I finally succumbed to the "typical" American experience in Europe and went on a guided tour. Yeah, I know... Not my most individual and go-getter moment, but about 3 weeks into our trip and Abhinav and I are starting to get tired of doing everything on our own. So, we went on a 7 Hills Tour of the Vatican City with Andrea and 18 other people and I'm glad we did.

We woke up around 7:30 am and were at the walls of the Vatican City (after an easy metro ride) by 9:15. Andrea met us there and took us to a small coffee shop where we made small talk with couples from North Carolina and Florida (I REALLY felt American again, haha) while we waited for the rest of the group to arrive. We also met two girls from Canada who just flew into Rome the night before. Once all 20 (which is the max for 7 Hills Tours) of us arrived, we headed towards the Vatican Museum.

The lines to get into Vatican City were ridiculous because it's a Monday and most all the other attractions in Rome are closed. (The Colosseum is still open on Mondays though, I think.) Our tour guide got us into the city and into the Museum in under 15-20 minutes, max. He seemed to think that this was a disappointingly long wait time, but all of us were very happy. Abhinav and I also got a student discount because of our ISIC card (yay!), so that was another nice touch.

Painting? Sculpture? whooaaa

Another ridiculously cool thing that you can see in the Vatican are the ceilings (I'm not just talking about the famous ones!). Many rounded out ceilings in the Vatican have a 3D effect that's painted on! You can't really tell whether the figures that you're looking at above you are sculpted or painted. Both are there at the Vatican and it's very difficult to tell which one is which. Check out this pic and see if you can tell.

Later, after our Vatican outing, we ate at a nearby restaurant, recommended by Rick Steve's. It wasn't that awesome, but it satiated our appetites, which was much needed. Once we had our fill, we headed back to our dorm to pass out. Not too exciting, but I was happy to get some more sleep in :)

When I woke up this morning, I did not intend to have anything go as planned, much less actually see anything interesting today. I was TOTALLY wrong...

I actually woke up pretty late again. I think the 2 or so weeks of intense touring is finally starting to slow us down, so it was refreshing to take our time and understand that we might not see everything we wanted or planned to do today. Abhinav and I decided that it was best to just wander the streets of Rome, at our leisure, and take what it gives us in stride. I'm so glad we did this!

After taking nice showers, we decided to make our way towards the Pantheon. We took the metro as usual, but we realized that it was Sunday as soon as we went underground. There was barely a single soul in the metro station. Sunday mornings are exceptionally lazy in Roma :) We got out at the Termini station and got lost looking for bus #40 or bus #64 to take us to the Pantheon. Eventually, we got our bearings and managed to get onto to the express bus #40 that dropped us about 5 minutes away from the Pantheon. We got lost on our way a little once again, but it didn't bother me much, surprisingly. The weather was gorgeous and I was just happy to be out and about in Italy.

We were very hungry by this time, so Abhinav and I made up our minds that we would try Miscellanea, a restaurant that faced the back of the Pantheon and catered mainly to foreign-exchange students. Interestingly enough, there aren't a lot of students at this place since it comes highly recommended, especially by our Rick Steves' Italy guidebook. We wanted to eat inside and got a very nice Indian waiter, who directed us to a private corner table, away from most of the crowds. We immediately ordered two Italian espressos, which is going to become a staple of our diets since they are delizioso! I went with a roast turkey panini while Abhinav ordered a lasagna. We also had to order bruschetta al pomodoro as well :) Food is most definitely becoming the main highlight of our trip.

We met Rick Steves at Miscellanea in Rome!

The food was pretty good, nothing to write home about, but the amazing part was how our Rick Steves guidebook singlehandedly allowed us to have one of the coolest experiences in Italy. We didn't know this, but if you have this particular guidebook out on your table, you get a free glass of "sexy wine,"(see image above) which is made from a tasty strawberry-flavored grape and made exclusively by the owners of the restaurant. While we were enjoying our meal, the owner of Miscellena decided to pay our table a visit because we had the guidebook out on our table. He walked over, pointed to the guidebook, pointed to a man sitting a table away from us, and said "Rick Steves." We looked over, checked the picture on the back cover of the guidebook and, sure enough, it was him! We were star-struck as Mikki (the owner, very friendly guy) personally took us over to Rick's table and introduced us as one of his readers. I'm sure he gets this all the time, but he was still very patient with us when we asked for his autograph and a picture with him. He introduced us to his TV crew and told us he was shooting an episode for his show in Rome! It was really nice of him to acknowledge and take the time to get to know his readers. Abhinav even made it his facebook status :) I think he might tweet @ricksteves later too. We headed back to our table after taking our picture with Rick Steves, paid for our delicious meal, and then left, slightly bewildered by the fact that we just met the author of our guidebook, lol.

