I reunited with the half smiles that greeted me again at the hostel managing to get a little less than a half smile as I had unknowingly turned up during 'lockout' which was supposed to mean cleaning, but looked more like a 12 year old girls slumber party drowned out by full strength Beyoncé. Luckily they let me in and I ate lunch with my face in my pizza in an attempt to block out the 80's dance charades they appeared to be playing.
Dumping my stuff as soon as my room was free, I caught the metro straight into the heart, Duomo (which sounds like Bwaymo according to the Italian señorita announcing the destinations on the metro and for which I blame my missing of the stop and riding too far). On another note, the innovative and financially addled Italians have taken to standing next to the self service metro machines so that as you go through the very simplistic steps to retrieve your ticket, they stand at your side watching your every move and pointing out what to do next. At the end of the one sided game of 'Simon Says' with the metro ticket retrieved, they put their hand out in expectation of some spare change. Inventive? Yes. Annoying? Fuck yes.
Once I bypassed a number of extra metro stops (just looking, thanks) and made it back to Duomo (Bwyamo) I had another 'Barcelona Sagrada Familia moment' coming out of the metro. Walking up the steps wondering where the Cathedral was and assuming it was around a corner, I turned around to come face to face with the giant monstrosity. Nothing short of ginormous, for the second time in two days, Italy has taken my breath away. I couldn't believe the sheer size of the building which matched with the earnestly carved outside was amazing.
Entering the cathedral made it all the more obvious how huge the building was with giant pillars dominating the interior. The roof literally seemed the fabric of the sky (and with glasses on a little more roof-like, but still impossibly high.) Although renovations dominated a lot of the church, it was a stunning place and despite the numbers of tourists inside, still seemed undeniably elaborate. It definitely made me wonder how it was constructed so long ago with so many less tools and abilities than we have today. Though in some sense, the more tools you have, the less able you become. (There was actually an article to this regard about pilots being unequipped skillfully when it comes to turbulence and times of difficulty in the air as so much of what is involved in flying these days is machine-operated. On a personal note, I knew getting that 16 year old child genius from China to help me with my University work was going to have a downside at some point.)
I also learned while attempting to take photos of the beauty that pigeons are impossibly annoying. Their ability to fly close, but not quite into your head is frustrating and rude. I can almost see their beaks twisting into cunning smiles as they fly past the flailing arms and ducked heads of those around. My new least favourite animal. (Bird? Insect? Mammal? Eh.)
I walked around the centre seeing a few of the beautiful sights before indulging in a spot of shopping down the main street, busy with trams, cars, scooters and Italians in the midst of Christmas shopping. (I also heard my first ever Christmas carols in one of the stores. Not only was it a Christmas carol, it was a Miley Cyrus Christmas carol! What a brilliant way to usher in Christmas '13.)
Relaxing in the hostel drinking endless cups of tea with funny milk and eating dinner of, wait for it.. cereal! Eating my day backwards.
Not quite thinking forward for my flight tomorrow and realising that not only is the metro closed when I have to get up, so are the buses. I didn't know buses needed to sleep!? Taxi to the bus station (which may amount to more than the cost of my flight) before getting a bus, to get a plane, to get a train, to get to Budapest!
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