Living in Milano Summer 2019

Ciao Ciao!

Where do I even begin with my whirlwind summer? Before I even left for Milan, I had packed up my college house and drove back to Parkland, flew to New York City to film Dateline, Gulf Shores for Hangout Fest, Georgia for a wedding, Columbus for the Reagan’s park dedication, and D.C. to visit my boyfriend. After all of these trips, I had 4 days from returning from my visit in D.C. before flying out to Venice, Italy on June 13th. You can find my diary-like travel blogs from Venice, Florence and Milan all linked below.

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Oct 14, 2019

December Travel Destination...

Oct 14, 2019

Jul 28, 2019

Summer 2019: Milan

Jul 28, 2019

Jul 2, 2019

Summer 2019: Florence

Jul 2, 2019

Jun 26, 2019

Packing Abroad

Jun 26, 2019

Jun 19, 2019

Summer 2019: Venice

Jun 19, 2019

After my family left on June 22nd, I officially left our hotel in Milan and taxied over to my apartment, where I moved my belongings in the day before and spent that previous evening with my family. Like I briefly mentioned in my Milan travel update, I lived in the south end of the city, close to the Navigli neighborhood, which is on the canals. Navigli hosts a ton of night life with its bustling restaurants and bars.

My Milan bedroom and view off of my balcony

It really was way more spacious than I was expecting!

I became very close with my roommate, Taylor, who also attends Alabama, but we had no clue one another was coming to Milan, until we got our housing assignments. I’d say this random paring worked out in our favor, there’s no one else I'd rather carry six 1.5L water bottles home with after our grocery trips, go to our favorite sushi restaurant (Italian everyday was a bit much), clink a Hugo spritz with (New favorite drink, recipe can be found under my “Lifestyle” tab), or have a girls night in watching KUWTK. We shared our first course Fashion Marketing & Communication together, where we met our other close friends who lived down the street from us, Courtney, Belle and Lauren. Their fourth roommate Jacqueline, was in a different course during these first two weeks, but we saw her often during the evenings hanging around the Navigli. We had another friend from our marketing class named Reece, who lived in-between our apartments, she even knew some sorority sisters of mine that she met at her previous study abroad a few weeks before. These 6 girls were who I traveled with on the weekends to Lake Como, Venice (I know, I know I had already been, but it was just such a storybook place), and Genoa.

Lake Como: June 29th, 2019

This was a quick day trip on a Saturday morning, during the first heat wave, so we wanted escape our burning apartment with no a/c as often as we could. The morning started off with some wine to go, but we were quickly scolded by Valentina (our study abroad coordinator), who let us know its not normal to drink wine at 9am. Gosh, who knew? Either way, we rode the short train ride drink less, not how I’m used to traveling (@mom @dad @jamie fancy an AM mimosa cart?) We rode around Como on the public water taxi and stopped at a small island to tour a cathedral and see a smaller community of Como. Then, we headed back to the mainland for a lovely lunch. We thought it was done after the first plate, but were sorely mistaken when fresh French fries and pasta popped out, followed by a vanilla gelato with chocolate syrup. We took the funicular up to the top of Como for an amazing view where we could see the edge of Switzerland. During some free time, we spent it shopping and found a store called “Mucci Mu” where the owner had some of her own creations on display. I bought a white jumpsuit with red and pink roses made from fabric that was used for a Versace design she helped create. This was such a draining day, we were so excited to get on our train home and crawl into bed after a cold shower to combat the ongoing heat.

Venice: July 6th- July 8th, 2019

I couldn’t stay away from Venice for long, I found myself traveling back with my classmates and roommate Taylor. Our classmates had already booked their train travel and Airbnb, so Taylor and I booked separate tickets to meet them there. We left after school and headed to Milano Centrale and onto Venice. While at the train station, I received an email from our Airbnb saying their water pipes burst and couldn’t be fixed for our stay, but fortunately enough, they had already booked us a hotel room Since I had been there before, I was very much aware of the expense of taking the private water taxis to get around Venice, so we used the public water transport system, which was a great learning experience. As I’m used to traveling with my parents and booking private transportation, I was proud to go out of my comfort zone and become more like a local. We checked into our hotel room and went off exploring. It was great that I had my bearings about this city and an understanding of the narrow and twisting pathways. We stopped off for lunch together and met up with our classmates for some retail therapy. We headed back to our hotels before dinner. Dinner was quite an experience if I do say so myself. We ate along the Grand Canal, which was our first tourist mistake. We had terrible service and were treated so poorly during the meal, when it was time to pay our bill we just wanted to get out of there. Well, our waiter decided to get the entire staff on board to harass us and claim we had to pay special fees just because we weren’t natives and if we refused, he’d call the police on us. We sucked it up and paid his fees and quickly left extremely upset. We ended the night at the “Bra Bar” for some much needed drinks. Our bartender started to get concerned when we racked up a 200 euro bill on two rounds, so we paid that tab and started another, a good night right! But, being honest we did have 6 girls all ordering on one tab so it wasn’t that crazy. We ended into the morning, and grabbed some pasta and pizza to go from an amazing local shop. The next morning we all met up to taxi over to Burano, an island known for its colorful architecture. Unfortunately, the other girls train was that day and they ended up not getting to visit with us. Taylor and I explored for a little bit before the weather took a turn for the worse and we ended up in torrential downpour and rode back to Venice soaking wet for an hour. After we cleaned up, we were desperate for some American cuisine (ironic in Italy right?), and ate at the Hard Rock Cafe to get a classic salad smothered in ranch. Boy, did we miss ranch! We ended our night with a few drinks and headed back to pack up before our train the next morning. A water taxi later the next day, we found ourselves at the Saint Lucia station, this location is right on the edge of Venice. The other option to take a train out of Venice is Mestre, but I remembered from my last visit in Venice, our driver told us Mestre is an area that is full of unrest and not safe to be in. Plus, Mestre is on the mainland outside of Venice, as St. Lucia was directly in Venice. Instead of taking a land taxi, we bought one way passes for a small train heading towards Mestre to change trains for Milan. Of course this counld’t go smoothly, I pulled Taylor off the train with me at the first stop after St. Lucia like the rail worker told us to back in Venice, but in reality we needed to wait 2 stops before switching over. When I tell you we were on the side of a highway, we were literally sitting on the edge of a highway at a train station for cargo trains. Luckily, a sanitation worker was able to help us locate the upcoming train that would stop to pick us up to go to Mestre, as this wasn’t an official stop for people, there was no signs or boards for us to check. With his help, we grabbed the next train that stopped and make it in time to switch to our Milan train. After getting into Milan, we used the underground to get back to our apartment. What a long weekend of travel it was!

