Italian Food Hangover

Destination: Verona and Milan

Ryan Air: a budget airline that flies you all over Europe for really cheap. The catch: They are freakishly stingy with their carry on baggage requirements. You are only allowed one carry on, and it must be less then 20 cm wide. We were in the middle of an eight day trip that included hiking in the Alps and swimming in the Mediterranean. There was no way our backpacks were less then 20 cm wide, especially once we shoved our purses into them. The fee to check a bag was somewhat outrageous, so rather then paying we decided to "beat the system" by wearing as many clothes as necessary until our bags fit within the limit. By the time we were done, I was wearing nine shirts, two pairs of pants, two pairs of socks, and winter boots...and oh yeah, I had toiletries hidden in my water bottle which was shoved down the sleeve of my coat. Keep in mind that it's over 70 degrees outside and we're about to fly into one of the most fashionable cities in Europe. We looked absolutely ridiculous, and you can bet your bottom dollar that as soon as we made it to the connecting bus in Milan we were stripping everything off. The ironic part about the whole affair is that when I got to the gate, the attendant told me she liked my shirt...are you kidding me?!

9 shirts, 2 pants, a scarf, and a sweatshirt. We're bringing
sexy back.

Our hostel in Milan was easily one of the weirdest places I've stayed at. We get there, and the woman behind the desk immediately reminded me of Mrs. Meers from Thoroughly Modern Millie. She took our passports and told us to make ourselves comfortable upstairs. We then, for all intensive purposes, got thrown out of her office and told to come back in 10 minutes. So we went upstairs and found that our room was once again open to the outside world - there were no locks. Now, I was fine with this concept in Switzerland, but it's significantly stranger to be in the middle of the city and have no locks. After checking in, we went to the local pizzeria downstairs for dinner. It turns out that the pizzeria was owned by an Asian family, so our first meal in Italy was Asian-inspired Italian pizza. Our dinner was made even more enjoyable because we got to watch a prostitute stand on the corner and turn down three different men. She must have been expensive!

On Tuesday, we traveled two hours east of Milan to the town of Verona. Francesca, a really good friend from our German language class, met us there for the day. Verona was a really cute town. It had a good mix of traditional and modern Italian architecture. The most famous building in  Verona is the Arena Di Verona. They were setting up for a concert while we were there, and it was really cool to see how something so old and historic can still be so practical in the modern world. As we were walking by the Arena, Francesca warned us to stay away from the Romans because they would try and get you to take pictures with them. As soon as she said this a Roman came over and started hugging me and walking with me. It must have been fate!

Francesca, Kaitlyn, and me in Verona

Unwanted attention from a random Roman man

Arena Di Verona - built in AD 30 this arena started as a theater.
Today, it is still used as a venue for concerts and operas. 

Inside the Arena Di Verona. They were setting up for a concert,
so we just sat there for a while taking pictures.

The other major tourist attraction in Verona is Juliet's house from Romeo and Juliet. The house itself has nothing to do with Shakespeare's make believe characters, but it's still fun to go and take pictures of the balcony. There is this statue of Juliet outside the house, and they say good luck will come to anyone who touches her right breast. Poor Juliet is basically raped all day every day... You can also write letters to Juliet asking her for love advice, so on the train ride to Verona, Kaitlyn and I both composed our letters. It was kind of silly but fun none the less. I assumed that the letters would be thrown out at the end of the day, but apparently a bunch of volunteers in the Juliet Club respond to them. I almost wish I put my address on the letter just to see what kind of response I would have gotten!

Touching Juilet's breast in the hopes of getting good luck. 

The famous balcony from Romeo and Juliet.

Getting ready to mail my letter to Juliet.

When you think of Italy, what's the first thing that pops into your mind? For me it's the food - pasta, pizza, cannolis, gelato, wine, etc. Kaitlyn and I both made sure to get our fill of Italian food while in Verona. I'm too embarrassed to admit how much I ate that day, but let's just say we really enjoyed ourselves. In summary: Florence has the best pizza, Verona has the best pasta, and Barcelona (surprisingly) has the best gelato. The uncontested food winner of the day came from a local pastry shop. I went into this small bakery just outside the town square, and I might have tried one or two or three or four (or more) pastries... I struck gold with the last one. I have no idea what it was called, but it was this flaky pastry filled with chocolate cream and topped with a hard chocolate glaze. It was seriously the most amazing pastry I've ever tasted. It was so good that I may have lost control of myself for a moment. Hopefully Kaitlyn isn't permanently scarred...I guess we're even now after the whole Barcelona hostel stripping incident.

Enjoying the most amazing pastry ever.

Even though I'm allergic, I couldn't go to
Italy and not have a glass of wine.

I'm generally not a big fan of cannolis, but this one was
actually really good. It easily surpassed the ones served at
Mike's Pastry Shop in the North End.

Kaitlyn and I were both in a food coma by 5 pm. Unfortunately our train back to Milan wasn't until 8 pm so we just kind of meandered around Verona until we finally collapsed on a park bench. We ended up entertaining ourselves by having a mini photo shoot in the park for an hour. We struck gold with the photo below - I have never seen a picture that so accurately captures the personality of everyone involved.

Favorite shot from the shoot

Showing off our pearly whites.

On Friday, we walked around Milan for a few hours before catching our flight back to Hamburg. Honestly, we didn't see much of Milan. After eight days of traveling and sightseeing we were pretty burnt out. We went and saw the Duomo (Catholic Church) and Castello Sforzesco, but other then that we really didn't see much. Surprisingly, the 10 minutes we spent at the Duomo were probably the most stressful 10 minutes of the entire trip. We stepped out of the subway station and were immediately bombarded by gypsies trying to sell us braided bracelets and corn kernels to feed the birds. It was unreal. I thought the gypsies in Barcelona were bad...apparently I had never experienced gypsies from Milan before. They kept draping their weird braided bracelets across my arm and shoving kernels in our face. We seriously could not get away from them. They just kept following up and attacking us. It was so bad that our only option was to seek shelter in the church (I never thought I'd utter those words). After that, we spent the rest of the day eating Italian food. I'm fairly certain I gained 5lbs during my time in Italy. I've been going through massive food withdrawals since I got back to Hamburg. It's amazing how a normal amount of food no longer satisfies me and my stretched out belly!

Duomo of Milan - we ended up going inside to escape the
Gypsies roaming around the square.

Shopping in Milan: Prada on one side. Louis Vuitton on
the other. Those are my two favorite stores to shop in! ;)

Castello Sforzesco - the "castle" actually looked more like
a fort.

We flew Ryan Air back to Hamburg, but this time we were under the influence of a nasty food coma, so we couldn't care less about the bag restrictions. We packed our bags as tightly as possible and just hoped for the best. Thankfully, the guys in front of us tried to get these massive tennis bags on the plane, and they ended up annoying the gate attendant so bad that by the time we got to her she was too flustered to care. I'm not even sure she looked at our bags. My sincerest thanks to those two men for trying to carry on enormous bags. You saved us each 40 Euro!

Well folks, that just about wraps up our eight day "Last Hurrah" trip. We had an amazing time, but I think both of us were excited to get back to Hamburg. In the word's of Dorothy: "There's no place like home."

Tschüss!