Italy and the state of my feet

              Tuesday was probably the longest day on this trip so far. We woke up at 2:50 am to make sure we were all packed and ready to leave Kinlay house at 3:30 am for the airport. We then proceeded to be an hour earlier than we needed to be for our 6 am flight, because our professor was scared there was going to be a rush. After a needed Starbucks visit, we got to our gate in the Dublin airport. I appreciated the outside of the Dublin airport because it was lit up and beautifully built. I did not appreciate the inside of the airport, as there were just really long hallways with nothing in them to take to gates where there were no bathrooms or anything at all besides lines. Anyways, we got on our flight (with two less bags I could cry about having just one carry-on for our trip to Italy) and made a 2 hour trip on which I slept most of the time. We got off and headed straight through passport control and towards our bus, which took us from the Bergamo airport to Desenzano. We were staying in Desenzano at the Aurora hotel and making day trips to everywhere else since it’s in the middle of Milan and Venice. Since we had landed at 8 am Italy time, we got into Desenzano around 11 with enough time to explore the city. First we walked up and down the market that was down one of the main streets and picked up a few cheap things. We grabbed an amazing lunch of Italian pizza (which has to be one of my favorite dishes there because it has more of an olive oil base than tomato) where the waiter took our badly spoken Italian orders and proceeded to use the wrong pronunciations we used when he presented the food laughing and told us the right way to pronounce our food. Since Desenzano isn’t exactly a tourist city we experienced some language barrier while we stayed there, but I still remembered some phrases from the last time I went and I learned some essential words to get through the week.

The "Old Harbor" in the middle of Desenzano

Desenzano from the water

Harbor at Desenzano

              Tuesday still was even longer as after lunch, we explored the city seeing the castle that sits at the top of the hill looking down on the city and seeing the pebble beaches which line the lake Desenzano sits near. We went window shopping and walked through the alleys and cobblestoned streets trying to scope out what we wanted to eat later and where would be good places to go. We sat down for dinner a short while later and our new professor Jarrod who is taking over after we get back from Italy also ate with us. I got seafood pasta and Jarrod accidentally engaged one of the guys who were going around with roses so he ended up having to pay for the roses that were thrust into all the girl’s hands at the table. He joked that it would be on the University, but he just laughed about the fact that it had happened so quickly!

              Wednesday was Milan day. We walked to and then took a train in the morning which was around 2 hours into Milan. Then we quickly went to the subway and took two lines to get to the edge of the city where the Salone del Mobile Milano was. This is a HUGE convention center with 24 exhibit halls which were all filled with design companies showing off their best stuff and student work as well. I would recommend anyone who likes to walk through Ikea, likes looking at home magazines, or even just appreciates design should for sure go to this Salone. I wished I could’ve stayed for 4 more days though to see everything because for reference, out of those 24 exhibit halls I only saw 6 of them and we were hustling because we only had a couple of hours. The original plan of going into Milan was to go to the Salon and walk around for 2 hours, then meet up with an Auburn alumni from our program, and then leave to go see The Last Supper. When we reached Chris Gibbons, the Auburn alumni, as a group we decided to veto The Last Supper so that we could stay and look around for longer. It was a perfect amount of time to see what we could before the fatigue of the day caught up to us. What I didn’t realize was that the Salon is something like 3 miles long and you have to walk a good distance with help from those moving sidewalks to walk between exhibit halls. I also, dumbly, was excited that the weather in Italy was warm and sunny rather than rainy and cold so I wore sandals. Little did I know how much walking I would be doing so after leaving the Salon I was happy to be sitting on the subway towards the Duomo. We got off of the Duomo stop and split off to catch separate trains back to Desenzano by the end of the day. Christina and Ashley stuck with me and we made a wide ark of the Duomo going down the side alleys before having to heading back on the subway to the train around 7:30.

The housing for the convention center!

At the Salone

One of the exhibits to draw attention

I just liked this chair, cool back!

Flatpack Lighting

Interesting chair setup!

Pantone chair with miniatures

              Thursday we did another day trip, but this time to Venice. I have been to Venice before, but we got off a ferry the first time. Coming off a train is the completely opposite side of Venice which I was grateful for. We collected as a group and made the trek to the heart of the city. After getting dumped out into St. Marco’s square, we had free time in Venice for about 4-5 hours. I ended up being in a group of my friends - Ashley, Shari, and Becca – and we walked around, found a place to eat lunch, and then ran into our professor Jarrod about 4 times without seeing anyone else! We walked with him occasionally if he was going same direction we wanted to go, and Jarrod and I ended up placing a bet on who could walk the most steps, him or me, because we both had Fitbits (I won by the way!). Eventually we split off after realizing Jarrod probably wouldn’t want to go around shopping with us. We found a leather store where Ashley and Becca both got purses and I found a nice wallet in a rich brown color. We walked around window shopping in the expensive places and really had to take a lot of breaks to soothe our tired feet. As previously stated my footwear for the Italy trip was not wisely picked out, so by the end of the day I had a couple blisters and a weird step pattern that I tried to use to ease the pain. Anyways, 38 bridges, 2 gelato cones, and a cup of sangria later, we met back up as a group at the train station to catch the train back to Desenzano.

View from St. Marco's square

Cool view of the flags

Cute little canal and bridge

View off of one of the Grand Canals

Plaque of Venice

              Friday we had a free day where we had to be back before 6:30 pm to make sure we could get to the airport in time. There was a ferry that could take across the lake to the peninsula town called Sirmione so a group of us decided to do that. There is a castle inside the town that is much grander than the one in Desenzano so we poked around that for a bit, and grabbed a quick bite to eat. We did some more window shopping and some souvenir shopping before making it down to the beach. We wanted today to be a chill day to let our feet have a rest so we just sat looking out on the water and the mountains for a little while before heading back into town. I went into a shop that had 135 different gelato flavors and they were crazy about handing you samples. They were just thrusting them into your hands speaking in rapid Italian so that before I even ordered anything I had 7 generous sample spoons worth of gelato. I ended up going with an apple flavor and another flavor that I don’t even know what it’s English name is because there was no picture or obvious translation, but it was good. We then caught an even quicker ferry ride back into Deszenzano with very full stomachs so we ended up just sitting around watching the Italian version of old MTV where it’s just music videos all the time. We got picked up the bus not too much later and headed back to Bergamo to catch our flight back into Dublin. We grabbed our other bags from the luggage locker that we left them and then checked into Kinlay house for the last time. By the time I had repacked everything and got ready for bed it was 2:30 am so at least it was full circle on our Italy trip!

Sirmione Castle

The beach and the water in Sirmione

              Today we have taken a train from Dublin into Belfast, so that we can take a ferry to Scotland. The train was uneventful and we are back in the same hostel in the same rooms that we were the last time we were in Belfast. We had to work on a PowerPoint of what we did in Carlow for a grade so that’s all we’ve really been doing. I did have Indian fusion food when Ashley and I were craving Mexican food and then with a couple of friends found a burrito place that was actually really Indian food in burritos and tacos! I thoroughly enjoyed it, even if my mouth was on fire for half the burrito bowl! Anyways, the day is just to catch up on sleep and blogging so that tomorrow we can be ready to move to Scotland! Talk to you about it soon!