Alrighty peeps, here's my little running travelogue for this trip. For those of you who follow me on Facebook and Instagram, I thought this better than spamming your feeds with my stories for the next week or so while I'm on the road. Like it? Hate it? Leave a comment! Now, I decided to go on this work trip on Thursday and flew out Saturday. I did not have the chance to make myself familiar with the city AT ALL before arriving. This entry will hopefully show you that you don't need plans to have a good time on a trip or in a foreign country where you don't speak the language. Landing in Milan, these were my plans:

 1. Attend a free walking tour at 10:00

2. See what happens from there

It was a little vague to say the least. Question number one was how to exit the airport and get to said walking tour.  I flew into Malpensa Airport (MXP). It is apparently one of the largest airports in the world. I found the signs for trains/subway/ground transportation to be few and far between and got turned around a few times. Having found the trains, I promptly bought a 48-hour train ticket from the counter and scurried on my merry way.

Hopping off one train and looking for my connection to the inner city, I met a group of college girls from Boseman, Montana fresh off the plane to start a three month study abroad in Italy. Boy was I jealous. Note to self: If you could do college over again, only do study abroads. They were looking for the same train as I was and followed me. We found out that we had all bought the wrong pass together and I got to show them how subway maps work. I had no idea where I was, but I could read a map. What should have been five minutes to get to our connecting train took us fifteen, but we eventually found it - correct tickets in hand this time. The girls took off to their new digs and I ran up the stairs frantically trying to make it to my tour that was about to start.

Emerging from the Duomo subway stop, you don't need to look to find the Duomo. The world's third largest church, it stands right above you, leaving you completely speechless except to say "whoa!" The gothic architecture and incredible amount of detail is just amazing. Thousands of little statuettes and statues are said to be incorporated into the facade. The Venetian marble is absolutely stunning with its subtle grey and pink tones mixing together like different flavors of melting gelato swirling together.  I would hire Leonardo da Vinci to build canals to get this marble across the country to me too if I was building such a church! I'm probably going to have dreams about this marble for a while. It's weird, but sometimes that's just how it goes.

My instructions to find my tour (found at milanfreetour.com) were to look for a yellow umbrella near Museum 900.  Luckily, that was easily found and I even made with two minutes to spare! The tours are presented in English and my tour guide was quite informative and entertaining. She was also persistent in trying to get us into a church that had closed early for a private mass. This was my second walking tour that I'd ever been on. I think I will always go on one of these when visiting a city for the first time. One gets a great lay of the land and familiar with the city for the upcoming days. I also find this a wonderful spot for discovering future things to explore. Sometimes, you find that you don't need to plan five hours to explore something - a walk-by will do.

Others, you find that you want to go back and really check them out. It's the best and I highly recommend it. Just google-ing the city you're traveling to with the words "free walking tour" typically yields tons of results. Talking to others on the tour with me, that's exactly what they did as well and most of them had been on a walking tour before as well.

From the tour, I took off in the direction of some Roman ruins. I got lost. I somehow wandered into some 11th century ruins that had been discovered by the bombings during World War II. Walking into the ruins of that chapel, it was one of those moments of peace and pure bliss for me. Few things move me more than ruins. On the wall, was a tender fresco of the Madonna and Child. The floor was an elaborate pattern of fiber cement - upon further exploring I found out that that was a temporary cover meant to protect the recently discovered magnificently colorful and detailed original flooring until funding could be obtained to restore and fully excavate the original. I spent forever in this area reading every sign and just taking in what a beautiful discovery it was. An Italian couple strolled over and read one of the signs. I attempted to point out the additional sign on the other side of the courtyard depicting the evolution of that particular corner of the city. "Grazie Google" was the man's response after we attempted to have a conversation while I could not speak Italian. I resorted to typing in what I was trying to say and let Google Translate work its magic. When they left, the man and wife hugged me. It's amazing what technology can do. You don't have to know the language in order to communicate with others.

Following Google Maps instructions, I made my way towards the Roman ruins of the ancient palace and circus. I get a special thrill whenever I see something Roman. I was obsessed with the Romans in junior high and high school and probably get the same thrill out of seeing old bricks and concrete that most get seeing their favorite bands from high school. What can I say, I'm weird. I embrace it.

Walking around the city, what impressed me the most was how the light cut through the buildings. The quality of light was like nothing I'd ever seen. While landing, there had been some fog and it was just grey.  There was still a trace of that, but only enough to

diffuse the light softly and make everything look picture-perfect. I am in Heaven. I think the Old Masters may have been on to something when they came here to paint.

Wandering in and out of churches and parks, I made my way to my hotel to check in. Nothing like nine straight hours on your feet to make you want to take a quick break. I downed a couple of 5-Hour Energy drinks to stave off jet lag and headed back out to the Duomo to catch it at night. The Galleria (covered mall next to the Duomo) was an unexpected gem. Lit up like Caesar's Palace, the golden light within complemented the fading blue sky perfectly. Tourists ran around with silly selfie-sticks trying to share this view. In the Piazza de Scalla, a busker played the violin and a speaker spread its music across the square. I got a couple shots of the cathedral by night - the golden statue of the Madonna on top lit up reminded me of the Angel Moroni on the Salt Lake LDS Temple back home. I like to think the architect got the idea for it from the Duomo on his trip to Europe for inspiration. Whether true or not, it's a nice thought.

After a pizza dinner, where the pizza was cooked in a large wood-burning stove which looked comically picturesque, it's time for bed. Got any suggestions for things to do tomorrow? Send me a message!