Weekend in Milano (1/30-2/1)

This past weekend we took a wonderful trip to Milan. I had heard, from one of my Italian teachers at Uconn, that if the cities had to be compared- Florence was more like Boston and Milan was more like New York City. Well let me tell you; he couldn't have been more correct. NYC is of course still my number one, but Milano has become a very close second.
We took a Eurostar train from the Florence train station a little bit after 2pm. The train was fabulous to say the least, with comfy soft seats, a little eating table in the middle of the 4 seats, and an electronic window shade. We felt like we were riding in style. We arrived in Milano about 2.5 hours later and the train station was massive. All of the trains pull into this huge terminal that almost looks like a large tent. Then the interior of the station has extremely high ceilings with typical Italian architectual design. We got to our hotel, which was only a 10min walk from the train station- very convinient, but our digs weren't as great as we thought they would be.
We got freshened up and walked over to an area that the gentleman at the reception desk in our hotel suggested for great restaurants. We walked around this area for quite sometime, unable to find anything.
A little while later we just so happened to stumble upon a Mexican restaurant called Sante Fe- I mean really, I have been craving Mexican here like no one's business and there it was right in front of us! And to top it off, the owner, who opened the door to tell us the restaruant was opening in 5mins- spoke English and was from American!!- We were all quite pleased.
Of course the food was amazing. Here I go again but I had: a margarita, which I am not usually a fan of but it was very tasty, we had a plate of nachos for an appetizer, and then I got chicken/cheese enchiladas will the works- unreal. For dessert, the 4 of us split 2 choco tacos- which are made quite different here. It consisted of a warm quesadilla wrap with metled nutella inside, a warm banana on top, and whip cream to make it complete- again, scrumptious.
We quickly walked that meal off, seeing as we got pretty lost on our way back home, and luckily stumbled into the new Beckham couple Armani lingerie ad- which was gigantic, and amazing.
We went out for a few drinks at bar called WISH and then tried out the Milano disco scene at a dance club called IL CLUB- creative, I know.
It was a great first night in Milano!
We got up early the next morning to see the 'sites.' The complimentary breakfast was very below par, something we have yet to experience at any of these hotels- so let's just move on.
Something that I love about Milano, much like I do about NYC, is their use of the metro. It was very convinient, and even easy to use for us visitors. It also had about the same rates as the NYC subway- 1euro. We took the metro over to the famous Milan shopping district and let's just say I was blown away.
We saw all of the amazing store fronts; from Dolce & Gabbana, Michael Kors, Juicy Couture and Dior, to Yves Saint Laurent, Roberto Cavalli, and Armani. Just to see the window displays and the forms was amazing.
After buying absolutely nothing, because clearly all items are currently out of my budget- we stopped at a little piazza that had a large statue of Leonardo in the middle and a seating area around where we sat and had a few oranges. After that, we made our way over to Il Duomo (cathedral or very large church). Il Duomo in Milano is hugeeeee and a truly unbelievable site to see. With its repetative Gothic style architecture, we needed more than just a few minutes to stare at it. And it was almost too big to fit in the view finder of my camera! And we didn't go inside or climb it because we sure if we had to pay and it was very crowded at the time. When we were taking pictures (and getting attacked by Italian pigeons) these African men came over and tied these bracelets around our wrists and kept saying 'peace Africa.' On the wrist that the man tied mine onto, I just so happened to be wearing a bracelet my friend gave me from Senegal, Africa she got when she studied there for 6 weeks over the summer (they are traditional worn around the waist of African women to ward off bad spirits that might make them less fertile). Well of course, these men were from Senegal too, which was pretty cool. Until of course they started asking for money, at which point we b-lined it to the nearest McDonalds. :) (none of us got anything to eat though!)
We also walked through a gigantic open air mall that, as Emily said, had great 'frescos, ' and was definitely older than many of the other sites in Milano.
We made a quick stop at the huge H&M down the street (more in our budget) and got a few great items on sale!
After that, we had dinner on the streets in an open air shopping area that sits adjacent to the duomo. We sat outside under tents that had heat lamps standing and a few hanging from the top of the tent. It is about 10 degrees colder in Milan than in Florence, so it was pretty cool to feel warm yet still be able to be outside and see all the action. Me and one of the girls split a small cheese pizza (yummy) and a panini with proscuitto, mozzerella, and tomato- tasty.
Later on we had a drink at Sante Fe and called it an early night because we were pretty tired from all of the site seeing.
The next morning we got up to check-out and catch our 1130am train back to Firenze. We got a little morning surprise- it was snowing in Milan! We immediately dressed and packed quickly and went outside to 'play' in the snow- which of course just involved taking about 20 pictures each on the walk over to the train station.
It was truly another wonderful weekend, and not to cheat on any of the other cities I have visited on this trip- but this was by far my favorite thus far :)
xoxo
Amanda