After waking up in our beds literally inches apart from each other in the little town of Padua (*Alex Popichak voice* “how quaint”), finally found fruit at breakfast for the first time on the trip, then proceeded to take, like, most of the bananas and aforementioned fruit with us, we were off to Milan.
It immediately felt like a city, even more so than Rome. This is one we all had been waiting for, because how could you expect anything different from a group of 30+ girls going to a fashion capital of the world.
Even as soon as we met our local tour guide, Simone, we knew the city was not playing around. You should’ve seen him, just low key in his Tommy Hilfinger sweater upstaging literally every single of us. Whatever, it’s fine.
Before our tour of the Duomo di Milano, we had to walk through the Quadrilatero della Moda which houses one of the city’s top fashion districts. To the left you had Chanel then Gucci to the right then Prada on the left then Louis Vuitton up ahead. It reminded me of that one episode of SpongeBob where he and Patrick had to suffer crossing through the perfume section of a women’s department store. It was one of those episodes with the really dysfunctional humor. Anyone remember? Just me? Okay.
But it felt like that because dear God it took every ounce of self control and will power in me to not stare too long. They were beautiful. Every single storefront had a gold logo against shiny black because ~*aesthetics*~ and that even McDonald’s at one point had to comply with that rule within the mall.
Our trip was in the homestretch, so before exiting the mall and seeing the Duomo with my own eyes, I took a second to remember what it was like when all of these things on our trip were just pictures. The canals of Venice, the Florence skyline, the Colosseum, all just pictures before and now they each have stories and meaning and memories. The Duomo was the last major thing we would encounter that falls under that same category.
Outside and inside, the Duomo is by far my favorite church from this trip. It’s the fourth largest in the world but the ornate and intricate detail makes it a Simone in a world of college-aged American girls. (Praying someone appreciates that metaphor.)
And apparently, we were told upon walking in that there’s a tiny hole in the ceiling that at a certain time shines light into the church and falls onto a zodiac sign tile on the floor and indicates the time of year it is. Who thinks of these things? Who executes them?
That being said, this is another one of those cases in which I’ll just throw some photos here; my words don’t do it justice.
We also saw a statue of a hand flipping the bird, which began as an ambiguous art installation and later became embraced by the people of Milan and turned permanent. See photo. You’re welcome.
Before returning to the hotel, we got calzones that didn’t taste like straight-up grease (@America), continued to feel intimidated by the beautiful people of Milan wearing clothes worth more than my first born, and Kost held a $2,200 Versace purse.
The bus ride back had some misty-eyes on board because we gave Matteo his thank you card. At the hotel, a few of us stuck around to say our goodbyes. I’m not sure how to convey truly how good he is at his job and how unique he made the trip with his personality and quirky phrases and seven languages he just casually speaks. To say we were sad to see him go is an understatement, but off to Barcelona he went to meet a far less fun and far less exciting tour group, and I only say that because Point Park knows how to put together a darn good trip.
One that is sadly rapidly approaching the end. Not thinking about it yet.