Jacques Fortier

So I’m in Italy. I probably won’t normally be this obsessive about posting, but I had to pay for a full hour of internet so that I could get my purchase confirmation for my opera tickets for tomorrow, so I figured I might as well use it and make a post.

I had to stay up way too late last night getting my room cleaned up, so I’m pretty beat. I got into Milan at 7:30 pm after pretty much a whole day on the train. The train ride was really nice. We went through Switzerland, so the scenery was naturally beautiful. There’s just something about riding through a valley seeing mountains disappearing into the clouds on both sides of you. And for some reason, lakes look ten times more beautiful when they’re in the mountains. Once we got into Italy we passed by Lake Maggiore, which looked like a great place to take a vacation. It was kind of overdeveloped, but the scenery was just so incredibly green, and the lake looked pretty peaceful. The city of Stresa looked like a had a little beach on the lake… if only I had time to check it out.

So as soon as I walked out of the Milan train station, I ran into a guy who was claiming to be Hungarian tourist and clearly trying to scam me. It was a pretty nice introduction to Milan. Pretty much all I’ve done in Milan is grab dinner and, of course, gelato. As soon as I got done with the scammer, I saw people eating gelato and tracked down the closest gelato stand. Since I’m running on 5 hours of sleep and it’s incredibly hot even at 10 pm, I think I’m just going to bed. Tomorrow I’ll spend a full day exploring Verona and then go see Aida in the Roman arena, which apparently has amazing acoustics. In case anyone cares, this is my itinerary: