Wednesday, April 20, 2011

Italy: Day 2

Day 2 started with eating a strange breakfast and shopping for new shoes.  Breakfast was strange and funny because we couldn’t easily communicate with the café owner where we stopped.  We were trying to figure out if they served breakfast foods beyond croissants and coffee, and he insisted that we sit and eat.  Turns out, they didn’t really serve “normal” breakfast and they brought us a sandwich menu.  Therefore, our first breakfast in Milan was delicious lunch sandwiches.  Milanians didn’t speak much if any English, so we had a ton of comedic moments like this during our trip.


Next we went shopping for some new shoes for me, because mine were totally worn out, and my feet were already starting to hurt. We had meant to go to Jeddah for shoes before we left for Italy, but never had the time or the desire to make it. After being shocked by the ridiculous prices for impractical shoes for walking, we went to a Merrell store (Steve suggested it). We paid a lot, but the shoes are fantastic.


After we took care of breakfast and shoes, we went to a public park for almost the entire day.  The park was very pretty, with nice gravel paths and little ponds.  It was so nice to see so many people out enjoying the wonderful spring weather.  The natural history museum was right inside the park, so we went through that.  They had some amazing minerals, and great fossils.  There was a whole floor of dioramas of different environments, complete with stuffed animals, and most of them looked very realistic.



Napping in the park.

Beautiful arched ceilings in a nearby building.


Donkey on exhibit in the museum.

Pretty minerals on display





We debated going to a nearby art gallery, but neither of us have a strong love of art so we actually ended up seeing very little of it throughout our trip.

We also saw these awesome bike rental areas on our walk back to the hotel.  They were all over Milan and we saw a lot of people out riding the bikes.  We both wanted to ride them, but never got a chance.  I think it’s great that the city is willing to encourage alternative transportation methods, because the traffic in Milan was loud!



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4 comments:

  1. Wow, great photos! That tiger looks hungry.

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  2. Thanks! We were both surprised at how life like some of the animals looked.

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  3. We saw a bike like that in DC and they were surprisingly loud (you can drive it on the street like a motorcycle or ride it like a bike)

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  4. Hmmm, we saw a lot of people riding these and they weren't loud at all. I'm pretty sure they were just bikes.

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