Part two of my time here in Italy was to be spent doing a bit of travelling. I had originally intended to travel up through Italy and continue on to Germany making stops along the way, but I have decided that that would eat up too much money right now and I really want to know Italy first. The other deciding factor was my English buddy Tom. Turns out he was planning to travel up north right after school finished, so we decided to go together. I'll take any opportunity to travel with a friend, it's much more fun that way. So the first order of business was to see a soccer match between Milan and Rome. We are now Roma fans, which means when we go to an away game we have to sit in the segregated section, read: roped off, guarded by security from the home fans, then escorted out of the stadium after the game for our safety. Needless to say we were looking forward to the game :) Unfortunately, the week before our game, some fans in Sicily decided to riot after a game and ended up killing a police officer, yes, I believe they threw a bomb inside a patrol car and an officer was inside it. In reaction to that, the Italian soccer officials decided to cancel all games until further notice. That's a really big deal here, as everyone lives for soccer. So we found out our game in Milan was cancelled two days before we were to go. Bummer, but no problem. We still wanted to see Milan and had a hotel booked for two nights. So we took the train there, about a 5 hour trip. When we left Rome it was warm and sunny, but when we got to Milan it was gray and cold. We had dinner and stayed in the first night since I was a bit sick and needed the rest. The next day came and it was bright and sunny out, but still pretty cold. We first went to the Duomo, the big Gothic cathedral. It was interesting. There is so much detail in the Gothic buildings, it's impressive. There must be a million small statues of people on that thing, they're everywhere. 
After the Duomo we went to visit La Scala, one of the most famous opera houses in the world. It didn't really look like anything on the outside, and when you go in there is a small museum, then you can go stand in one of the booths and look out over the concert hall. I thought it was pretty small, but I guess the acoustics are outstanding. Guess I'll have to catch an opera some time and find out. After that we searched for a place to have lunch. Milan is much more like an American city, it's fairly big, a little more orderly (for an Italian city), and a bit lacking in character. It's the financial center of Italy, a fact you'd be hard pressed to forget while there because there is literally a bank on every corner, everywhere, it's amazing. Anyway, after lunch we walked to the Sforza castle, a big castle in the center of the city that was basically four really big walls with nothing inside. But there was a park on the other side and a stand selling cheap soccer balls, so we bought one and started kicking it around. Tom was impressed by my skills, me being a non-soccer playing American and all. The thing about soccer is that all you need is a ball and you can have a game, so after a few minutes of us kicking it around we had 4 Egyptian guys wanting to have a game with us. So instead of watching a game we had our own! It was fun and I think we even won, but it was difficult to tell because they kept wanting to play more, but it was getting late and we had to go.
That night we went out to dinner and afterwards we met up with a German girl, Lina, we met on top of the Duomo that morning. She said she would be out with some friends, but it turned out to be her and a guy friend, Josie, from New Zealand. I thought maybe they were a couple but it seems they were just friends. So we ended up at a club and danced until about 3 a.m. Lina and Josie were both fun to hang out with, and think we all had a good time.
The next day our only plan was to see Leonardo DaVinci's "Last Supper" which is painted on a wall in a church, but unfortunately you have to make reservations weeks ahead of time to get in so we couldn't see it. So we had some lunch in a cafe and shared a table with a couple Italian girls. We all finished eating, and then I asked them if they spoke English. They said no, but that they have been studying it in school for 8 years! So we began talking with them in Italian. It was a lot of fun to actually talk to Italians and they were really sweet. They showed us their English homework that had been corrected by their teacher, but he missed lots of mistakes and it was obvious he didn't know English that well either, and this was a college professor. We talked for about an hour and I think they actually skipped a class to hang out with us, it was really nice. We parted with the usual European kiss on each cheek, but they said they kiss three times, so what's a guy to do?
Now it was time to leave and catch a train to our next stop, Bologna. So we got on the bus to the train station, and half way there some men got on and started checking for bus tickets. So, in Rome, nobody buys bus tickets because they never check for them, I don't think they really care. However, now we were in Milan, a city much different than Rome where every dollar is counted. Of course we didn't have tickets, so when the guy asked us we tried to play dumb in hopes of avoiding the fine. He wasn't buying it and wanted 34 euros from both of us! So we tried telling him we didn't have any cash, but wouldn't you know it, we were in the city of ATM machines, so we were escorted off the bus, with all our bags, by two men who walked us to the corner ATM machine and forced us to withdraw money at gunpoint. O.K., that last part isn't true, but that's what it felt like. We paid them and they let us back on another bus since we had just purchased a 34 euro ticket. Now if you add up all the free rides we took in Rome, you might say we broke even, but it still sucked. So we had a great time in Milan right up til the end. We made lots of new friends and decided to make new friends in every city we visit. So off to Bologna.....
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