Chaos at the gelateria. Can you spot Abhinav?

We decided that we had to finish off our meal with Italian gelato so we consulted our trusty (now autographed) guidebook and chose Gelateria Caffé Pasticceria Giolitti to go to since it was close to the Pantheon. It was a madhouse in there. The crowd was more intense than the Colosseum for us, because the Roma Pass didn't work inside this little gelateria :( Here's a picture of the mayhem and Abhinav squeezed into a corner trying to get our order of two small cones. In the picture, you can see the ridiculous number of cones they have stacked on top of each other. I thought the cones were delicious, but Abhinav disagreed.

We ordered two piccolo (small) cones, which were HUGE. We each got two flavors on our cones. I got tiramisu and chocolate fondue while Abhinav got chocolate and mango. All of the flavors were delicious and it really was worth the chaos to taste the gelato that they made at Gelateria Caffé Pasticceria Giolitti. For the first time ever, Abhinav finished his ice cream before I even got half way through mine. That is definitely a testament to the deliciousness of this gelato. We sat underneath the portico of the Pantheon (which is casually called "Rome's umbrella") so that I could finish off my gelato. Once we got inside we actually realized we weren't allowed to do that. So, for future reference, don't eat underneath Rome's umbrella when you're in Rome.

Another thing to mention that we've been meaning to include in this blog: Italy has white pieces of stuff that float around in the air. I know that's a pretty terrible description, but I can't really think of anything else to really describe it. I think I might have gotten some of this in my eye outside of the Pantheon and it was not fun. But, the gelato made me feel better :)

The dome at the Pantheon

I think I've talked enough about the amazingness of the gelato. Now, on to the main topic of consideration: the Pantheon. This structure is gorgeous because it's not a "ruin." It's the best preserved interior of any of the ancient Roman buildings, so you can actually see and get an idea of what people felt when they walked through the doors to enter the building. If you want proof of its authenticity, you can actually see how the rest of the more modern buildings surrounding the Pantheon are elevated in comparison to the structure, which makes the ancient dome appear sunken into the ground. In actuality, the surrounding buildings are built on about 2 millennia of rubble.

Another reason why the Pantheon is interesting to see is its architecture, especially the massive dome that it has as its ceiling. For a very long time, no one really knew how the Romans built the ceiling. It was the biggest dome until the Renaissance. The Sistine Chapel is actually a little narrower than the dome at the Pantheon. During the Renaissance, they cut out a small block of the dome (you can see where they took out a portion of it when you visit) to figure out how it was constructed. That's a cool tid-bit of information that we got from our guidebook.

Raphael's tomb

The Pantheon is also the resting place of Raphael and the first two Italian Kings. I tried my best to take a good picture of Abhinav with Raphael's sarcophagus, but it was to no avail, unfortunately. This was the best that I could do, though. We didn't fare much better in any of the other structures in the monument also. There were numerous sculptures and Christian paintings, since the Pantheon was actually converted into a church (it's the reason it was left alone and wasn't pillaged).

After learning an excessive amount of history regarding the Pantheon, Abhinav and I (well, mostly me) were tired. So, we used our Roma Pass, didn't pay a dime, to get on the metro to head back to the hostel and rest up. It was a nice little one hour break before we decided where to go visit next. It was a toss up between the Capitoline Museums or the National Museum of Rome. Here's where our cheapness really shines through: we decided to go to the National Museum of Rome because it was the more expensive out of the two and we would get free admission using our Roma Pass. This way, we would really be getting the most out of the pass. So, after a short power nap, we headed off to the National Museum of Rome. Since it was a 10-minute walk from our hostel, we didn't have to take the metro and it was super convenient.

The dinning room!

The museum had a wealth of information on the statues and frescos of the wealthy citizens of Ancient Rome. We saw a copy of the famous discus thrower and took a picture next to it (see above). The coolest part of the museum for me was the recreation of a house of a wealthy Roman citizen with the original fresco walls and mosaic floors laid out where they would have been during those times. You could walk through the house and get a good idea of what it may have looked like back in the day.

