Milan - Fashion Week!

So my roommates took a trip to the Swiss Alps this weekend and had an awesome time, but I opted to save a little money, stay here and go on a day trip to Milan during Fashion Week with my friend Brooke, and it was great! Brooke and I were good friends in high school and she just happens to be studying abroad in Arezzo right now, a small tuscan town about 40 minutes away. So this was a great "catch up" weekend for us! We had a BLAST together, as usual, and we're both very outgoing people so it's hard not to have a good time together. She came up friday night and we met our tour group at the train station at 8 am the next morning (extremely early if you ask me). We even left the apartment extra early so we could get a cappuccino and cornetto alla nutella (croissant with nutella... heaven). We then got on the bus with a full group of 60 people for the 3 hour bus ride up to Milan (it's very far north) BUT they played The Devil Wears Prada on the tvs to entertain us... a very fitting movie for our drive up to Fashion Week - ha! When we arrived, you can't help but notice that Milan is PACKED with people, a true industrial city! Kind of like NY City but for Italy... the architecture was beautiful, but it was very different than the Toscana region I'm used to! It was a nice change for the day and a very high energized atmosphere. I think Brooke was in heaven. Probably around 1,000 shops lining the streets. Even stores like Gap and Banana Republic... they have everything! Except Starbucks. Which I have been craving more than ANYthing lately. I'm contemplating asking my mom to bring me one on the plane ride over that I can heat up when she gets here. Maddy said that's gross. I think it's brilliant. But moving on. The first place we went to was the Cathedral in the center. It is the 5th largest in the world and has over 2,000 statues on its facade alone! It is stunning!

After seeing the enormous Cathedral, we walked about 300 feet to the entrance of the giant open shopping mall, which is also the first shopping mall every created, making it the oldest in Europe. It was here that we watched our first fashion show :) right in the middle of the mall was stage set up for models to walk on and about every 30 minutes there was a different show from a different designer. It was so cool. SO cool. 

Brooke and I ate lunch and shopped around for a while after this. We both avoided the designer shops and opted for shirts that were about 19 euro... more our price range. The shopping really is incredible. Our tour took us for a walk around fashion district after lunch and we got to see the headquarters for every major Italian designer you can think of... Gucci, Versace, Dolce & Gabbana, Armani, Pucci, the list goes on. It was so cool! What wasn't cool was seeing how many people had bags from shopping at stores like Chanel, Louis V, and Prada... where do they get the money?? Also, a Ferrari was parked on the side of the rode by these stores. No big deal. Just driving to work in my Ferrari. 

 Last we visited one of the most famous opera houses in the world in which I stole a few pictures from, but it really made me miss seeing theatre shows! It was beautiful. And we got to watch one last fashion show which was by far our favorite!

Dinner consisted of a nutella crepe thanks to our tour guide, and on the bus ride back we enjoyed watching Under the Tuscan Sun... how appropriate :)

Sunday rained allllll day, but that didn't keep us from being productive! We spent the entire afternoon at Pitti Palace and it's museums, especially the costume museum which had real period clothing dating back to the Renaissance! And Pitti Palace and it's gardens in general are beautiful and amazing. It's my favorite place to visit next to the Uffizi. I can't wait to bring my mom and aunt! It makes you wish you lived in a castle, so you never really want to leave. And Brooke and I decided that when we have jobs we will host a late 1700s dressed party where everyone has to dress in the huge period time dresses and learn to dance in the big lines. We're very excited about this plan. Afterwards we shopped for a little while and had dinner at Dante's! It has free wine for students, and yes, we drank a bottle and half over our 2 hour dinner of great conversation :) What a great weekend!