Milano

Notes from our brief trip to Milan, as interpreted by the Gary Coleman happiness-ometer:










Dyno-mite (thanks JJ):

• Stayed at Hotel Berna - near Milano Centrale station.
  
• Air conditioning in the hotel room.
• Breakfast at the Hotel Berna - highly recommended!
• Wandering around Italian lingerie stores with my fiancee.
• Watching and learning how the Senegalese bracelet scam works.
• The Duomo, Piazza del Duomo, and the Galleria Vittorio Emanuelle II.
  
• "Practicing" Italian (a.k.a. just saying "grazi" a lot).
• Sitting on train back to Geneva with German train photographer who was trying his hardest to speak English.
  

Questionable:

• Taking the last train from Geneva to Milan and into the Milan Centrale station around midnight.
• The Senegalese bracelet scam at the Duomo train stop. For those that don't know about this - the Duomo is crowded with a handful of west African (usually Senegalese) men who walk around with a handful of homemade cloth bracelets. They attempt to sell you one and when you refuse, they offer one for free. When you still resist, they hold it out in front of you and drop it. Out of kindness, 75% of people will reach down, pick up the bracelet and hand it back. At which point, with your wrist exposed, the men will tie the bracelet to your wrist. Guilt about having the bracelet will set in, and you relent to giving away a few Euros.
• Milan prostitutes hangin' around the hotel (harmless).
  

What you talkin' 'bout Alphonse?

• Navigating the Milano Centrale station. El sucko.
• Figuring out the Milan subway ticket system. Super confusing.
• Getting scammed by crackhead who sits by the subway ticket machine waiting for confused tourists.
  
• Staff at the Hotel Berna. Uber-hardcore rude. Heads and shoulders more rude than anyone we even saw in France! Handle with care!
  
• Missing out on seeing the Last Supper.
  

Flickr set from Milan is here.