lake Como, that one stop was enough to get the train right onto Italian time; we arrived at the Como station 5 min. late! Quite a change from the perfectly punctual Swiss rail system.

When I arrived in Lake Como I met my friend Ryan. Ryan is part the church in Atlanta and he helped me a great deal with my Physics when I went to checkout Georgia Tech over spring break. He has been studying in France all summer at an extension of the Tech campus. The way the trains ran he had to get into Como Thursday night and being both crazy and frugal had spent the night outside! Unwilling to spend €100 on a room, had slept under a tree. Needless to say he was a bit sleepy when we met at the station.

We started by walking around the actual little city and taking pictures. Then decided to stop for lunch. The first Italian food of the weekend did not disappoint. Pizza Margarita, always so good on that nice crispy thin Italian crust. In Italy (and I've heard here in Switzerland as well), they don't mind adding random people to your table so they sat this couple down next to us that was from New Jersey. The wife was rather outgoing. I found it refreshing to be with someone so talkative. We had to do very little work in the conversation. We sat at lunch for a while even after they left, then got Gelato, yum, and rented a paddle boat. I'm becoming quite the fan of paddle boats. They're such fun and always provide beautiful views the of city. There was a beautiful fountain that I had wanted to walk to so we just paddled over(we ended up walking again later). While we were paddling there was many small planes landing and taking off of the Lake which was amazing, and another craft that looked like a large boat but was skidding along the top of the water on runners. The lake was beautiful but the pictures are worth 1000 words so i won't say too much more.

After the paddle boats we took another walk so we could see the lake from higher up. Enjoy these photos.

Ryan really wanted to go swimming so we looked for a place to swim. There was a nice area next to the fountain with chairs, showers a bar and even a small swimming pool but it cost €3 to enter and was closing in just an hour. We decided to abandon the swimming idea but I wanted to at least stick my feet in so we looked for another place. Most of the area along the lake was rather dirty with things floating in it and some grime floating on the top but we kept walking back to an area we had taken pictures before. I tried to just dip my feet in but it was really slippery so I just sat down, then the water was so nice I slid in and started swimming. Pretty soon Ryan was in too and a few people trying to enjoy some peaceful time on the nearby benches were laughing at us tourists.
Ryan the adventure decided to dive in off the side although it was pretty shallow. Not to be outdone I chose to follow... Now I know I need a bit more practice with my diving. I totally scraped the bottom! Arms we a bit scraped and my white tank top was green and brown from the algae. I was laughing SO HARD! I was actually really excited that I did it, even that I hit the bottom. I tend to be cautious and not do crazy things. I don't want to start being stupid, but it was deep enough that I knew even if I did hit I'd be fine and I'm determined to defy my fears, so I jumped.

We then had to walk sopping wet to the train station to change. That was the most nasty bathroom I have ever been in. The toilet was literally a hole in the floor. So I changed really fast, plus we had to catch our train to Milano.

In Milano we headed straight to dinner. We found a restaurant full of locals and it was amazing! The friendly Italian sitting next to us told us what to order. I had thin pasta with mushrooms in a cream sauce and Ryan had pasta and Lobster. Both were incredible. The local said he goes there all the time and many days he just says bring me something and they just make him something delicious. Other days he tells them some ingredients he thinks he wants and they create something from that! He told us anyone can order that way. So for dessert Ryan ordered pineapple with gelato and they took half a pineapple, cut it in a really funky way, and put a large scoop of unbelievable vanilla gelato on top. ahhhh.

After dinner things began to get interesting. We walked around looking for our hostel for about 45 min. but were having trouble finding the streets so we just walked back to the train station and took a taxi. Once at the hostel i gave my name to the man at the counter and he found my reservation and then looked at Ryan for his name and he said "no that reservation was for both of us" then i joined the man at the counter in staring at him because i thought we were each making our own reservations! A serious miss communication. S o... For the 2nd night in a row Ryan was homeless. I felt terrible but Ryan had a great attitude. The man at the counter made some calls and found Ryan a place supposedly a short bus ride away. So Ryan left to find the bus. They brought me to a room with 3 beds, one open, one for me and one with an elderly woman and I'm pretty sure she actually lived there. She spoke a bit of English so we chatted then went to sleep.