Another ridiculously cool thing in this museum (Abhinav's favorite part), was a world famous coin collection of Italy's coinage. It was very informative and they had cool little movable magnifying glasses to observe the ancient coins in detail. Unfortunately, most of them didn't work very well, but the concept is pretty cool.

After perusing the enormous coin collection, we made our way back to the hostel in under 10 minutes tops. So, that was our awesome day in Rome. Tomorrow, we're going to see Vatican City super early in the morning so we need to get our rest. We'll keep you posted on our adventures tomorrow after our day touring the Vatican!

Abhinav liked the awesome coin collection at the National Museum of Rome! Can you see the movable magnifying glasses in the coin display cases?

Today was our first full day in Rome, and it was awesome. We got a taste of history, the local cuisine, and the local brew. The day started off late, since we didn't want to wake up at our originally planned 7:30 am. We ended up waking up around 9 am, and took our time getting out the door. 

We missed our cheap breakfast at the hotel, so our first thought when we got to the Colosseum was "Whoa! Ok now I'm really hungry." So we looked for a restaurant called Caffé dello Studente which was a couple blocks from the Colosseum. We ended up walking all the way around the Colosseum trying to get our bearings before we eventually found the place. This gave us a nice overview of the outside of the building, but because we were so hungry, we didn't really appreciate what was in front of us just yet. 

Once we got to the restaurant, we realized that we didnt' have any cash on us, and we found out that they didn't accept credit cards. So we walked down a bit closer to the Colosseum to another restaurant, called Oppio Grill and, although it was slightly expensive and I wasn't sure about the food initially, it was worth every penny. We got there around 11:30 and they had a 10€ brunch menu, which I ordered just in time at 11:50 am (that's how long it generally takes a waiter in Europe to get your order), while Sahna stuck with water and a Margherita Pizza. My brunch menu included an Italian espresso and I'm pretty sure I want to drink it the first thing in the morning for the rest of my life. It was delicious. At least that's what I got from the little I drank, since Sahna gulped down the rest of it, haha.

Next on my menu, was a delicious glass of freshly squeezed orange juice, another item on my menu that Sahna pretty much drank half of. (I let her drink the coffee and OJ because she was still feeling sick from yesterday. If she wasn't, I would have protected my food.) While we were working on the OJ, we got our platters of food and it was pretty good. I had cold cuts with cheese, scrambled eggs, bacon, and toast in one dish, while Sahna devoured her Pizza. This was the first good breakfast menu I had since that quick Eurohotel breakfast that we had to rush through in Milan before the Last Supper.

After cleaning off our plates, we got a delicious dessert that had cookies and gelato with whipped cream and chocolate sauce on top. The entire menu was delicious. We should have taken pictures, but I think we were eating too quickly to even think about taking some. Once we satiated our appetites and were waiting for our bill, we noticed that the Colosseum was right in the middle of our view from our table.  Yeah, we really were that hungry. Regardless, when we looked at the Colosseum with full stomachs, we were truly wowed at the enormous structure surrounded by modern roads and busy cars. We paid our bill and then walked down towards the entrance of one of the Ancient Wonders of the World.

Like I mentioned before, we bought Roma Passes yesterday, which was a very good idea since we basically skipped extremely long ticket line and got in to see the Colosseum in under 3 minutes tops. We tried not to look too smug while we walked past all the suckers waiting in line. Get the Roma Pass when you go to Rome!

Anyways, we got inside and then wandered around the ground level. We opted not to get the audio guide because there were plenty of signs posted everywhere in English on the ground level (and even more on the second level) that had a lot of information on the structure and history, so we probably would have heard the same thing in the audioguides. We also had a lot of information from the Rick Steve's guidebook and picked up small tidbits walking next to tour guides who were explaining certain parts of the monument to their groups (sneaky, I know). 

The structure itself isn't in the greatest condition, as evidenced by the huge chunk of it famously missing. With some imagination, though, we could envision it in it's heyday, holding 50,000 bloodthirsty Romans watching a gladiator fight to the death with a wild beast. They are doing some amount of restoration work, including a section the big wooden floor that was the stage under which are the labyrinthian passageways that dominates the rest of the Colosseum floor (a sliver of the wooden floor can be seen behind Sahna's left shoulder in this picture). All in all though, It's a pretty awesome structure for being built so many years ago to the size of a lot of modern stadiums. 

