Tarita Catalina: Wandering around Milan

Front Facade, Random building we stumbled across, Manerist

So we're on the train to Venice yay! And I've got my iPod playing with a bit of album leaf and city and colour. And there may also be an Asian attempting to sleep on my shoulder. Cutsie.

From Left: Asian, Me

Yesterday we had a massive day!! By massive I mean from dusk till dawn we walked around exploring Milan. By the end of the day we had ended up on the other side of the city and it was starting to get dark so we were forced to try and work out how to catch a tram. We had it all planned. We had memorised how to say 'does this tram go to Duomo?- Quale tram va a Duomo?' And we were all set to go. Then when the tram arrived we realise we didn't have tickets so we asked the driver, 'Bigiletti?' which in response he said, 'bar'. I said, 'mi scusi?' And again he said, 'bar bar!' And then a Italian tram passenger proceeded to say, 'bar bar!' pointing to the side of the tram. How was I suppose to know what the hell they meant. After a good while of me looking down right confused and asking over and over again we all worked out that they meant we could by tickets in the bar across the street. This seemed very odd but off we walked to this very fancy looking bar. We felt like trout at a salmon farm. But there, low and behold, in the corner of this fancy shmancy bar was a man at a counter. We were on the money. We went and said nervously, 'tram biglietti por favore?' And he said, 'si'. And we walked out with tickets in our hands, slightly confused about how strange and easy that was and also proud that we had fooled yet another innocent bystander into thinking were Italian. He was totally fooled. Many thanks to Jess's lonely planet Italian phrase book.

There are things that I'm missing about summer already. Like wake boarding of course. But not just that, the little things. Wearing a bikini and frolicking around under the sun. Someone said to me before I left, ' your going to be the most tanned person in all of Europe'. Well not that you can see it. I might as well be wearing a berka because all you can see is my eyes. I think we've been slightly cheated. It's cold enough here for snow but there isn't any. It all came just before we got here. We want snow god damn it!! Zurich is next though and that should have snow for sure. It is the Swiss alps after all.

Inside the Duomo

I can feel myself becoming numb here. When we arrived we thought it was crazy how everyone was just walking down the Galleria Vittorio Emanuele Li like its normal but now I can see why. There is soooooooo much beautiful architecture here that you can't keep up the awe for very long because it becomes exhausting. When walking out of the Duomo we were mentally exhausted.

Photo: Galleria Vittorio Emanuele Li

The Duomo is Italy's largest temple, French gothic, made of what we assumed is entirely marble and took 600 hundred years to build starting in the 1300's which is older than Australia's been founded. The outside is amazing. The inside is more than amazing. The outside can be seen as a solid entity of prettiness to behold but the inside suffocates you. Towering columns with intricate quadripartite vaults with pendentives. Storyboard plate glass windows that never end. Statues climbing the walls. Even imagining building something like that today is way to hard to comprehend, let alone 700 years ago.

It's hilarious walking around Milan with two fellow architecture students. If it was anyone else, I would keep the jargon to a minimum but instead we walked around imitating our lecturers going on and on guessing styles by characteristics and giving our 'professional opinions' which consisted of slandering everything. Until we realise we've been smack talking about a building that is actually really famous and everything we were saying and bitching about is wrong. Ha Ha we know our stuff ;)