Ew ew ew ew ew we have a test today. I can never really study for a test the day of, and I felt overly prepared, so I took off to the park for a quick run. Obviously, I got lost but had fun wandering the streets of Milan. I found the cutest store/gelato shop called Bianco Latte, selling adorable knick knacks complete with a white, lit up, transparent greenhouse. Alyssa and I got to the test very early to grab the table in the back of the room. We knew we would not be able to handle having our open notes and the test on that tiny desk! The people who usually sat at the table were not pleased but oh well, you can't please everyone! Taking the test, I had a mini panic attack when I didn't know the first question, but after I calmed down and took my time, I figured everything out and thought I did great. Straight from class, Alyssa, Todd, and I headed to meet the group for a Duomo climbing. Having prided ourselves in climbing everything in Europe, a large group of us opted for the stairs over the elevator. Next to Florence, the 200 something stairs of the Milan duomo was nothing! The top of the Duomo was neat because it gave you an extremely close up view of all the beautiful spires with detailed arches and statues. Each spire contained a statue on top, along with about ten other statues along the remainder of it. These statues range from saints to Roman gods and goddesses to apostles to odd looking creatures. If you are anybody important, you seem to be featured on the Duomo!! The view was not nearly as pretty as the view from the Florence duomo, but the architecture is so different that it's hard to compare. Under construction, the Milan duomo is topped with a beautiful spiral with a gold statue on top. Mrs. Donno told us that inside the church above the altar, the nail that nailed Jesus to the cross was held by a red light. The nail is only brought out for three days in September, but it was mystical to think that such a prominent item was so close to us.
Next, we had a group dinner planned, but about an hour to kill before our reservation. Olivia, Alyssa, Karina, Michelle, Nick, and I wandered the streets surrounding the duomo for a bar to kill some time in. Every bar was in aperitivo hour, but all we wanted was a drink! We finally found a bright little pub, and ordered some deliciously refreshing beers. Heading to dinner, we met at IL GRIGO?! A University of Miami sponsored meal...joy! I tried saving Mrs. Donno a seat, but Mr. Donno needed somebody to sit with! Our table (Alyssa, Olivia, Karina, and Michelle) split a delicious caprese salad with huge chunks of creamy buffalo mozzarella. For my meal, I ordered grilled shrimp, which caught me by surprise when five giant shrimp with heads and eyeballs arrived at the table... Very interesting! When asking for cocktail sauce, we were brought to Italian version, a pink creamy sauce similar to Thousand Island dressing. I much preferred this! My meal was not too filling, so Karina shared some of her fried shrimp and zucchini with me. We also shared lots of red and white wine! After dinner, the whole group headed to the esteemed Chocolate Italiani, which I had heard so much about! This gelato shop puts melted chocolate (milk, dark, or white) in the bottom of your cone. I ordered a vanilla cream and straccioletti (cookies) cone, and it was the best gelato in the world!! I couldn't have been more thrilled. The cone was topped with a round bit of cone on top. Loving that we had some wine in our system, we decided that Collone was a good option for the night. Heading home to change, we turned right back around and headed out with Mia, meeting up with Christian, Natali, Ana, Olivia, Nick, Davide, Alessandra, Todd, and the whole crew. As always, with cheap drinks, all of IES, and lots of Italians, it was a great time. The only damper of the night was when Christian and Natali tried to help an old lady and got dragged back to her apartment and yelled at. We think it was a scam, but they somehow got out okay.