I have now been in Milan for 15 days. The weather is slowly getting better as the sun appears more often even though the temperature never seems to increase. As I write this at 1:30 am on Thursday morning, I am sitting in my room eating a pathetic imposter of my newfound love; gnocci. It is not the real gnocci even though it looks astoundingly similar. Four of my friends are in my room doing Italian homework and eating a cheap version of gnocci. Gnocci is defined as the italian name for thick, soft noodles/dumplings. Between gnocci, gelato which I will get to, and nutella I feel like I have not lived the first 20+ years of my life!! These are 3 of the most amazing foods I have had and never really knew about them before arriving.
The Italian crash course continues to be very informative yet boring at the same time. Classes are 5 hours a day and I am not one to sit in a room and learn that long without getting rambunctious. I do not care if it was a 5 hour class about American Football or Nutella or Pepsi or anything, I still wouldn't be able to give my undivided attention for that lengthy period. My italian is coming along though as I can have choppy yet effective conversations with shop-keepers and even my friends. I have a friend from UIllinois who only responds to texts if they are in Italian; I can say I text him the least.
Every day and every night seems to be a new adventure and only 1 thing is a given. With the friends I have, it is that we are going out 90% of the time whether it is to a "discoteca", dinner, or simply getting lost somewhere in Milan looking for a place we have no idea where it really is. The clubs here are pretty cool mainly because it possesses a friendly and modern atmosphere. All of them so far play mostly American or techno/electronic music which everyone loves. A good fraction of the people you will find in the clubs are Exchange students since a lot of these are promoted by Bocconi University itself. We often leave the dorm, or should I say hotel, around 9pm or 10pm and will return anywhere between 2am and 4am haha.
You kind of have to be here to completely appreciate this next brief story but if you have seen the movie "The Hangover" you will understand it more. Somehow 2 of my friends, Cathy and Gail, and I are always last to get a taxi and are stranded somewhere in Milan. The comical part about it is that we always sing "And we're the three best friends that anyone could have..." because its ALWAYS the three of us, never anyone else!!
Go to http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Op-4iqRCDV4 if you want to completely understand it or just watch the aforementioned movie!! We always eventually get a taxi and it never costs much because we have already walked across half of Milan before we find one.
Anyways, we tried aperitivo for the first time last week and just had it again last night. For those who do not know what that is, it is a popular concept here where you order a drink for a set price and have unlimited complimentary food shortly after. There is a table or two at the front with a variety of pastas, rice, bread, potatoes, and more delicious food that I couldn't even try to explain (mostly because I don't know the name!). It is a friendly atmosphere as well with light music playing in the background. Right after, we went to try GELATO. It was FANTASTIC. It is similar to ice cream but honestly, I can't even explain it. I got 3 scoops of like a cookies and cream and chocolate, can't wait to get more. My friend bought strawberry and I am so anxious to try it! Gelato really lived up to my expectations!
As time goes by, everyone makes more and more friends which obviously leads to more and more stories. I don't think it would be possible to have as many hysterical stories as my friends and I have so far. I would love to tell them all but it would take too long and some might be either slightly inappropriate or slightly offensive so when I arrive back to the states, you can ask.
Today the cleaning ladies came to my floor as they do weekly to clean our rooms (obviously). I have been here for 15 days and they came on the first day I was here where I told them I did not want my room cleaned since I had been here a single day. They have not come until today. I wanted to see if they would actually clean my room so I skyped my friend Pete from Long Island (he is here in Milan for the semester) and I angled my laptop for a perfect visual of my bed. I made my screen black but my webcam still worked. We sat in his room for almost two hours waiting for them to clean my room. We heard the doorbell on his laptop but we didn't know what it was at first. I checked his door to see if anyone was there; nobody was there. Nobody was in the hallway so we rewound the movie we were watching to see if it was in the movie. No doorbell in the movie. We finally realized it was the doorbell we heard through skype from my room. Usually they just barge in and clean one's room; they completely skipped my room again wasting two hours of my afternoon; sweet.
I am too lazy to read my blog and see if I mentioned it but my roommate arrived a bit ago and is from San Francisco. He goes to San Diego State, poor guy huh? He is a great roommate because he is social, shares common interests, and we are respectful of each other's space and sleeping times. He is an athlete which is a huge plus and is going with me to watch the SuperBowl at a bar this Sunday night (Monday morning here in Italy)!!!! 11 of us played basketball the other day but I will explain that later because I am getting sick of writing for now. Wish I could hand this in as some type of homework since this is probably longer than any essay I have ever written.
Six of my friends and I just booked a trip in May to Greece for four days!! We are flying into Athens for a very good price and I cannot WAIT to see it. We are going to book a couple hostels and definitely take a ferry or something over to the popular island of Mykonos. The only problem with this trip is that I might miss a Thursday class which everyone who knows me knows how saddened I am by this. I feel terrible about missing a class, but there is a first for everything right? haha Later we also might book a trip to Cagliari, Sardinia for a nice vacation to the beautiful beaches. I found roundtrip flight tickets for 30 euros (45 US dollars) so we might as well for that price!!!
I will post pictures soon and hope everything remains well in the US for everybody. I miss everyone in the States and will continue to edit this as I am introduced to more entertaining experiences. For those of you who are reading this in New England, stay warm!!
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