Milan Italy

Earlier this year I took a trip to see one of my absolute best friend and sister and practically my sister in Italy. We hosted her a few years ago as a foreign exchange student, and as many people who host exchange students understand, they become your family too. You magically gain another child, a sibling, and a whole extended family. I don’t even know where to begin with this trip, so best to start at the beginning right? The flight I took only had one layover, in New York, and was about a total (to include the lay over) 17 hours. The flight was really comfortable surprisingly and had really good food too, contrary to the stereotype that airline food isn’t good (insert bad comedian joke about airline food here)! I had landed in Milan early in the morning and was greeted by my friend/sister and her boyfriend, and I got to begin my trip with a bus ride to the city and a short walk to his apartment. And let me tell you the trip from the Melpensa Airport to Milan was breath taking, and little did I know, this was only the beginning of my starstruckness with this beautiful city. After getting freshened up, we drove over to a pizzeria where her and her dad’s family meets each week to have lunch together and got to meet some of my new Italian family. Later in the day we made our way back to her mom’s place where I got to meet my new Italian mom, my new sister and brother, and her mom’s boyfriend. They were all so welcoming and so excited to show me their beautiful city. I was in Italy for 10 days and stayed in Milan only this time. But let me tell you, Milan is so underrated. I deeply and truly wish I could have been there for much longer than 10 days. They have such a beautiful city and city center with so many great places to shop, so many fun things to see, and so many amazing restaurants. Something I had to get use to seeing that is very different from here in America is dogs being in basically every building. Here in America you have to have a registered service dog for it to be allowed in stores and restaurants with you, in Italy they are allowed everywhere, no questions asked. I saw dogs in restaurants, the mall, even designer stores like Guess! Needless to say I was a bit in heaven between the amazing food, the history and old architecture, seeing dogs everywhere, and yes even the shopping. There were so many cool things there that it’s hard to write about all of it in one go so I will be writing more posts soon about the places I ate at, places I visited, and some of the other really neat things about my trip. I’m already planning for another trip back here in the near future and cannot wait. You always here about Rome, Pisa, Tuscany, Venice, and other big tourist loved place, but if you’re ever looking at going to Italy, make a stop in Milan. And not just a quick few hours, make it a day or two at least.