Italy

We went to Italy for eight days. My mom had gone there for a year in college, and it was her dream to go back again. She still remembers Italian quite well, after 20 years. When we meet someone and ask them a question, my mom always asks and she usually strikes up a conversation. But anyway, we left on a Tuesday afternoon. We went to an airport called Gatwick. That wasn’t the same as the one we came to England in. That one is called Heathrow. Anyway, our airline was Easyjet, and they seemed to be really proud of having their own airline. Everything was orange and white, the airline’s colors. The plane flight was pretty short, only about an hour and 20 minutes.

When we got all our luggage we had to take a half-hour train ride on a train called the Malpensa Express. Oh yeah, the airport we were at was called Milan-Malpensa, and Milan was the city in Italy we were going to first. The train was double decker, and we sat on the second floor. The train ride actually felt pretty short, like the plane ride. After the train ride we went on an Italian subway. They called it the metroline. We took it to the nearest station to our hotel. The hotel was pretty nice. It had high ceilings and comfy beds.

The next morning we went out for a walk. There were motorcycles everywhere. Also there were streetcars, and Anthony simply had to go on one. The first thing we did, however, was go visit the college my mom went to when she was in Italy 20 years ago. We didn’t get to see any of the inside, so it was pretty boring. I can’t really explain the outside either.

After the college we went to my mom’s favorite pizzeria for lunch. We couldn’t believe that it was still running after 20 years. It was pretty easy to believe, however, that it was her favorite. The pizza was like no other I’ve ever tasted. It was better than Pat and Oscar’s, my used-to-be favorite pizza place. After pizza we went to a dessert place that had some really good candy. Then we went to see a castle, but we didn’t get past the first room. It was really boring.

After the castle we took a walk to a streetcar station (Anthony’s dream come true!) and took it to a huge church called the Duomo. We got to go inside, and it was huge. It was the third largest church in Italy, and no wonder. The ceiling was probably 70 feet high, and the length was about 150 feet. I still thought it was pretty boring though.

When we got out we got some gelato (Italian ice cream) and then walked to an Italian dinner restaurant. It was even better than my mom’s favorite pizzeria. When we were done we took another streetcar to a metro station and took the metroline to our hotel. Then we went to sleep.

The next day we went to the Leonardo da Vinci science museum. It had a bunch of old ideas from the past, like waterwheels and seacruiser motors and dams. Also there was a railway transport building, a water transport building, and a building with a bunch of models of Leonardo da Vinci’s invention ideas. I thought it was really interesting.

Then we took the metroline to a train station to Venice. It was a two hour train ride, but I didn’t get tired of it. When we got out of the train station we had to take a water taxi (a boat, of course) to the water taxi station nearest to our apartment, which was pretty far. An Italian woman walked us there, and I didn’t like it that much. It was drafty, dark, and creepy. The kitchen was tiny, and none of the appliances worked except the faucet. As soon as we got settled in we looked for a place to eat. We found a pizzeria and ate there, then went back to our apartment and went to bed.