4-Day Field Trip

I wrote this blog, copied it so I wouldn't lose it, and forgot to paste it somewhere before re-using the copy function. Now to re-write...

Day 1: Friday - Milan

We left for Milan early Friday morning. When we got there I got to see my first castle. I liked the one in Verona better, but that's probably because in Verona I got to walk along the battlements, unlike the castle in Milano. (Milano is Italian for Milan and we seem to use them interchangeably in our group.) We also saw an amazing cathedral, the first man-made construct of my experience to make me feel awe. Nothing else has come close. Pictures do not do it justice.

(castle in Milano)

(cathedral in Milano)

(cathedral in Milano)

That night was the Great Hotel Hunt. One of my peers booked a hostel for the 23 of us. Two rooms for six, one room for 11. She and two others decided to go there early instead of watching the World Cup match with the rest of us, who had somehow divided into two main groups, the first of which (mine) left early enough to get to the hostel by the 11:00 check-in time. I went with that group because they were realistic about the time it would take and because one of them has a GPS phone. We made it to the hostel about 5 minutes before check-in only to find that our journey had just begun. There was "a problem with the room" for 11. We would have to go across town to the hotel owned by his brother, a 3-star hotel close to the center of town instead of the 2-star hostel in the sketchy outskirts. The owner drove the three girls who had been waiting there plus one of the guys (for safety we sent a male with them) to the hotel in his own car. We thought we were supposed to wait there to get our own rides from him, but it soon became apparent that the hotel was so far away that this would be beyond impractical. The other half of our group joined us around midnight, which means that if this mix-up hadn't happened, they wouldn't have been able to check in. Good thing some Russian heroine addict decided to throw a fit, destroy his room, and get the cops called on him. No joke. Sometimes a "problem with the room" really is a problem with the room.

Long story short, we found our last two group members as we were walking to the tram station and found got to our hotel two trams later around 2 in the morning. I had to share a double-sized bed with someone, which I thoroughly disliked considering the fact that I am not close to anyone in my group, but sleeping back-to-back on our respective edges of the bed made it a lot less uncomfortable.

Day 2: Saturday - Verona

The next day we left big, scary Milan (you are correct: I don't like that city, and not because of the hotel mix-up) for cute, quaint little Verona. Getting lost in Verona means you might be walking an extra fifteen minutes. Not bad at all. We found a place to stay when we got there, and ended up finding a great set of apartments right next to the arena for a price comparable to the hostels in Italy. Verona is not as hot as the other cities, the prices are a little better, and it has a quaint atmosphere, something I thoroughly enjoy.

The first thing we saw after checking in was the castle. There is a bridge from the castle over the river that flows next to it. It has arrow slits along its walls just as the top of the castle boasts its own. Arrow slits are thin and tall from the attacker's view. They widen as they go inward, allowing the defender to have quite a range of views and angles without exposing his body to his attackers' arrows.

(castle in Verona)

(arrow slit in bridge connected to castle in Verona)

After the castle we had some free time, during which I attempted to go back to the apartment to take a nap considering the fact that I'd had only a few hours of sleep due to the Great Hotel Hunt and had an opera to see that night. Instead I missed the turn and wound up sight-seeing as I passed magnificent cathedrals. No pictures, sorry folks, my camera card was full. I got a new one in Venice, 4G instead of 2. I also stopped into the one non-overpriced store I'd seen and got myself a sundress to wear the next day to Venice, where it would be just as hot as Milan and I didn't want to suffocate in my jeans. I found one that doesn't wrinkle so it's easy to pack.

That night I went to the arena, where I got to see the first part of Aida. I was very tired and was planning on ducking out at intermission, but it started raining so they paused the opera after the first act to see what would happen with the weather. When they announced that they would mop up the stage and continue, and I couldn't keep my eyes from dropping, I decided to leave then instead of waiting. I went back to the apartment and somehow managed to have a room to myself despite the fact that we needed two people per room in order to have one person per bed. I think there might have been less sexual tension in the group in the morning.

Day 3: Sunday - Venice

Sunday morning was a train to Venice, a water bus to the hostello region, and checking in to the hostel one of my peers and I had booked for the group. He found it, I paid for it, and the group paid me back. It's a sneaky way around the conversion fees: as an online payment, it wasn't subject to foreign transaction fees, and my peers paid me back in Swiss Francs and Euros, so I didn't need to pay the $5 to withdraw money from my bank account in those currencies.

(A pavilion at a piazza in southern Venice.)

Our first stop was the piazza (pee-ah-tzah), where there were various music pavilions that made me wish even more desperately for my boyfriend's company. Dancing with him to sweet accordion/violin melodies in a famous piazza in Venice would have been just perfect.

Day 4: Monday - Misc.

Monday morning we took a train to a small town where a famous architect had done a famous tomb project which I really enjoyed seeing. Then we were free to do what we would as long as we got back to the ostello for Tuesday afternoon. I decided to go back to Venice. I'm cutting this short because everyone else just got here, and if I don't post this now the pictures won't load. Long story short I spent the night there in a hostel, made some friends, and met someone who might be famous but I can't tell.

(evening in Venice)