For our second weekend get-away, we decided to go to Milan, Italy. We researched a lot about what the best things to do there were and we found lots of options. So, we made a plan and got excited for our trip! One recommendation we found was to take a boat ride along the Navigli Grande. This sounded excellent to us, so we booked it (spent about $20 on it). We were expecting the stereotypical Italian boat ride through a canal: a small boat with an Italian rowing us along, with great views of everything along the canal. However, it could not have been more opposite. The boat was completely closed off. There were small plastic flaps over the sides that could act as windows, but on this evening it was so foggy that we really did not see anything at all. There was no tour guide explaining what we were passing, or any history of the canal. Truly, our Italian boat ride was nothing more than sitting on a dark cold boat in silence for an hour. I actually ended up taking a nap! Luckily, after the ride we had time to walk around the Navigli Distrcit and explore it on our own.
This past weekend, we decided to venture out of Barcelona to the city of Nice, France. We knew there was a chance of some rainy weather, but it was our cheapest option to travel there so we decided to book it and hope for the best. Unfortunately, the best didn't come. We arrived in Nice to dark clouds and heavy, windy rain. The rain did not let up one the entire day. Of course, we wanted to make the best of the situation. So we still explored around and saw some incredible things, we just did so soaking wet (even with a rain jacket AND an umbrella). Once nighttime turned around we decided to go back to our Air BnB for a bit to dry off, then venture outside for some dinner. We ate an early lunch and were hungry, so we went back into the rain around 6:30/7. However, we walked outside to find the street looking like a ghost town. Not a single shop was open, nor a restaurant. We wandered in the cold rain for about 30 minutes desperately searching for anywhere to get even a few snacks, but nowhere was open. The ENTIRE city shut down because of all the rain. We got back to the Air BnB and looked into ordering food. The only place open was a Domino's Pizza, who wants to eat Domino's in France?? But since it was our only option, we ordered a pizza. We decided to pass the delivery time by playing cards. Two hours had passed by... and still no pizza. Finally, we heard a knock on the door. I was so excited that I screamed. We opened the door hoping for a pizza and instead found a neighbor who asked us to keep it down (whoops!). We resorted to eating the complimentary crackers, once for each of us. Our pizza was never delivered so yes... those crackers were our dinner in France, topped off with some Melatonin gummies for dessert. On the bright side though, this tragic situation brought many laughs and we enjoyed our time together playing cards. At the end of the night, I was very thankful for friends who choose to make the best out of a horrible situation.
Moving into our accommodations went great, except for one small thing: we did not have any towels and the staff did not provide them to their residents. After traveling overnight, it was necessary to shower before our first day of school. Our official from the school told us we needed to find a "Bazar" but that it was likely none would be open today since it was Sunday. We explored a bit around our home, looking for a Bazar but we were unsuccessful. Eventually, we wandered into a Super Mercado (Super Market) looking for some snacks. One of my friends noticed some small packaged towels on top of the shelf. These towels were themed (Disney, LOL and Spiderman) and looked incredibly cheap- but they were the best we could find. Later that night after we'd all showered, we discussed how horrible those towels were and decided that on Monday after school we would attempt to take the Metro to find towels. Since I am the only one who has been to Spain previously, I took the lead on figuring out the Metro. I thought I remembered how to do it from my previous experiences. According to the app I used, it told us we needed to take the Metro and then it should be about a 10 minute walk. I led the way and found us the right Metro, telling the girls what stop we needed to get off at. Well, it turns out I was reading the map wrong, and instead of getting off close to the Bazar, we rode the metro at least 8 stops further. Our Maps told us once we got off that we were an over an hour walk away from the Bazar. So, we got back on and eventually figured out the correct stop to get off at. We walked a bit and did find the towels, but the process took about 2 hours. Once we got home that night, we stopped at the Super Mercado next door to our accommodations (not the same one as before). We were looking around and something caught my eye... a large collection of towels, just as good quality as the ones we bought, were right next door to where we were staying the whole time. Although we wasted about 30 Euros and 2 hours of our time, it made for a very funny story and at least we had towels we were satisfied with.