So after spending a fair share of time marveling at the Colosseum, we headed back outside and walked towards the ruins of the Forum. 

But I'm sleepy so I'll update more later! Believe me, there is a lot more to talk about our day.

Update:

House of the Vestal Virgins

More about our day in Rome! After the Colosseum, we took Rick Steve's guided walk through the Roman Forum, walking on the same path that Julius Caesar walked on around 2000 years ago. It was filled with history, including the site at which Caesar was stabbed and cremated. We also saw the house of the Vestal Virgins and the Temple of Vesta. Lots of historical significance, which Sahna loved, and I appreciated for a bit, then got a bit bored of, as usual.

WATER

We then hiked up Palatine Hill and saw Casa de Augustus, Casa di Livia (Augustus' wife), and the Stadium of Domitian, among other things. The highlight for me, though, was drinking from one of the public water spouts, which seemed like a very bad idea when I first saw one, but I was thirsty like crazy. I couldn't wait to slurp down the surprisingly cool and refreshing water, and probably drank half a liter of it from the same fountain. Here's a picture. I looked like someone walking through the desert and getting water for the first time in days...

I was pretty pooped at this point, so I convinced Sahna to go back to our hostel and take a bit of a "technology" break - a.k.a. I got to use the laptop and the internet after an entire day of looking at ruins. Once we got back, Sahna convinced me to go out and see Rome by night after about an hour break, so we headed back out for round 2 of sightseeing in Rome.

Round 2 was a lot more fun, because we didn't just visit ruins that left stuff to the imagination. We first went to Trevi Fountain, which was an exquisite bit of architecture, and the fountain aspect added to its glory. The place was crowded as hell, but it was cool to see in the late evening. We managed to get a few pictures, but people kept getting in our pictures so we didn't get that one perfect picture of both of us with the entire fountain behind us. We did our best, though.

One of our few good pictures of the Trevi Fountain

Reading the tablecloth

We then used Rick Steves' guide to find ourselves a historic "birreria" (pub) called L'Antica Birreria Peroni, located a few blocks from the Trevi Fountain. The ambience of the place was awesome, with cool frescoes on the walls and a bustling atmosphere. We got very lucky and only had a 5 minute wait (the wait was probably an hour by the time we were done there). The place was originally a stable for the Roman Post, then a church, before becoming Rome's most famous pub in the early 1900s. The table cover had the entire history of the place printed on it, which was a cool way to spend our time waiting for our order. I had their famous Birra Peroni (exclusive to this pub), while Sahna went with the house white wine. Both were delicious, and only an indication to the deliciousness that lay ahead.

We started off with the most scrumptious bruschetta and tomatoes I've ever had. Until now, the best I had ever had was at 360 Uno Trattoria in Austin (two days before we left for Europe). Its reign on top didn't last long because the bruschetta al pomodoro here was so fresh and seasoned perfectly. The bread seemed like it had just been taken out of the oven, while the oregano and seasoning on the tomatoes were perfect. Our main course was even better. My pork chops were a thing of beauty once I told myself not to expect honey BBQ sauce that Sahna usually makes pork chops with. The meat was perfectly cooked, ridiculously juicy and easy to chew. Sahna's ravioli with ricotta and spinach was really good too (she liked it more than the pork chops...I disagreed). It was the first vegetarian dish we'd had in a while.We then finished off our drinks, paid for the meal, and walked out feeling good about life.

At Piazza Venezia in front of the Monument to Vittorio Emanuele II

We headed in the direction of the Colosseum again to see it at night. The walk there was a lot better than expected. We passed by the majestic Piazza Venezia, from which we had a great view of the Monument to Vittorio Emanuel II. The place wasn't crowded at all at 9 pm, and we took some great pictures. We continued our walk down towards the Colosseum, and finally saw it in all it's lit up glory. Pictures were tough to take, but I think we got a few pretty good ones. Aside from the difficulty taking pictures, we did take the time to just take in the majesty of the Colosseum lit up at night.

The Colosseum at night!

At this point, we were right next to the Colosseo metro station, which we took all the way back to the station next to our hostel. We felt really good about all the stuff we got to see today, and the fact that Sahna got me to do more even after I felt like calling it a day around 6 pm.