Genoa: July 12th- July 14th, 2019

Let me tell you about my time in Genoa, a port city in Northwestern Italy. We took a train after school to Milano Centrale and then onto Genoa Principe. We weren’t expecting the train to be a commuter train, but we definitely thought all passengers would at least have to sit in a seat, that isn’t too much to expect right? Well we were sorely mistaken when businessmen and women would pile onto the train at each stop and pack in like sardines. I felt like I was on the Indian train shown in the movie, “Lion”. After some Italians starting to gang up on us for talking too much during this sweltering hot train ride, that’s right I forgot to mention the lack of A/C and window breeze, we popped off on the platform, grateful to escape that hellish commuter car. Leaving the train did not go off without a hitch though, as I dropped my sunglasses under the train, but luckily for my sake, Courtney didn’t hesitate throwing her bag to the side and sticking half of her body on the tracks to save them right before the train pulled off. If you haven’t traveled on a European railway, you wouldn’t know how short the duration of each stop at a platform is, so were lucky we didn’t have to pickup Court’s limbs off the tracks. Our hotel was right by the station, making it an easy walk and we found close by “Kebap” place for a future 2 am snack. Still not sure what “Kebap” was, but I just know they had some pretty good fries and mozzarella sticks for being open so late. We didn’t venture out much that night, we dined at a restaurant across the street from the hotel. There was live music and dancing, so that kept us entertained. The next morning, we toured the Aquarium of Genoa and walked the streets making plans for our evening. We were told about a beach club and how to use the bus to get there, as we could barely ever find a taxi and an uber was out of the question. Unlike Milan, they didn’t have their underground on for use. We slowly figured out how to get to Estoril Beach Club, taking notes the whole way there so we knew which buses to use to get home. We were told the busses ran until 6 am, so no trouble there right? Just hold that thought. After a great dinner on a patio over looking the Ligurian Sea. Per recommendation of our bellman, we stayed for a night of dancing on the beach at the restaurants disco club as they call it. Once we decided we needed to wrap the night up, we climbed to street level and began looking for the bus stop we arrived at earlier that day. A local quickly let us know that buses stop running around 2am, taxis don’t run barely ever and Uber doesn’t exist there. 6 girls in heels quickly made the realization that we would have to walk AN HOUR home to the hotel. As we had no other option, we sucked it up and trekked home. As we were checking out the next day, we were told the hotel had space for us to put our luggage in and lock it, but all we were shown was a closet with no means to lock it. This meant we drug our suitcases around Genoa until our train at 4pm. I’m sure we were quiet the sight going in and out of restaurants. We really wanted to go to the beach, where we had been the evening before, so we made our way to that side of town, luggage and all. The beaches are more of a rock beach and not a single one had day passes if you weren’t a guest of the hotel. So we found ourselves at a bar/restaurant on a cliff overlooking the sea where we relaxed until we needed to head back for our train to Milan. By this time, we were pros with the bus lines and made it to the station so quick to be sure we got seats on our tiny train back, again they didn’t assign seats it was more of a push and shove if you want one. Luckily, we all got seats somewhere in the same train car and ended in Milan exhausted from our travels. Starving too and knowing the local grocery by our apartments would be closed, we opted for McDonald’s and metroed back to Via Tibaldi for a much needed sleep.

Lauren, Reece, Courtney, Belle, Taylor, Myself, & Jacqueline at a school function

Right after school ended, my mom flew back to Milan where we took a day trip to meet Roberto Coin (Yes! I’m being serious we met him and privately spent the day at his factory & headquarters. Separate post to come) and at the same time my dad was in Ireland at the British Open (he even went to Shane Lowry’s private celebration after) and flew into Milan to meet my mom & I for a few days sightseeing where I spent the past month and a half. We also took a day trip to Lake Como and had a private water taxi driver and a translator/tour guide for the day, we ate on an island that only had a restaurant at the top of it where celebrities like George Clooney, Brad Pitt and Jennifer Anniston have frequented when in Como. We also toured the villa where James Bond and Star Wars were filmed. This was a relaxing way to end my stay in Italy!