April 13 again

4-13 #2
Well here we are at the final blog of my spring break. It’s taken me hours to write these! Time I could have spent doing homework and writing all the papers I have to do for the end of the year. I hope you appreciate my sacrifice! J
I arrived in Milan at about quarter to nine in the morning. It was a little strange to wake up on a train. At first, I was rather disappointed in Milan. It had much more of a big city feel than I was expecting, and I had just come from Salzburg, which was, in all fairness, very hard to top. I was also not in a very good mood. I tripped going up the escalator and banged up my knee (the skin’s scratched open and there’s a huge bump and a bruise). Then I had trouble finding my hostel. The directions say get out at this metro stop and it’s 30 meters away, but they don’t say in which direction. I asked a guy (I showed him the address on my sheet so he would understand me) who asked another guy who asked another guy and I finally got directions. But it was complicated. And in Italian. They did use a little English, and I was able to understand a little of the Italian thanks to Spanish, so I understood the directions. I got in my hostel, dropped my stuff, and went exploring.
When I got out of the metro there were all these guys from Africa who were trying to hand out those little bracelets made from colored string. They were supposed to be good luck or something. This is another thing that added to my bad mood. Those men were absolutely relentless! I tried to walk past, this guy came right up to me, and I shook my head and said no. He dropped the bracelet on my shoulder. I picked it off and started walking away, intending to throw it in the nearest garbage can. He called me back, holding out his hand. So I thought maybe he wanted it back. I held it out to him and he grabbed my wrist and tried to put it on me. I said I don’t want it and he said “no, it’s ok.” I yanked my hand away saying “I don’t want it!!” and walked away. I thought that was absolutely uncalled for for him to actually grab my wrist. Not to mention it was a little frightening. I don’t think he meant to scare me, but he sure wanted me to take that bracelet. I think they give it to you and then ask for donations, but there was no way I was giving him any money, especially after that! And they weren’t just there; they were at several of the big touristy places. Though none of the ones I ran across later were that persistent. I just put on a scowl as I walked past and most of them left me alone. Most of them.
The first place I went to was the Duomo, which is the cathedral in Milan. Holy crap! I don’t think I’ve ever seen such a stunning building. There’s so much carved stone and intricate detail that whole thing looks like it’s made from lace. It’s the second biggest church in Italy, second only to St. Peter’s Basilica in Rome. The inside is filled with huge pillars and gorgeous stained glass windows. The floor is all patterned in black and white and reddish flowery designs. It was Maundy Thursday, so there was a service going on when I was there, and the priests were singing. It sounded so cool! They had this thing outside where you can take an elevator up to the roof, so I was like: yes please!! It was so cool! We got to walk around on the roof of the Duomo, surrounded by those carved peaks and statues, looking out across the city and the roofline. It was amazing!
I decided to do the Hop on hop off tour again, since it had been so good in Budapest. But it wasn’t as good. There was a double decker bus, which was cool, but on the top there were these huge yellow bars across to keep people from falling out, but they made taking good pictures virtually impossible. But if I sat on the bottom of the bus I wouldn’t have been able to see as much of the buildings. Also, in Budapest the busses came every 20 minutes, but in Milan it was every 45 or 50 minutes. So if you wanted to hop off to look at a church or something you had to wait so much longer to get back on. But on the plus side, it was an easy way to see the city and to get from site to site.
I took the bus to the Castello Sforzesco, which is the castle where the Sforzas and Visontis lived. They were two of the major ruling families during the Renaissance. I was happy because I had learned a little bit about some of them, namely Giangaleazzo Visconti, in my Renaissance Florence history class last year. There was a drawbridge that went over what was once a moat but now it’s just grass. Inside, there were a lot of open courtyards, some with gardens. There were also a bunch of museums: decorative art, furniture, tapestries, antique weapons, and Egyptian art. There was also supposedly a museum of antique instruments, but I couldn’t find it. In the art museum, there was a da Vinci painting of Madonna and child. I don’t know the name of it, but I recognized it. On the back it said it was removed from the panel on which it was painted by da Vinci and transferred to that canvas in 1758. I don’t really know what that means; if they actually moved the painting to a different canvas, or what. Can they do that? There was also a copy of da Vinci’s “Madonna of the Rocks.” At least, I assume it was a copy, since the original is in the Louvre, right? But there were also several other Italian Renaissance paintings I recognized. It was rather exciting. They also had a Pieta statue by Michelangelo. It wasn’t the one I knew, but it was still really cool to see an original statue by Michelangelo!
Behind the castle there’s a big park with a lake (and more of those accursed bracelet guys). It was such a nice day that I walked around a bit. On the other side of the park’s the Arch of Peace, which is a big stone doorway that’s a big monument. But it was all covered with scaffolding and tarps, so I couldn’t see it well. It was disappointing.