The day would have been a LOT more hectic without our awesome Roma Passes. They got us free rides on the metro, past the long lines at the Colosseum and Forum, and gave us the freedom to go back and forth from the hostel without worrying about spending too much. We'll probably use it again tomorrow at the National Museum of Rome, which will already make it cheaper than buying all these tickets individually, not even factoring in the convenience it afforded us. Awesome find by Sahna.

Tomorrow is another big day, as we get to see one of the only buildings that still depicts its original glory: the Pantheon. Stay tuned.

Our first full day in Athens was similar to our last day in Milan. It was relaxing but eventful. We started off by waking up around 9 and realizing that breakfast ended in an hour, and that they wanted us out of the rooms by 10 for cleaning. So we took quick showers, went downstairs for the delicious free breakfast (it was the first breakfast that we had leisurely), and headed out to start the day.

Changing of the Guards at Parliament

The first big adjustment we've had to make in Greece is brushing up on the Greek alphabet, and realizing that some letters that look exactly like English letters actually make a completely different sound. The time this was most apparent was when I read one of the highway signs pointing towards Athens, or Athina as the Greek call it. The sign read: Aθηνα. At first glance, I read this as "Aonva?"and was thoroughly confused. But luckily, I had read up on Greek lettering just before getting off the boat in Patras, and realized that this did in fact spell "Athina". So it's taken a little getting used to, but I think I'm finally getting the hang of reading Greek script. Fortunately for us, all the street signs have the English version just below the Greek one!

So back to what we did: we walked down to the main square in Athens, right in front of Parliament. We saw the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier, guarded by two guards a la the Queen's Guards at Buckingham Palace. We even got to see a changing of the guards. The way they marched seemed to be a skill in itself, requiring balance, coordination, and impeccable timing. They would stay balanced on one leg, with one arm up in the air, and what seemed to be a very heavy rifle in the other, for almost 3 seconds before actually moving on with their march. It was quite impressive. I might upload a video of this soon, but for now, here's a picture.

Dwarfed by the Temple of Zeus

We then walked down the street to see (what's left of) the Temple of Zeus and Hadrian's Arch. Both of these monuments were HUGE, especially the columns of the Temple of Zeus. People walking around the temple are simply dwarfed by the columns that once held up a majestic temple. It's a mystery to me how one (and only one?) of those columns was blown down by the wind. Regardless, it was an awesome sight. Hadrian's Arch was pretty cool too, just for its historical significance. These two monuments were right next to each other.

National Library

One of the awesome things about the monuments in Athens is that all of them can be visited with a set of tickets that only cost 6€ for students (and 12€ for non-students, and I think it's even cheaper or free for students from the EU). We purchased this 6€ bundle at the Temple of Zeus, and will use it at all the places we'll see tomorrow - no need to go to the ticket booth again! Another note: being a student/youth in Athens is VERY rewarding, because you get half off at almost everything including the museums, archeological sites, and even the Metro. We luckily had ISIC cards and used those instead of experimenting with our UT IDs. I'm not sure we would have gotten the same discount if we had used our UT IDs.

So anyways, after Hadrian's Arch and the Temple of Zeus, we made the long walk to northern Athens, where we visited the Archaeological Museum of Athens. We walked by the National Library on the way, and also stopped by for some lunch. We noticed that in this area of town, there seemed to be a dearth of actual lunch places, and everyone seemed to be having coffee and snacks at a cafe, even past 1 pm. We got paninis and a very fancy coffee at a hip looking coffee shop before heading into the Archaeological Museum.

Me NOT posing in front of the National Archaeological Museum

The Museum was okay (Sahna liked it because it gave her some sort of reference for Greek history). We got in for half price again just for being "students." (3€) We saw a bunch of really old stuff, basically dating back to Neolithic pots and tools, and then taking us through to the era of ancient Greek artifacts. I might have Sahna do a separate post about the stuff she learned cause it literally went in one ear and out the other for me. We saw some cool sculptures though. Word of advice: don't try to pose like one of the statues, cause they get pretty mad about that... I could see it being kinda disrespectful, but didn't realize it at the time :p

After the museum, we came back to the hostel and took a short break. Well, I was pretty much done for the day, but Sahna convinced me to go check out the new Acropolis Museum. So we took the metro two stations down (for only 0.70€ each, round trip! yay for student discounts and the 1.5 hour allowance) to the Acropolis station, and visited the brand new museum. The Metro is basically on an honor system, since there are no turnstiles to stop people from entering without a ticket. But, we read that it's pretty embarrassing and expensive (you have to pay 60 times what you would have paid) if you're caught without a validated ticket.

