Milano 2015

Hi everyone! It's hard to believe that my trip is quickly drawing to a close. In exactly one week, I will be on my way home to Denver. I am definitely excited to go home and see everyone, but at the same time, it's sad that I'll be leaving the place I've called home for the last seven weeks. To celebrate one of our last weekends in Italy, we decided to take an impromptu trip to Milan and Verona.

Firstly, I think that Milan was my favorite city to visit thus far. It was such an amazing city with a lot more to claim than being the fashion capital of Italy. Milan is also the economic center of Italy, which is contrary to what you would initially think. I had so much fun in Milan; and although it is a pretty big city, it didn't feel dirty or crowded. I also appreciated that their Metro system was incredibly laid out (it reminded me of London or Madrid).

We got to visit the Duomo, which is the fifth largest church in the world. That was so imposing and stunning from the outside; pictures do not do it justice. From there we went to go walk around the fashion district. It was amazing! We passed stores from so many incredible designers like Prada, Louis Vuitton, and Gucci. We didn't go inside because we were pretty sure we needed a down payment to even enter the store, but window shopping was really cool. From there we went to Eataly, which was definitely an experience. The food there was delicious, but the atmosphere was weird. It was essentially a huge supermarket with mini restaurants scattered all around.

Duomo Cathedral

View of Milan

The next day, we went to the World Expo that is being held in Milan currently. This was probably one of my favorite days of this entire trip, even though it rained. We got the opportunity to see the world through the lens of food, and how the 145 countries that are participating are working towards sustainability and improvement in food production in their country. There were a few countries that got a huge pavilion to design, and the countries that I least expected had some of my favorite pavilions. Azerbaijan, Brazil, and Vietnam were by far my favorite pavilions, and I really feel like I learned a lot about their countries and what they do in terms of exports/sustainability. We even got to visit the United States' pavilion, and we had a little burst of patriotic excitement which was fun.

The next day we packed up and headed to Verona, which is the city that Shakespeare's Romeo and Juliet takes place. Cool fact: Romeo and Juliet were actual people, and in Verona you can visit Juliet's house and see the balcony where Romeo serenaded his love. Other than that, Verona was just a really cool city, and I think that it perfectly captures what my preconceptions were about how Italian cities looked. It was definitely one of the prettier cities that we've visited.

Well that's all for now. I've got a Business Law exam to study for. We are headed to Venice before heading back to the States, so I'll try to get another blog post in before then. If I don't get the chance to, I'll do one back in the States. See you in a week Colorado!

**Note: This WiFi is the worst, so it won't let me upload pictures, so I'll do that when I have less awful Internet!**