Day 2- Seeing Amazing Art and Football!

I woke up after a night of insomnia (I usually can't sleep on my first night overseas) and Molly and Alvaro were making a giant American breakfast of eggs, fruit salad, and biscuits. I was pretty much grossed out on croissants by now.

After breakfast, Molly and I walked through Brera down to the Galleria and by the da Vinci square. The shops were beautiful and expensive, but had a lot of culture to them. I'd love to live here.

Visit Brera!

Did I mention it was trendy AND expensive?

We came across the Teatro di Scalia house, which looked really amazing from the outside. Across the street was the da Vinci square and the Raffaello Madonna painting.

The painting was in a really dark room with a beautiful, but unit interior. It was an education; Molly and I identified the Virgin Mary and child (obviously) and on the right are Joachim and Anna, Mary's parents, and on the left is John the Baptist and St. Francis of Assissi. The cherub in the middle was holding a plaque that was supposed to hold the name of the person who commissioned the painting. The commissioner died before the painting was finished. I believe the city in the background was the commissioner's city, and rainbow presented peace and prosperity.

The one picture I was allowed to take

After we went to the Galleria, which was designed by da Vinci, and was the first indoor shopping "mall" ever. It had a lot of high-end designer shops, filled with pretty and expensive things!

Galleria

Galleria Dome

Good luck bullspin. Three times on your heel and you get good luck!

After this, we went to the Duomo, the largest Gothic Cathedral in all of Europe. One of the statues on the outside of the Duomo inspired the Statue of Liberty, too!

NOT my picture, obviously, but a good professional shot

Photography was forbidden inside, so I'll pull some from the internet to show you. We went inside, surprised to find out that there was a "horoscope" line at the back of the church. It was an astronomy/sunlight calendar, which would show what period of time in the zodiac it was by a little hole of light that fell on it from the east wall.

Interior of the Duomo.

We saw several bishops that had been buried and were on display. Some were only statues. Many had been buried on the Duomo's grounds. The mummified bishop/saint bodies had silver death masks so that you didn't have to see their decomposed faces in the display.

St. Bartholomew. Probably the creepiest statue. An apostle of Chrst, his punishment, how he was martyred, was being skinned alive. That's his skin he's wearing/holding.

I lit a candle and prayed for my family in front of the Virgin Mary before we headed out.

Now that we were leaving, we were hungry and needed to purchase some tickets for Nice, France. Molly and I got some roasted chestnuts, and they were delicious! You can't really get these in America. They tasted like potatoes, just slightly sweet. We went down to the Metro underground, and rode the train to the Central Train books station. On the way there, we ran into a large group of guys going to the Inter Milan/Milan A.C. game. It was a huge deal, and Alvaro got tickets with his best friend at the Consulate's office, Sunil, and his brother and father. These guys were jumping up and down chanting "Go Inter!" The Metro wasn't actually that difficult to understand, even in Italian. I love Metros, I really do! All metropolitan cities should have them (hint, hint, Nashville!!!). We didn't run into any gypsies/pick-pockets on the way to Central. At Central, we waited about 40 minutes to get our number called (not bad) since we couldn't get the tickets online. Molly and I sat on a low bar rail. We basically had to squat down, and it was actually really good on our backs to do that. It wasn't that bad of a wait. We booked tickets to Nice for less thatn 50 Euro a piece! W00T! We're going later.

On the train back home, we saw some gypsy/ pick-pocket girls that had harassed Molly before. They were going after a lady with an open bag (big mistake) that didn't zip up, but once the lady figured out what they were doing, we saw them back off. The trick is to keep your wallet in your front pocket and to keep your purse zipped up at all times.

At home, we went back to Ted One for drinks with Karina, Raj, Arun, and Sunil. Raj, Arun, Sunil, and Alvaro went on to the Inter/Milan football match, and Karina, Molly, and I went back to the apartment to make dinner and watch the match (also to watch for the guys on TV).

I went to bed after taking 2 benadryl and a melatonin. It knocked me out! I guess I needed that since I was so lacking in sleep for the last few days!

To be continued in Day 3, on my own...