The archaeological site under the new Acropolis Museum

To me, the building itself was really worth the trip. They've done a really good job of making the museum inviting. Before you even enter the building, they have you walking on a fiberglass floor showing the excavations of an underground city below your feet. It's a really cool sight. They also have a really huge hole in the ground just before the entry doors where you get a good look at the excavation site. Supposedly, they're going to open it up to the public soon, so you can actually walk through an ancient city just outside and underneath the museum.

We got in for half-price, again. It's awesome having the ISIC card cause they accept it, no questions asked. Once we got in, though, it was a lot of the same...sculptures and art that came from the acropolis area. A lot of very similar sculptures that we saw at the Archaeological Museum. The cool part of this museum was the history and perspectives it gave you of the Parthenon. It was a really good idea to visit this place before going up to see the Parthenon because you understand a lot more of what you're looking at with the background you get at the Museum. They also have another cool fiberglass floor and a view of what's under your feet. Another cool part is the video of how they restore some of these statues damaged by the elements. They use some really hi-tech laser technology, which worked wonders on carefully restoring the original color without damaging the intricacy of the work. On the top floor is a panoramic view of the city and the Acropolis, which was also a really cool sight. Unfortunately, we couldn't take any pictures in the museum :(

Souvlaki!!

After the museum, we headed back to the hostel and did our laundry in the awesome (but slightly pricey at 5€ each for washer and dryer) washer room. Luckily, both our sets of clothes fit into one huge load, and we now have fresh clothes! We also ate some more souvlaki and chilled in the lobby for a bit, talking to the other hostel residents.

Now, I'm looking forward to finally going up on the Acropolis and seeing the Parthenon tomorrow!

Since we haven't posted in a while, this post might get a bit long...

Our last day in Milan was a good sight-seeing experience. We saw the Duomo, Galleria Vittorio Emanuele II, and the world-famous La Scala Theater while we explored the culinary delights of gelato, Italian pizza, and Risotto alla Milanese.

I woke up on Saturday morning and immediately started to worry that we missed an alarm or missed an important reservation. Instead, Abhinav reminded me that we had absolutely nothing reserved for today and could do as we pleased with the time we had, a concept that was pretty foreign to us until this point in our journey. We woke up late (which was about 9 am), took showers, and headed in the general direction of the Duomo by metro. I know we sound like a broken record right now, but the metro systems in Europe are ridiculously amazing (although we heard that some places in Germany are a bit difficult), and as soon as we got out of the metro, we were standing right in front of the Duomo.

There's a lot of history regarding the Duomo. It basically took 500 years from start to finish to complete (finishing touches were done around the 1930s) and was built in the Gothic style with pink marble that wasn't native to the local area of Milan back then. We walked around the entire structure, which is massive, since it was originally built to hold the entire population of Milan at the time (40,000 people).

Ok, enough with the history lesson and more about the overall experience: the Duomo was another "wow" experience on our backpacking adventure. This building is colossal and all the intricacies of the exterior (little statues and details on the many tall Gothic spikes) make you really admire how much manpower and time went into making this masterpiece of architecture.

Entry to the Duomo is free so Abhinav and I went in to admire the interior. Like the other churches that we saw, the Duomo had plenty of stained glass walls, depicting stories from the Bible. Many of them were of the Virgin Mary, which is not a surprise since the church was dedicated to her. (The center door has her story carved into it.) There was a service going on, so we couldn't linger for long. Nonetheless, we took our fair share of pictures and then went outside, back to the main Duomo square. In the square, there's an interesting statue of Victor Emanuele II, the first king of Milan.

After looking at the Dumono and the statue, Abhinav and I were getting ridiculously hungry, so we looked through our Rick Steeve's Italy Guidebook and found an "inexpensive" food court right next to the Duomo called Ciao, which was in the Galleria Vittorio Emanuele II. (By the way, sight-seeing in Milan requires little transportation since the statue, the Duomo, and the Galleria Vittorio Emanuele II are all right next to each other in the same square.) Contrary to what Rick Steeves said, Ciao was NOT cheap. But, the food was decent (nothing much to write home about) so we ate our fill before moving onto our next escapade...

