Week 4; Discovering Milano

Monday was spent at school and the lamingtons were an absolute hit! Although I didn't get any photos of Alice's class enjoying them, I am proud to say I have been asked by many to make them again sometime.

During class on Monday, I was amused to find my class learning about "L'effetto Doppler" which translates into The Doppler Effect, as any fans of The Big Bang Theory will recall is what Sheldon once dressed up as for Halloween

After school on Monday the hunt for an after school activity continued and I went with our adorable eleven-year-old neighbour, Cecilia (Ceci for short, pronounced "cheh-chee") to a pool in a nearby town where she swims in a team. This was a particularly interesting experience as Ceci's English level is about equal to my current Italian level, so we communicate mostly as if stuck constantly in a game of charades.

Ceci and I

At the start things were mostly simple as I could work out where to get dressed and leave my things before Ceci pointed me to the right lane in the pool and acted out doing laps. I really enjoyed swimming after weeks of no exercise and when having breaks at the end of the pool many sociable Italians thought it might be nice to start up a conversation with me; some who spoke more eventually discovered I couldn't understand much Italian, but with some who only spoke a little I managed to fake my way through with nodding and smiling.

The real problem arose because I didn't know how long Ceci's training went for and after swimming for an hour and a half I was feeling sufficiently tired and wrinkly, so I decided I could get out on my own. On the way back I somehow managed to take a wrong turn into the men's bathroom instead of women's (in my defence, there is no small picture of a man on the door, only a long fancy word I don't recognise). I was in there for about five minutes, going to the bathroom, washing my hands and being confused about why my bag wasn't where I thought I left it, before a few men walked out of the showers and gave me some very confused looks, and I left as quickly as one can on a slippery floor wearing thongs.

The next problem was when I found my way back to the ladies' bathroom and went to have a shower. When I had walked in and paid earlier I had been given a plastic strip with small dots on it, but I didn't know what for and, trying to have a shower, I couldn't understand why mine was the only one not turning on. So I was left to wait about 20 minutes for Ceci to finish and come back and teach me that the plastic strip is a key that you put in the evil-looking silver box at the entrance to the showers, and it turns on the shower for you. Just like magic!

The evil silver box that turns the showers on

On Tuesday I had an appointment in the morning at the local police station to obtain my permit to stay in Milan for one year. My appointment wasn't scheduled until 9.07 (a very exact time) and, after taking the others to school at 8, Chiara and I had time to walk around a part of Milano I had not yet seen.

Beautiful Milanese homes

Another stunning Italian church

We then arrived at the police station half an hour early, not wanting to miss our appointment. But we soon discovered that, despite its exactness, the appointment we had been given was an "estimated time", and we had to take a ticket and wait to be served behind the 150 or so other people in the room. To make things more uncomfortable, the room for some reason seemed not to have glass in it's doors and windows and so after waiting for about an hour and 45 minutes on the humid 6º day I can safely say I have never been so cold in my life. Ever.

A small piece of the huge, freezing room.
And I thought the Department of Transport in Australia was bad.

When we were finally served the men moved very quickly collecting and approving documents and signatures before something interesting happened; I was fingerprinted for the first time ever! Twice!

The finger printing machine!

I then, after a stop at a cafe with Chiara to defrost with a hot chocolate and croissant, returned to school. Today at school was a special occasion (although I was beginning to think they never had them) and all of the students had been asked to come dressed their best. This was very strange for me as at my school in Australia on special occasions we are asked to wear no jewellery or makeup and to wear our hair neatly tied back. Here, all of the girls came to school with their hair perfectly styled wearing their best clothing and jewellery and spent the most part of the morning perfecting eachother's eyeliner and lipstick. 

The event was held because in the Classico Europeo part of this school (the part Alice and I are in) students graduate with both an Italian and a French diploma and the students who graduated last year needed to have their French diplomas officially presented to them by a French Ambassador. Because of this, the whole ceremony was held in French (even the Italian students who were singing as entertainment had to sing in French) so admittedly I slept through most of it. However I was pleased because the event was held in the school's beautiful ballroom I had seen a couple of weeks ago with Maria Pia and Catherine. 

Afterwards I decided to get a photo with this statue that is near the ballroom because since I arrived at this school every time I walk past it I feel like, if I could just crack the password, it would turn around to reveal the steps to Dumbledore's office.

Wednesday was also exciting as I had been asked by WEP to go to another school in Milan and talk about my exchange experience to encourage Italian students to go on exchange. I met a WEP Representative and two other inbound exchange students (a girl from French-Speaking Canada and a boy from Japan, who both arrived last September and hence left me as the only one not able to speak Italian) in the morning and went to the school in another part of Milan I had not yet seen. The school was called "Volta" and was a Liceo Scientifico (Scientific Highschool) that couldn't have been more different from my school! This school had a lot more students than the one I am at and the building itself was much more modern and reminded me of the American Highschools I've seen in movies.

Myriam from Quebec, Canada and Atsuya from Japan!

The courtyard in the middle of the school

One of the halls

Unlike my school, this school had noticeboards!

Myself, Myriam and one of the Volta students who had recently returned from her exchange to Australia!