I got back on the tour bus and rode around the rest of the circuit back to the Duomo. Then I walked to La Scala Opera House. For the few of you who have never heard of La Scala (J) it’s only one of the most important opera houses in Europe. We talked quite a bit about it in my Romantic Styles music history class. Milan was one of the four major opera cities during the 19th century. There’s a museum there that I went to. I was able to peek into the auditorium area from one of the boxes. It was a stunning theatre; all red velvet and gold. It said no pictures, but I took pictures. Of course. The museum was cool. It had everything from instruments that were played during performances over the centuries, to portraits of famous performers, to the eyeglasses of . . . of . . . oh crap, now I can’t remember whose they were. I’m thinking either Strauss or Schubert. Anyway, some famous composer’s eyeglasses. There was also a bunch of jewelry worn as costumes and posters for the various operas that have been performed. It was really cool for a music nerd like me!
I decided after that to get some gelato (I’d never had gelato before. It’s amazing!) and go back to my hostel. There was a guy staying in my room who came in a bit after I did and we started talking. He was from England, near Oxford. I told him I was going to be visiting England in May and asked if he had any suggestions of places to see. He gave me a big list of ideas and tips. Then he asked what he should see if he went to America. I realized it’s really hard to pick out some “typical” American sites. I guess there are the touristy sights like NYC and the Grand Canyon and stuff like that. But there isn’t really any one place you can go and see the “normal” America. There’s so much diversity between the people and the cities and the landscapes and stuff. I tried to give him some ideas, but I told him it really depends on what kind of thing you want to see. Not to mention that they’re all so far away. It’s not like you can hop on a train in the morning and be on the other side of the country by the afternoon or evening like in England. Or pretty much any country in Europe.
Next morning I still had a few hours left on my 24 hour bus tour, and I hadn’t seen all of the red line (there are two circuits: red and blue. I had seen the whole blue line and only half of the red the day before). So I hopped on and made my way around. I got off at one stop, the church of San Lorenzo Maggiore, which was mentioned in my research of places I should go in Milan. It was nice enough, but I was kind of disappointed. It was in a not-quite-excellent neighborhood. Not really bad, but not somewhere I would want to walk alone at night. And inside the church was small and there was paint peeling off of the paintings on the walls. It wasn’t really worth the stop and the 45 minutes of waiting for the bus to come back around. At that stop there was also supposed to be a roman amphitheatre, but I walked around and couldn’t find it. I was afraid I would get lost, and like I said, the area wasn’t the greatest, so I didn’t go out of my way to search for it. So I sat for a half hour at the bus stop and checked my email via my phone for the first time in a week. Those emails sure do pile up!
I went back to the Duomo and went in again when there wasn’t a service going on. I was able to go a little farther into the church, since it had been blocked off for mass last time. It was just as beautiful the second time!
I spent quite a while that afternoon visiting various churches. I went to San Ambrogio, San Marco, and San Maurizio. San Maurizio was also very unique. It was covered with paintings, painted directly onto the walls. Almost every inch was painted. It was beautiful. I think that was my favorite of the non-Duomo churches in Milan. San Ambrogio was also memorable. The church was nice, but what stood out was in the room just behind the altar where the relics were. Up to this point I’ve seen fingers, skulls, and various other bones of saints. But in this church there were three full skeletons dressed up in finery all the way from the crowns on their heads to the sandals on their feet. It was a little eerie. I wondered who got the job of dressing a skeleton. I think I would have passed that one right along to whoever was beneath me. Delegation is a skill worth using in some circumstances.
The last church I went to was Santa Maria delle Grazie, which is where the original of Leonardo da Vinci’s Last Supper was painted and is displayed. I found out when I got there that you have to have reservations in advance, but I decided I’d wait in line anyway to see if there was an opening in a tour that was already going out. Then a guy came out and told all the people waiting that they were booked up for two weeks. So unless you had made a reservation two weeks ahead of time you couldn’t see the Last Supper. I wasn’t really expecting to be able to see it anyway, without a reservation, but who’s going to think to make a reservation two weeks ahead? Especially if they just find out when they get to Milan, as I did, that it’s there. It was dumb. They shouldn’t even have tours; they should just let people go in and see it on their own. It would save a lot of hassle and probably be cheaper for them. So I didn’t get to see the Last Supper. It was interesting, though; in a couple other churches there were what looked like imitations of da Vinci’s painting. One of them had the exact same setup, with the disciples and Jesus in exactly the same positions, but the style of painting was different. Their faces looked different. They weren’t as well defined or formed. I’m not sure exactly what it was about it, but it definitely looked like an inferior painter was trying to imitate da Vinci’s work.
