Clauss House: Next stop, Milan.

I had forgotten that Italy pretty much closes down for the month of August, especially places like Milan because it's not really a touristy place. Every single restaurant we found online that had reviews were all closed. Of course we didn't know that until we walked a mile and a half to get there, then had to turn around. Another annoying thing, almost every place doesn't open until 7:00, we were usually starving by then and waiting around the corner with our eye on the door so we could go in the second they opened. When places say they open at a certain time, it's a rough estimate. We waited outside one restaurant for 40 minutes before they FINALLY opened their gate, I wanted to just go somewhere else, problem was, we didn't know where else to go because everything was closed!

In Milan we dropped off our things and headed to the Duomo which happens to be right next to a huge outdoor mall!

a couple days later we climbed to the top.

A man came up to Carleton and put dried corn in his hand then held it up, before we knew what was going on a pigeon landed in his hand. I happened to have my camera out taking pictures of the duomo when they stepped in front of it, otherwise I would've missed the whole exchange because it was all so fast.

Carleton gave him back the birdseed and the guy kept asking for money saying it's a business, Carleton thought, "how disgusting, now I can't use my hand until I find a place to wash it" which is a lot harder than one might think if you've never been to Europe! In America there are public restrooms everywhere you look, in Europe, not so much, I guess because everything is so much older, they didn't have the space, plumbing, etc to be able to add bathrooms. You're lucky if you can find a porta-potty type thing that you pay for on a sidewalk (we never used one, we never got that desperate).

You guessed it, I forgot the name of this place too:)

The Cimitero Monumentale, noted for its abundance of highly artistic and often imposing tombs. You should google image it, it's amazing. I've never seen such a huge, beautiful cemetery with such detail in all the carvings. When I thought I'd seen the most spectacular one of the bunch I'd walk 15 feet and see an even more incredible one.