Duomo - Milano
In my opinion, and that of many others, Milano is not anything to brag about as far as beauty, culture and history go. Sure it has a beautiful duomo and lots of fancy shops, but it's ugly and cold (personality-wise). That being said, we had a fabulous time there. We got lucky with the restaurants we picked, especially the pizzeria we chose for dinner. The waiters were really cute and flirtatious and by the end of the meal we had been introduced to each one. The main two were Constantino and Vincenzo, the latter of whom kept coming around to kiss each of our hands again and again without saying a word. It was great...we had lots of fun planning alternate evenings out with the Italian waiters that would surely rival the night we instead had ahead of us: sleeping in the Milan Malpensa airport...
...which was fine. Quite uncomfortable and I don't think you could call what we got sleep, but we made our flight just fine the next morning and were on our way to Mykonos! Andreas, our hostel-owner, is a very sweet Greek man who picked us up at the airport and gave us a small introduction to the town. Here's our street:
And our lovely room, which had clean sheets and towels each day:
We had originally been planning to fly into Mykonos, spend a couple days/nights, and then ferry over to Athens for one night, and finally return to Mykonos. It ended up proving too expensive/stressful, so we ditched the idea and went straight for the beach. Every day we pretty much woke up, went to the beach, swam, ate Greek salads and ice cream bars, laid out in the sun reading, came home, cleaned up, and went out to dinner and/or dancing. Not a bad life, eh? Here's all the beach pics:
The weather was absolutely perfect...we couldn't have asked for any better. This prompted us to spend more time at the beach than I think any of us expected we would! Our favorite of the ones we visited was Platis Gialos, a calmer, more relaxing alternative to the youthful and overly-stimulating Paradise Beach. The water was crystal clear and one day there were even waves and we so we had a lot of fun playing in the water. Did I mention Mykonos is famous for its nude beaches? That was a fun experience...not that I partook, but darn did it look enticing! On our way back to the hostel we'd often stop by the famous windmills with some wine and nuts as our aperitif and watch the sun set over the water.
On this particular sunset we had a couple run-ins with some Greeks. The first was with Yanez (named after the original Yanez, who you'll meet later), the stray dog, that really took to Brittany (which is what Yanez 1 and 2 had in common), and the second was with some male Greek youth. The were playing soccer in the square and ended up kicking the ball straight into Julia's face. While she was reeling, we were laughing, and they thought it was a fun new game to try to pelt the foreign girls with the balls. So we ended up screaming and running down the path back home while attempting to dodge their advances! Phew!
One day we decided to attempt some culture by hoping over to the nearby Delos island which is full of ancient Greek ruins. I wasn't completely impressed just because it was super hot and I've seen way cooler Greek ruins before, but we still had a good time. There was this kind of strange Athenian man who tried to befriend us with the oh so original pick up line, "so where are you girls from?" We quickly ditched him in search of the ancient lion statues but later, when we ran into him again, he said in such a funny English accent, "Are you enjoying your excursion?" I am so going to miss English-as-a-second-language experiences! Such as when Andreas said to us, "I hope you enjoy your sour" instead of "shower", or "let's meet tomorrow so we can talk in the face" instead of "in person". Oh, it makes for good laughs. And it's okay because there have been plenty of occasions when I've said stupid sounding things in Italian and been laughed at.
What a cutie!
Mykonos town is such a cute place. The buildings are all white-washed with blue accents just as you imagine they would be. The town maintains a very authentic feel despite the overload of tourists trying to get in on a piece of the magic. We were nestled nicely between the "bus station", the windmills, and Little Venice, scattered through which are lots of cute shops and eateries. Our favorite place ended up being Niko's cafe where we got delicious entrees including lamb and fish for quite cheap. We also found a cute sandwich cafe where we had a really sweet waiter who came by and asked, "Are your snacks nice?" Also, you can't go to Greece and not eat a gyro which is so good with all the red onion and Greek yogurt sauce they put on it!
Brittany and I sampling the local brew, Mythos
"Sexy" pose...why do I always come out mad?
Serpent tongue!
"You just touched a seemingly cute guy's butt and when he turned around you found out he was gay...GO!"