After the church run I went to the Ambrosian art gallery, which is home to some of da Vinci’s original notebooks. It was so cool to see his sketches for inventions. And his backwards writing! There were also some of his paintings, along with those of Botticelli, Bernini, Caravaggio, and tons of others. There was even a preliminary sketch of School of Athens by Raphael (Danny, I’m thinking of you). It was in a beautiful building with stained glass and sweeping staircases. It was a very nice museum.
I had pretty much run out of things to do in Milan, so I went back to the Sforza Castle and sat in the garden for a while. Then I decided it was getting close enough to the time to head toward the airport. So I went back to my hostel and got my stuff, and went to the train station. I had to take a shuttle bus from there to the airport, which was about an hour away. Once I got there I went through all the normal airport hassle and then I only had to wait about an hour before boarding started. So I’m glad I left earlier than I had planned. I must have fallen asleep on the plane because it seemed a lot shorter than 2 hours. We actually landed 10 minutes early, but then we drove along the runway for a hundred years before actually stopping. I hopped on the metro and arrived home around 1:30am. I felt bad because I was going to have to call Rosaura and wake her up to let me in (they don’t let me take the key when I go on long trips), but they were still awake anyway. So I texted my parents to let them know I had gotten home safely and fell into bed.
The next morning was Sábado Santo, which is the Saturday right before Easter (Holy Saturday). Most of the processions for Holy Week in Spain are Thursday and Friday, but I had found a schedule and found out that there were two on Saturday. I was happy, because I didn’t want to miss everything! The first one was at 8am, which I decided wasn’t going to happen when my alarm went off at 7. The second was at 5pm, so I went to that. It was cool, but there were kind of a lot of people so it was a little hard to see. First came a drumline, and then a brass choir. Then the priests and various other church people processed out from their church, through the streets to the cathedral, and back to the church. They were all wearing those pointy hats that look like KKK outfits. Most of the ones in this procession were purple, but there were some black and red, too. After them came the statue of the Virgin Mary, all dressed up in finery, with her black cape and gold halo, surrounded by flowers. The statue was carried on a silver-encrusted thingy carried on the shoulders of four or eight men. I couldn’t see how many because there were tall people in the way. It was cool to see the Virgin coming down the narrow street, seemingly floating above the heads of the crowd. It’s funny to look at my pictures because you can see her progress coming towards me and then passing and getting farther away. So even though it was a smaller procession, I felt like I didn’t completely miss out on the traditional Spanish Holy Week celebrations.
Yesterday I went to Easter mass at the church whose procession I saw. It was the church of San Gines, which is the first Spanish church I ever saw. Rosaura took me there our first night together. It was nice to be in church on Easter, even though I didn’t understand all of the service and I didn’t know how to properly respond or when to sit, stand, or kneel. I sat near the back so I could imitate people. It was weird being away from home on Easter. It didn’t feel like Easter at all. I spent most of the day doing homework, writing blogs, and organizing my mess of pictures. I had bought a chocolate Easter bunny in Vienna that I saved and ate as a little Easter treat to myself.
Today I had off school still, and I was going to go to the Museo Thyssen-Bornemisza, but it’s closed on Mondays. So I walked around Madrid for a while, then went to FNAC to buy Harry Potter 3 in Spanish. I also found Golden Compass in paperback (the one I had found before was hardback and I didn’t want to buy such a big book), so I got that too. I almost wasn’t able to buy it. Last time I couldn’t use my credit card because I didn’t have proper identification. This time I brought my drivers license, which has always worked as ID before. The lady at the counter said that I needed a passport. I have no idea why. She said only a passport was acceptable. She was nice, however, and let it slide this time. So I was able to get my books. If I had been denied again I think I would never have gone to FNAC again! That’s a stupid rule, though. There’s nowhere else where I need my passport to use my credit card. But I got my books, and that’s what’s important.
I spent this afternoon writing the last two blogs and doing a bit more homework. It’s dinner time now, and I expect Rosaura will be knocking on my door any minute now. So I guess I’ll wrap up. I had an amazing spring break! And all my fears about traveling alone were completely unfounded, which was a relief. I am glad to be back, though, and glad I don’t have to worry about planning this trip anymore! Now I can focus on what needs to be done for May! And on the mountain of homework that is slowly suffocating me. I only have a month and two days until the end of exams, and a month and five days until I leave Spain!! Time is just flying by! I’m sure it’ll go even quicker now that spring break is done. Yikes! So much to do!
Oh, one more happy little thing. I came back from my walk today to find an envelope on my table. Tiff and Irene sent me an Easter card! It’s one of those ones where you can record your message, so I was able to hear their voices. It was so sweet, and it made my day. Thanks so much, you guys! I put it up on my shelf so I can look at it. I just hope it doesn’t get bumped open and scare me when it starts giggling and talking!
Well, that’s it for now. I hope you’ve actually made it through all of this without falling asleep too many times! Love you and miss you all!
Bethany