Because Ciao was conveniently located in the next attraction we wanted to see, it was easy for us to step right outside and admire the beautiful arches of the Galleria Vittorio Emanuele II. In the middle, right underneath the glass dome, are four animals (I think they are meant to pay homage to various cities surrounding Milan? Not sure though...), one of them being a bull. The locals love spinning around on his poor little testicles so much that there's a huge hole where there was supposed to be a mosaic piece. I read that the city normally replaces the piece every few years in order to keep the poor bull whole, lol.

We walked through the Galleria to find ourselves in a little square that had a statue of Leonardo right in the center. The way that he was depicted was exactly what you would think he would look like, all sombre, contemplative, and hunched over, thinking about his next great invention. I made Abhinav take a picture in front of it after some cajoling. The statue of Leonardo conveniently also faced the next site that we wanted to see in Milan: La Scala Theater.

Originally, our plan was to wait in line at the ticket office to get discounted nose-bleed seats to a show that was playing that night. But, once we found out that the tickets, even with the discount, did not come cheap, we decided to take a detailed tour of the museum and hopefully take a peak inside the legendary theater. To reward ourselves for going with the cheaper option, we bought ourselves delicious gelato from Grom's (2 blocks away from La Scala) for 3€, a much cheaper alternative :) While we were eating in out on the square in front of Leonardo, Abhinav spotted some car... He grabbed the camera from me and very literally took a creeper picture of it. He snuck behind a tree and leaned outwards to take the picture. I almost died laughing right there. His creeper car picture I'm sure will be put up in the blog, because he's very proud of it :)

To our disappointment, we were again not allowed to take any pictures in the theater... So, we only got to a take a few, haha. Well, I wasn't going to pay money and then not take a few pictures away from the experience, was I? We didn't use any flash while taking the pictures, so we didn't harm any part of the theater. Abhinav and I were pros and taking shots of the theater... Not so much the other stuff, but that was okay. The theater was the most beautiful part. It definitely had a wow factor to it and it would have been amazing to see an opera there, but I guess I need to still leave something to desire in Europe. Maybe next time :)

Another cool thing that we saw at the theater's museum were the original costumes used for the first operatic production of Othello. There were incredible! I didn't get to take any pictures of them unfortunately :( The guard was circling around us by this time because I think they had picked up on our sneaky picture-taking habits.

After La Scala, Abhinav and I went back to the Duomo to buy tickets to go up to the very top of the church. We almost didn't because we were feeling tired, but I'm glad we pushed ourselves to go because it was a worthwhile experience. The view was fantastic and you got to see a lot of wicked cool architecture up close. You literally walk on the roof of the Duomo, where you see a golden Virgin Mary placed on the roof. Quite cool... By this point, we were absolutely exhausted and decided to head back.

Once we got to our room, we crashed for a good 2 1/2 hours. It was one of the best naps of my life. We got up, starving, so we decided to go to one of the highest rated restaurants in Milan: a small pizzeria shop about 10 minutes away from our hotel. The wait was 50 minutes, but it was TOTALLY worth it. We got free glasses of white wine while we waited for our table. We had bruschetta, risotto alla milanese, and a margharita pizza. The pizza here was even more delicious than the one we had yesterday and the risotto was just what the doctor ordered for our travel weary stomachs. Overall, a delicious meal and for those of you visiting Milan, you should definitely eat here!

Oh, and another thing I forgot to mention: I made Abhinav get some cold medication and some vitamin C tablets at the Duomo square. In hindsight, those were the best purchases we made. He's 100% now and those vitamin C chewable tablets are keeping the both of us going strong. Invest in some if you're traveling!

Also, an update on packing once again: It turns out that we did bring enough shampoo, conditioner, body wash, and such. We are running low on toothpaste, but that's easily replaceable, so no worries there. Also, I wish I had brought 1 more shirt and another jacket. Variety is good and wearing the same jacket for the past 2 weeks to every place I go is getting a bit tiring... My shoes and feet are holding up remarkably well with the Dr. Scholl's insoles that I bought. I would most definitely recommend those for backpacking adventurors! Also, I found a more comfortable position for my NorthFace Terra 45 backpack, so now I'm ready to walk for a good 20 minutes with all of my gear without feeling a thing. After that, it gets a little uncomfortable, but nothing that I can't handle...