When Ryan come to meet me in the morning I found out he never found the hotel and after an hour he just went to another one hotel close to the hostel were I was. Saturday was a day of walking. That's all we did. We saw the Duomo and a Castle turned Gallery. We walked to were the painted of the last supper is but to see it you have to make reservations weeks in advance so no luck there. On the walk to the Duomo we were attacked by 2 sets of vendors in the main square. The first was two African men who try to get you to look at the bracelets they have then when you walk by the put it on you. You stop to see what's on your shoulder and they come and tie it around your wrist and talk to you then ask you for money for Africa after they've already tied this on you and cut off the ends. We gave them a few Euros. Ya, I'm sure that money's going to Africa!
Then there were two other guys who came up, gr abed Ryan's hand and put corn kernels in it and held it up for the pigeons. Ryan kept saying "NO. I have no money" but they just kept on going and saying "free, free" and the pigeons came. They did the same to me. It was so gross! The pigeons are landing in your hand and on your arm and YUCK! Then after we shook the pigeon's off they started saying "One Euro, One Euro." But we weren't lying when we said he had no money, we had just gone in search of an ATM when they attacked. We immediately went to McDonalds and I washed my whole arm. Then we sat and read our Bibles before doing more exploring.

Milano, although the capital of the Fashion industry is not a very beautiful city. In fact, it's rather dirty. The Duomo is incredible and you can climb up to the top and see the whole city which we did. If you go to Italy and want to visit Milano go to shop, or just plan a few hours to walk in and see the Duomo then leave. There are much more beautiful cities but the Duomo is cool. Also, don't eat at the restaurants on that main strip. There you'll pay €8 Euros for a small not very good Margarita Pizza and if you just walk a bit farther away you can get much larger, MUCH more delicious pizza for €4 or €6. Same with the Gelato, most of that close to the Duomo is more sickly sweet then light and creamy, and flavors are more artificial.

After a long day of walking, a yummy dinner, a bit of singing and more than a few stops for Gelato, we headed back to the Hostel. In the morning I had asked if they had a bed that night for Ryan and they said yes. So we left our extra things there behind the counter and they said they would put them on our beds when they were ready. Well, when we walked in at about 11:30 our bags were still behind the counter. Turns out they had given our beds away with out realizing it. So they found us another place and paid me the difference because I had already paid €20 to stay there and was not about to pay more. So we walked the hour to the next hotel, checked in and were out cold.

Sunday we walked to church which took longer then we had expected so we got there at about 11 (instead of 10:30 when it started) and Ryan then had to leave at 11:20 so he could catch his train (the original plan was a 3:00pm train which would have gotten him back in France at 6AM Monday morning but by taking the 12:30 train he could get back at 9:30 Sunday night, and so he needed to take the early train). So Ryan was at church for 20min then had to leave. I stayed and went to lunch with a group that Included 4 Italians who were members of the church there, 2 Russians that were visiting, a British woman who's working nearby for two years teaching English, a Danish woman (one of Katja's friends in fact!) who had been living there for a year because her boyfriend is Italian (one of the 4 that came with us), me, and a girl there from San Diego who had just graduated from SDSU. Quite the group! After lunch (meat ravioli with red sauce, WOW) we got gelato... the best gelato i have ever had in my entire life. The gelato we had after dinner Saturday night night was really good but this was the best. So creamy. It was one of the Italian's favorite places. She told me I had to get the whip cream because it was the best in Milano and I was not disappointed. It was especially nice with the Dark chocolate portion of my 3 flavor Gelato cup.
Our group grew smaller and smaller as people had to leave, at the end it was just the people in the picture you see here (The Russians, 2 Italians, San Diego and me) then we all parted company and i walked an hour back to the train station.

FYI: The whole time in Milano I was getting bitten by mosquitoes. i counted when i got home and i have over 113 mosquito bites. between the bites everywhere and my scraped up arms i look like i just go back from war. It's pretty funny (minus the constant itching).

Then on the train i was sitting across from two guys who turned out to be from Luzern. Actually they were supposed to sit across from each other one next to me, but when they said in Italian that i was i the wrong seat i though they were asking me to switch so they could sit next to each other, so i just moved to the seat across.
They were really nice and spoke perfect English so the 3 of us ended up talking pretty much the whole 4 hour train ride home (the elderly gentleman next to me move when the first seat opened up:) ). i think they're both about 22. i know one guy was 22 and i think the other guy was the same age. they told me about different cool places to go and when we got back they showed me the one market that's open at 11pm and one guy (David) was on a similar bus as the one i needed to take. So we said good bye to Philip at the station and rode the the 2nd stop where David had to change buses. Then I went home and hit the sack.

What a weekend! So much fun!
I love and miss all of you! I hope my blogs aren't too long :) I think I'm improving at cutting things out. Anyway, you have my love!

-Wildy