Milan

 Wow. Sorry it's been so long. The past two weeks have been totally hectic with catching up with school work. Whoever said study abroad was no work lied.
Anyway, all my work is finished for now and I'm taking a well deserved vacation! My first ever planned and executed by myself (ok, my travel buddy, Alana, helped too). I have to say that so far it's worked out brilliantly! At the moment I'm taking the free time on this bus ride to Bergamo airport to draft this blog post. After spending two sun-filled days in Milan I'm totally exhausted but so excited for the coming cities. It was so gorgeous here and I can't even grasp how well this part of the trip went.
We got into Milan past midnight on Thursday night (yes, we did skip Friday classes but the flight was so much cheaper. And really, is it actually a competition for classes vs Italy?).
 The next morning we woke up to go on a free walking tour. Our tour guide never showed up which was disappointing BUT we met two girls from France and the Netherlands who had met each other studying in Aarhus, Denmark! Crazy how small the world can be sometimes. We bonded over our shared annoyance and made plans to meet up for drinks that night. Alana and I spent the rest of the day basically following the tour route sans guide. We climbed to the top of the Duomo and saw the most incredible view of Milan's rooftops and the snow capped mountains in the distance.
We walked to Sforzesco castle and sat in the park there after a quick lunch/gelato break.
Honestly, if we had done nothing else but sit in the park and soak in the sun I would have been perfectly happy. Copenhagen has been particularly dreary these past weeks so the fact that we didn't have to wear any sort of coat was good enough for us.
We met up with the two girls in the Brera district after a very traditional Italian meal of what I like to call "a lot of pasta". At first we went to a crappy cocktail/cafe thing and talked to some German guys who were entirely uninteresting. After, we went to an area with a lot of clubby bars and throngs of people which we promptly left to go to a wine bar. We didn't get home until 3 am.
The next day, Saturday, we woke up late and went to the southern part of Milan and got ourselves utterly lost, but we found some really cool old churches and basilicas, and another park (we couldn't get enough of the sun, despite our ultra pale skin. Sunburns are definitely being experienced now).
We had a late lunch of pizza right outside of Basilica San Lorenzo Maggiore and sat in the park with gelato. After wandering aimlessly to find a train station we made a quick trip to the hostel (formerly a monastery) and left again for dinner on the Navigli canals with aperitivos and met our new international friends again for a drink and more late-night gelato.
And now, finally, we're currently on our flight to Budapest.
Ciao for now!
P.S. Pictures to come once I get to a real computer.