Laura's Birthday and Milan

It took a very long time, pretty much 3 weeks before we went home, but finally I did Milan tourism, haha, and it was all thanks to Laura. On December 3rd, Laura came to Milan to visit us for the final time and to celebrate her birthday. She was staying with Ravi and she got in that night around 6:30. We talked for a little and then went to Essalunga, the most amazing grocery store ever lol, and got ingredients for what would be Laura's birthday meal. That night we made Pasta with a Mediterranean Pesto sauce with sautéed vegetables and Bruschetta, it was amazing! So good, and earlier that day I ran to Essalunga to buy Laura a birthday cake. I couldn't find frosting to write her name so I got sugar seals! They were awesome! So after dinner I said I would run up and get "soap" to help clean the dishes, but ran up to get the cake. I came back down and as I was coming down the elevator the candles blew out! I was like "Oh no!" So I ran away and luckily Antonio saw me and distracted Laura while I could relight the candles. It was pretty funny. So we had a really fun night celebrating her birthday and then hung out some more and went to bed. The next day I skipped my business strategy class (Sorry!) to go explore Milan a little with Laura. We went to this museum that had a lot of Leonardo Da Vinci's inventions created using his drawings. Also, it had the history of the telephone, and TV and computer and all those so we go to play with old stuff and see really cool things, and we had a really fun time. Then we went to lunch and had the first thick crust pizza I had had since I have been in Italy and it was so good! We then had to leave because I had to go to class, and later that night we all went out for aperitivo, which is where you buy a drink and get to use their buffet. We had a lot of fun just hanging out with a big group of us. The next day we went to see Leonardo Da Vinci's The Last Supper. It was pretty incredible, it's sad because Leonardo messed up when he was doing the fresco and it is deteriorating and the colors are faded and you can barley even see their feet. It is however amazing, it is seemingly such a simple painting but there are so many stories going on with each of the characters. On the other side there was another amazing fresco of the crucifiction and they were just gorgeous. After The Last Supper we went to the craziest market you have ever seen in your life. It was at this giant convention center and they had four tents set up, each tent was a different theme, the four were Southern Italy, Northern Italy, The Rest of Europe, and The Rest of the World. It was huge! They had tents from most countries in the world, with foods, wine, gifts, and everything. It was a little overwhelming with how much was there. You could not hope to see everything in one day. We spent a few hours there and tried some things from all over the world and just had a lot of fun. Then, right at the end, we found the Bolzano tent!!! I was so excited and I bought my first bottle of wine from Bolzano (See the amusingness of Bolzano in my earlier entry)!!!! After the market we went back and proceeded to make our bread and butter of cooking, the one that started it all, Gnocchi Picante!! We also made another batch of amazing bruschetta and had another amazing meal together. We hung out again that night then went to bed. Woke up the next morning and unfortunately I had to start studying for finals, it was pretty boring. That night, however, we made our final meal together with Laura; we had homemade Risotto and Insalata Caprese, with Brunello di Montalcino, one of the finest wines in all of Italy. It was one of the best meals, and one of the most fun to create. We had such a good time, and the weekend was great, and I finally got to see Milan! Better late than never!!! We had to say goodbye to Laura, which was really sad, but I know that we will see her again sometime and when we do it will be such an amazing reunion. It really is amazing how the people you meet make such an immediate impact on you. I only knew Laura for a few days before we decided to go to Rome, then Tuscany, and finally Milan, and even after a few days we all felt really close and just had the best time going to all these amazing places. On these trips it's amazing how out of nowhere, almost randomly, you find people and start friendships that will last a lifetime. I have met so many incredible people on this trip, and even though I have known them for such a short time, I feel like they have been my friends forever, and it's going to be amazing to know that I have such amazing people all over the world. I have been to some of the most historic and incredible places in the world, and they would have not nearly meant as much to me had it not been shared with these incredible people.