Day 1: off to Milano

Although I recently graduated from the MBA program at Elon, the program allows you to travel for the international business trip for the following semester after graduation. I took this once-in-a-lifetime opportunity and decided to go with the group to Milan and Prague. Currently searching for jobs right now so why not. The only downside of this trip is being away from the boys for 10 days.

We took off from RDU airport at about 215 in the afternoon, 15 of us including our trip adviser, Judy, and our professor, Tina. We flew to JFK airport and then departed for Milan Italy at 6:15 at night. For the most part it was an uneventful eight hour journey over the ocean, punctuated only by rude talkers in the middle of the night. Despite two glasses of wine, two Benadryl, and the movie The Vow, I slept about an hour. Our bedraggled crew landed in Milan at about 830 in the morning and met our tour guide Andreas. It was about a 45 minute ride into downtown Milan. We parked our bus by one of the largest, oldest castles in Italy, and walked over to a café to get some breakfast. Then it was off to the Duomo, which was overwhelming and its size and its beauty. We had several hours off in the afternoon we walked around in small groups, most of us getting gelato and a sandwich along the way. The gelato here is absolutely amazing! Our small group went to a museum where we had the chance to see many of Leonardo da Vinci's drawings as well as several famous paintings. Then we met up with our group to see Leonardo da Vinci's Last Supper. I was very surprised to find that it wasn't actually a painting hanging on the wall but was a mural painted on a wall in a crumbling church. The church was bombed during WwI, but luckily two walls stayed standing including the one which contain the Last Supper.

At 4 o'clock in the afternoon we finally made iabout he Hotel Dei Cavalieri about two blocks off of the Duomo Square. The rooms are small but functional and very clean. Our room looks out over the square and a large statue of a man on a horse. After checking one of my colleagues and I went for a run around the castle and through the park. We stopped to take pictures at the Arch and then ran back. It was great dodging people and running on cobblestones and just feeling light and unencumbered by luggage. After shower I feel like 1 million bucks. The group then walked across the street to a little Italian restaurant where we were served very capably by Bobo. Most of the group declined the sodas that were included with the meal, so the server substituted in wine without any extra charge. Bonus! I was treated to some of the freshest, most wonderful pasta I've ever in my life. A glass of wine later and it was off to bed.