Ciao Bella!

It's time for the much anticipated (or not really anticipated at all) Milan post. What a weekend...

I left early on Thursday morning at 7 am. The train ride took 9 hours, because it was a local train and we stopped at random stations every half hour or so. I stayed up while we went through the Alps...sooo beautiful. I had 2 transfers as well, but after all was said and done my last train came to a halt in Milan at 16:30 (AKA 4:30 to those of you in the US). Of course Ross was busy doing something until 18:00 so I wondered around until he could meet me. The first thing I noticed though was the train station itself.

I've been to huge train stations before: Frankfurt, Munich, and Berlin, but this was a different sight. The fascist regime under Mussolini in the 40's built this train station in the typical fascist extravagance. After Ross picked me up we went dropped my stuff off in his room and walked around for a while to get myself oriented and see a few sights. For dinner we grabbed some panzerottis. For anyone who is ever in Italia I highly recommend them; they're a favorite of Italian locals. Basically its almost like a calzone, with dough that's folded over mozzarella cheese, sauce (and whatever else you want in it) but then deep fried. Italians line up to get them. After that we went out and got some typical Italian drinks and came back and slept.

Day 2. I was supposed to get up with Ross at 8:30 but after a long day of traveling and possibly a little drinking I decided to sleep in. Ross told me we'd meet around 12:30 when he was done with class. I awoke to a note that read something to the affect of: "Meet outside this building at 12:30 the address is 22 Piazza Galileo Galilee ? It's called Daniels. I'm leaving you the map and I circled my dorm on it. XOXO Ross." So like any one I started to look for Piazza Galileo Galilee on the map....but it wasn't on the map. There was a Galileo Galilee Via (aka road) so I figured that was the reason for Ross's question mark. I got to the road by 12:30 but neither Ross nor a building called Daniels was anywhere close. So I made the long trek (30 min walk) back to Ross' dorm. I got there at 1:15. I waited until 2...still no Ross. So I got some lunch nearby. Now it's 2:20, no Ross. I waited until 3:05 and left to get some gellato, beautiful italian (don't call it ice cream they get mad) dessert made fresh everyday. Then I went to the Duomo, the main attraction in Milan. It's a huge cathedral. Construction started in the 5th century but Napoleon had some big influence, and he has a big statue out front in the city square. This is also where people watched the Inter Milan vs Bayern Munich game and where they will watch the World Cup. Pictures are below:

Back to Ross. After going inside the Duomo (sorry no pictures) I walked back in hope of finding Ross. It was about 4:30. Just my luck!...not. He wasn't there again. But the guy at the front desk told me he had just left to play soccer with some of the guys from his class. I pulled out the map and ran to the nearest park, which of course had to be at least a mile and a half away. Upon entering the park I saw the unmistakable, tall, lanky frame of Ross, awkwardly kicking a soccer ball around. It was sooooo unmistakable that it turned out not to be him but some Italian kid. Frustrated, I laid down in the sun for a half hour before running back to Ross' place. He was outside, we finally met up at 6 pm, five and a half hours later than planned.

Funny thing is we almost met up like 3 or 4 times. Every time I came back I missed him by 5 minutes and every time he came back he was only a few minutes late. Oh well. We made traditional italian salami and cheese panini's for dinner and then went out to the Canals, a local Italian hangout. It's literally just a stretch of bars/restaurants along a canal. It's pretty far from Ross's place so we took the Metro. None of us brought a watch nor cared what time it was. We let the night take us wherever. We met an African named Charles Barkley. At some point we decided to go home...not sure why but we decided to walk the 5 miles back. We got back to Ross's place around 3:30 am or so. Ross's dorm has a policy where any guest has to turn in his passport/ID when he comes in (also, people that live in the building turn in their key to the front desk when they leave). So, I took out my passport to hand to the guy at the front desk, and was met with:

Desk Guy: "Oh sorry, you can't stay here."

Me: WHAT!!!!! It's almost 4 am. "I'm sorry. What?"

Desk Guy: "You're not allowed to stay here. No guests between midnight and 7 am."

Ross: (Freaking out) "Where is he supposed to go? It's 4 am. "

Desk Guy: "I'm sorry, it's not my rule. I can't let him stay here. I'll get in trouble."

Ross: "I promise we'll just go up into my room and sleep. I'll be responsible for him. Nothing will happen. He can't sleep on the street. We don't even know where to go."

Desk Guy: "I can't let you do that. I'm sorry."

Me: (Blown away). "WOW, we had no idea. I really can't sleep here?"

Desk Guy: "You can stay down here in the lobby." (SIDE NOTE: lobby is concrete floor with old tables and school chairs.)

So that's how we spent our next 3 and a half hours. Ross brought his computer downstairs. I fell asleep after a while. At one point I was so out of it that my face was literally flat against the table with no support from my arm. Literally, it was completely squished against the table. We had, had plans to get up early and go Genoa the next day (Saturday). So much for that.

We woke up at 12:30, groggy and still tired. The first order of business was to go to the train station to book my return trip. We were hoping that I could take an overnight train back to Munich so that we could go to Genoa on Sunday. No such luck, the late train was completely booked. So I ended up getting a train from Milan to Zurich and then from Zurich to Munich.

The rest of the day we spent seeing a few more sights in Milan. We went to the top of the Duomo and got a spectacular view of the city. (I have more pictures if you're interested). We also saw an old castle in the city (really not that exciting). There was supposed to be a big Middle Age Festival at the castle. Ross and I went to check it out. Luckily Ross is freakishly tall and could see over the gates because they had it blocked off. It was 5 Euros to enter and Ross said it was pathetic...just a few people dressed up standing around. So we skipped out on that and went walking through a local park. The park should have been rated R and I wouldn't recommend it to those who don't like PDA. Walking through the city it wasn't uncommon to see Italians, shall we say, very "close" to each other and public make-outs weren't rare. Going through the park, however, is a whole different story. People were groping and straddling each other. Pretty weird if you ask me. I guess its just socially acceptable there. On a less disgusting note, there was a group of Italians doing basically a battle dance/break dance/karate . I forget what it's called so I'll have to ask Ross. It was pretty cool to see. At the end of the park there is the Arch of Peace. Built by Napoleon, the arch was once connected by a road to the more famous Arch de Triomphe in Paris. Picture is below.

As I said before, I ended up taking a train to Zurich. Luckily, I had a 3 hour lay-over until my train left for Munich, so I got to do a walking tour of the city. I don't feel like writing a lot about it so I'm just going to post a few pictures. Sorry for being lazy.

New this week I'm introducing THE WALZ WORLD, a short update on my physics excursions each post, dedicated to Mr. Don Walz of Governor Thomas Johnson High School.

This week we implanted some polished tungsten samples previously annealed at various temperatures. Depending on the annealing temperature, the tungsten's structure is affected. At around 1500 degrees Kelvin the tungsten begins to recrystallize. The material properties of the tungsten cause different patterns of diffusion within the microstructure of the tungsten, once they are introduced to the plasma. For example, bulk tungsten (annealed at only low temperatures) forms numerous blisters, 10-20 microns in size, across its surface. However, recrystallized tungsten does not form these blisters. Currently, we are implanting these samples with varying plasma parameters (e.g., flux, fluence, temperature). We are still in the beginning stages of data gathering.

That's all for this update. My Mom is coming to Germany this Sunday and then going to visit our former foreign exchange student, Eliott, in France for a few days before heading to Vienna with me next Sunday. Updates soon.

Tschau!