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There and back again
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| We loved our Blue |
Today was a sad day indeed, for this was the day that we had to say goodbye to our Blue. We rented him in Milan, and we thought about doing a multi-city rental, where we'd drop the car off in Paris (our final destination), but that seemed to be more expensive, so we figured we'd just drive it back to Italy, and take a train into Paris. Our Blue had served us well, and we had spent a considerable amount of time in that car, drinking coke and eating Pringles. But our time with him was past. We had to return him to Milan.
Our route today took us through the Alps, and through the tunnel under Mount Blanc! I was pretty psyched up about that. We saw cool mountain views on the way, as well as a glacier. Entering the tunnel (and paying the $45 toll!), Lin-Wei began to tell the story of the tunnel fire that kill a ton of people because they got trapped in the tunnel a few years before. In fact, I think the tunnel had just opened again the year before! So we gave Blue a pep talk and asked him to get us through there without any funny business. And he complied.
As we got near Malpensa airport, the map said that there was a shortcut road from our highway up to the airport, so that we wouldn't have to go all the way into Milan, around the city, and back out to the airport.
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| We often wonder where Blue is today... |
But guess what? Can you guess? Yeah, we never saw that road. And we were in kind of a hurry-up mode. If we got the car back early, we could save one day of rental cost. But we ended up taking the loooong route, which ate up about an hour and a half. I hate that airport. But we got blue back to his home, and hugged him goodbye. At the rental office I asked if we could get a discount since we were still early. They were very cool about it, but all the guy did was scribble a note on a piece of paper. I figured he'd put something in on the computer. When I inquired about this, he told me not to worry: The rebate would appear on my credit card statement within three days. Was that a smirk I saw? Nah, probably not.
We had time to kill, and our guidebook said if you visit Milan, you must see Il Duomo, the fourth largest cathedral in the world. I'm always up for visiting old churches. We really enjoyed St. Paul's in London, so I was psyched up for this one. We took a bus from the airport to the central train station, and got in line to leave our bags with the luggage check. Lin-Wei kept saying we should check in, but we had our train tickets already, having purchased them over the web. So, sighing, I went with her to the long line for tickets. When we got to the teller, we showed him our tickets and asked if we had to check in. He looked at us like we were a couple of idiots, and said that we had our tickets. We were set.
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| That's a big church, ya? |
After that, we hiked to Il Duomo (even though the subway went right there! That woman loves to walk!). I was immediately impressed by the size, but disappointed that it was totally under renovation. As we walked through the square, a swarthy young man grabbed Lin-Wei's hand, and pried it open. "Hey!" she yelled, and I turned to see him place a bunch of corn in her hand. Immediately 20 pigeons swarmed her, trying to get at the corn. The guy then accosted me, telling me to take a picture. "Picture! Picture!" I figured out that this was some crappy way to beg money off us, so I refused (even though that picture would have been awesome, but I was pissed), but he kept demanding money from Lin-Wei and wouldn't leave her alone, so she finally threw a Euro at him so he'd leave us alone. I got a picture of them later attacking another young woman.
The inside of the church was neat, but we saw signs saying we could climb to the top. I was confused, but as we went up, I realized that they were letting us climb onto the roof of the cathedral! Holy moley!
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| The roof of Il Duomo |
This was like a dream come true for me. I don't know what it is, but I love climbing up old towers, the inside/outside of church domes. etc... There is just so much interesting stuff up there, and this was no exception. The number sculptures on Il Duomo is ming-boggling. I was in heaven up there. There were multiple levels of the roof, and we even got to the very top. We probably spent an hour up there, seeing the sights. I also found the world's weirdest apartment building.
Next we explored the medieval Milan castle/stronghold, then it was time for dinner. Our guidebook recommended a restaurant, and from the review it sounded like a fantastic place. Good food, friendly people, etc... So we checked it out. Our waiter was a young man from China, and seeing Lin-Wei he got excited, and started to speak Chinese. Lin-Wei grew up in Michigan, however, so she wasn't able to converse with him. Ordering was tough for some reason. Lin-Wei wanted a pizza, but with some of the toppings taken off, but they just weren't getting it. I ordered a sandwich, and while it may have been good by Autogrill standards, it was still quite bad. We had a lot left over, so we felt really bad and got a to-go bag. But as soon as we were out of sight of the restaurant, our bag slipped out of my hand, somehow, into the garbage.
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| The ultimate in comfort! |
We returned to the train station, picked up our luggage, and got a quick bite to eat. We found our train, and prepared to spend the night traveling to Paris. We got a first class ticket, which meant our own cabin, because we wanted to get some sleep that night. I was a bit disappointed in the size of the room, however, compared to the price we paid. As the train rolled from Milan, our thoughts went out to Blue, and to our final destination, Paris!
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 I got a thick crusted pizza with lots of cheese. I hated it. I wanted my normal flat crusted pizza with thin amount of cheese |
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