So, I think that's all for our last day in Milan. Once we got back after the delicious pizzeria, we completely crashed. The next morning we woke up at 6 am since our train to Ancona was at 7:35 am. We took nice hot showers and made it there with plenty of time to spare. Our hotel was within walking distance to the train station so it was really easy to get there in the morning. We bought some muffins and a bottle of what we thought was orange juice (it turned out to be orange drink), which was a relatively satisfying breakfast. Once we got onto the train, Abhinav passed out while I stayed up for a bit longer to take pictures and admire the scenery. I woke him up when I saw water because it was too gorgeous to sleep through. Here's a picture of the coast from the train.

The cool thing about our train ride was that we had two entire rows of seats to ourselves the entire time, which is probably why it was so easy for the both of us to fall asleep. Thankfully, we were awake for the Ancona stop and got out.

On a side note here, I'm going to give you guys an update on those Belgian chocolates I ran to get before our train in Brussels… They're not doing so well, unfortunately. The rough experience of backpacking has certainly taken a toll on these chocolates, despite our best efforts :( We might have to look for a shipping service in Athens so they can get home to our mothers in relatively edible condition because they will most definitely not be able to survive another 2 weeks. Sorry Mom! We tried really hard!

OK, so back to Ancona. We got to the port city and were lost for about 30 minutes. The lady at the information counter told us to take Bus 12 to get to the actual port where the ferries take off from Italy to go to Greece. We waited at the stop for 30 minutes, but the bus still didn't show. Unfortunately, we had to get a taxi, which costed us a ridiculous 13€ for a 10-minute ride from the train station to the port. After griping about that expense for a little bit, we decided to hurry to try to catch the SuperFast
ferry that travels from Ancona-Igonumtisa-Patras. The ferry was super nice from the outside, and you could see that the interiors were really nicely done too. However, everything on board was really overpriced, and there was a severe lack of stuff to do while on board. Even the Wi-Fi was spotty considering it was a satellite internet provider as we were in the middle of the sea. We paid a bit extra for one of the private cabins on board, which gave us two relatively comfy twin beds and a great night of sleep (not to mention, our own bathroom). The entire trip took about 23 hours, but we were happy to hop off board. We met another American couple doing their own Europe trip, and spent some time talking to them before hopping off board.

Once we got outside, we noticed that there was a SuperFast Ferries bus to Athens that was for 20€ per person. We all agreed the cost per person was WAY too expensive since it was only for a one-way ticket as well. So, we decided to explore Patras a little to find other alternatives after buying our return tickets on the ferry for May 5th. The lady there told us that there are two options for travel to Athens: one was by train and the other was by bus. The train takes a considerably longer time and goes to Pireus (the port of Athens) while the bus is a shorter more direct journey to the center of Athens. We initially tried to take the train, which would have been a cheaper option, but it looked like the trains were shut down. So, we wound up having to take the bus to Athens, which costed each of us 18.90€. Yay for saving 1.10€!
The bus took about 3 hours and it was nice to see the coast. We took plenty of beautiful and scenic pictures. We also took this opportunity to sleep once again :) Once we arrived in Athens, we had to take another local bus to the central square called Omonia (bus number 51). The fare for this bus was 1.40€ per person... May 2nd was not a good day for staying under budget... But, we managed and then walked the rest of the way to the hostel we were staying at, Athenstyle. Luckily, we decided to get some money from the ATM beforehand and avoided the credit card transaction fee that we would have had to pay at the hostel.

The one thing I remember about Greece from my previous visit in the 11th grade was Souvlaki. They are DELICIOUS and cheap meals to have in Greece and I was craving some the minute we arrived. So, we asked the girl at the reception where we could get the best Souvlaki in the area, and she enthusiastically directed us to a small square behind the hostel that had cheap and savory souvlaki. We went there after putting our stuff down in our room and stuffed ourselves extremely well with amazing souvlaki. We were not disappointed at all. It was delicious!

After our amazing dinner, we headed back to the hostel and went to bed since we were exhausted from our journey and had a big day ahead of us the following morning: our first day in Greece!

Will update with more details soon.