Mykonos is to Greece as Ibiza is to Spain. It is known the world over as a party island, with some of the best clubs around. The awesome thing about it though is that we could decide to be where the party's at, or we could decide to stay in town and have a peaceful dinner. We went out a couple nights, once to Paradise Club and once to a disco called Scandinavian Bar. I shall start with Paradise Club and do my best to adequately describe this night that will go down in history for all three of us!The club itself was really cool: outdoors, beach-side, world-renowned dj, pool. We had many encounters with different guys, seeing as the proportions were 3 guys for every 1 girl (at least!). Outside, a man from L.A. who reminded us far too much of Dennis (Brittany's step-dad) engaged us in conversation for awhile. Almost immediately after we had started dancing we each had found "our guy" for the evening...Julia, a sweet Albanian guy who danced and spun her all night...Brittany, a hot Greek boy named Yanez (!)...and me, an Albanian living in Lake Como named Alberto with whom I got to speak Italian! They actually all knew each other in some way, too. There was lots of dancing and, shall I say, flirting, throughout the night. All the guys were good at what they did and so it was fun to hear all their lines and see right through the smokescreen. We had so much fun though because none of them were creepers and we were always in control of the situation. Julia and I started thinking it might be a good time to get going around 3 but Brittany didn't want to leave yet. She appealed to us with this line: "But he's Greeeeek!" What could we say? She was right. It was a culturally enriching experience, hehe.
Once outside the club, while trying to secure a ride on the shuttle bus back to town, we're talking with Alberto and suddenly these two Aussie guys, Kyle and Sam, come up and start talking to us. They were so funny! One had fallen asleep on the beach and missed the entire party. The blond one randomly showed us these pictures of them making really impressive ridiculous faces (as you have seen we are fans of, as well) and the other said sarcastically, "I'm really glad you showed the girls those pictures, because I was afraid it'd be awkward." We had lots of laughs in that hour outside the club. Finally we're able to get on the shuttle and we're realizing that a very good proportion of the dozen people on it are people that had made our evening very enjoyable: Alberto, Sam, Kyle...other than the girls' other guys, the only one missing was Brittany's step-dad, Julia and I said to each other in the back of the shuttle. Two minutes later who turns around and says hello? Twin Dennis! I have never felt more like my life is a movie. We really had the most incredible time that night...didn't go to bed 'till the sun came up! We have no pictures of it...but we kind of like it better that way.
A couple nights later we ended up at Scandinavian bar after gyros and beers on the peer. The dj was awesome, playing song after song of our favorite songs! There was this creepy Italian guy that tried to dance with Brittany who I attempted to fend off. He appealed that he's a masseur at this one beach we should come to the following day. When he thought I didn't believe him he stared massaging Brittany's hand and it was hilarious and really quite over the top. Finally I told him that was enough--go away! We also met some more great Aussies - we're starting to think maybe Australia should be the next big trip! - who we danced around for half the night. We just let loose and danced like crazy people. It was a blast:
We spent our last evening shopping around town, watching the sunset, and coming full circle by eating dinner at Niko's again. Favorite joke from the night:K: "I want a beer, man...I want a beerman...hmmm"
J: "Oh, I get it, it's like, a person."
(followed by lots of mocking Julia about chickens crossing the road and the obviousness of jokes)
Here's lots of pics from our last night:
On one of our walks around town we saw a shirt in a window that said, "Good girls go to heaven, bad girls go to Mykonos" and considered for a moment having it printed on matching airbrushed tees so as to commemorate the trip in a mode of pure irony.The next morning it came time to fly back to Italy...I have to put in a pic of the baby on the plane, because (s)he was just lovely and played with us the entire flight (and yes I did tell the mother her baby boy is the cutest thing only to find out it's a girl-damn romance languages and their insistence on masc/fem words):
We had to say good-bye to Brittany at the airport, who was off to collect her stuff in England before flying to North Carolina for a visit with her Dad and then finally back to California. It was hard saying good-bye to her, knowing that our frolics through Europe were coming to an end (at least for now). But the three of us can't stop thinking and reminiscing about Greece because we really had the most spectacular trip together...if I ever get the chance to go to Greece again...my answer will most definitely be mykoYES!
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