This school, like most Italian schools, finished at 1pm so I decided to go and have lunch with Myriam and a boy from Volta, Daniele, who did an exchange to Russia last year. They took me to eat at a very famous place in Duomo called "Luini" that I hadn't tried yet. And it was incredible! Luini is famous for its "Panzerottis" which are basically small pizzas, folded in half and deep fried or oven baked, and taste amazingggg. And it only cost €2!

The line to get into Luini at lunch time

My "Classic" flavour Panzerotti 

The unfortunate thing about Luini though is that there is no place to sit inside, so to eat we went and sat next to a fountain just behind Duomo that I had never seen before. It was in the centre of a really beautiful square that Daniele told me is famous because many many years ago the bank in the square was blown up by some kind of terrorist group.

As none of us needed to be anywhere before 6pm after eating we went from a walk in Corso Vittoria-Emanuela, one of Milan's most famous shopping streets.

We stopped to have a gelato in this beautiful Cafe on Corso Vittoria-Emanuela

Gelato!

Myriam, myself and Daniele

We then entered into one of the most magical places I am yet to find in Italy; The Disney Store! It is an absolute shame that we don't have Disney stores in Australia, because walking into this place felt like walking into my whole childhood.

Complete with Princess Castle!

A little something for my friend Grace; the Toy Story Section of the store

For my Mum; a Cheshire Cat!

We then somehow found ourselves back in the main square and decided it would be nice to go and see the inside of Duomo Cathedral. As the Cathedral is of Gothic Architecture I found the inside very dark and creepy to be quite frank, I didn't like it. To me, it didn't feel like I was in Church, as I normally find Churches to be a happy place filled with light and beautiful paintings and colours. The paintings and stained glass windows of this Church would certainly be considered beautiful by some, but for me it was just too dark and scary. There was even a part in which we walked downstairs into a kind of dungeon room where there was an elaborate shrine around the dead body of the Patron Saint of Milano.

And speaking of the Church, the next day, Thursday, was Pope Benedict's last day as Pope before the Vatican city goes into the period of "Conclave" to elect a new Pope! Although the topic wasn't much discussed among the younger generation during school, on Thursday night my host Nonna Lydia was absolutely rapt in discussing who might be the next Pope and why Pope Benedict has chosen to do this and how this hasn't been done in nearly six hundred years! Now I'm really excited to see who the next Pope will be, and am stoked that I will be in Italy when it happens!

I think the Pope would be pleased with the way I chose to celebrate his last day; with no other than my favourite flavours Pistacchio, Nocciola and Cocco :)

Friday night, after a long day of school, Alice invited me to go out with a few of her friends from her class to have dinner and see a movie. We planned to meet in Duomo, however Alice's friends were running a bit late, so we decided to take a look in the most wonderful book/stationary/electronics store in Milan, called "Mondadori". It's a wonderful store that even sells books in multiple different languages, so I could find books in English, although I found it more entertaining to look at my favourite books in Italian.

Even the children's book section is decked out!

I've found that often when the titles of films and books are translated, for some reason they are not translated literally, as maybe it is the belief that the meaning would be lost.
A good example is this book/film which is one of my favourites and in English is called "The Perks of Being a Wallflower" however it is translated in Italian as "Noi Siamo Infinito" which means "We Are Infinite".

After waiting for one of the boys in Alice's class, Silvio, for almost an hour we decided we should go to his house to get him. In Italy, and Milan especially, many many families live in apartments. And Silvio's apartment just so happens to be located directly next to the Duomo in the building which really is as close as you could possibly live to Duomo. So when Silvio finally came down, to make up for his tardiness, he took us "to show us something": the roof of the apartment, from which you can see the Duomo and look down on the street below; the most famous shopping street in Milan.
It. Was. Incredible.
And the even cooler thing was that unlike usual, it wasn't just me, the overly excitable Australian girl, who was freaking out about where we were; the italians I was with were probably even more stoked than I was!

The roof of the apartment; perfect for a Gossip-Girl-Style party I say

The view of the Duomo from the roof

A terrible photo of the people I was with; Alice, Giacomo, Silvio, Elena and Sara

This is literally the centre of Milan
(Not figuratively or metaphorically)

The red sign behind me is an advertisement for "Ray-Ban" that is always seen from the main square and cathedral in Duomo, and is very famous for this; it's almost an icon of the main square in Milan. So to be behind it was amazing!!

A photo taken from google where you can see the sign from the main square of the city

We then left to have a quick dinner before the movie, however we spent a long time arguing over which movie we should see and in the end it would be better to buy a kilo of gelato from Cioccolati Italiani and eat it on Silvio's roof. Yep, sounded like a perfect way to spend my Friday night!

What I saw of the beautiful movie theatre in Milan without actually seeing a movie

Although we couldn't decide on a movie we were able to decide on four flavours of gelato; Mandarino, Pistacchio, Rosa al Cioccolato and Yoghurt.

Saturday morning was spent video calling home to catch up with the Aussie fam before I went with Filippo to yet another part of Milan I had not yet seen, Corso Buenos Aires, which is typically a popular shopping destination. We went to see some kind of art exhibition Filippo was interested in, although we actually spent about 2 1/2 hours walking around the square and streets trying to find the exhibition, to no avail. 

But, alas, I did learn something in this time when Filippo got hungry and asked to stop at McDonald's. This was my first time eating at a McDonald's in Italy, but honestly I don't even see why McDonald's should exist in the country that has already the best food in the world. In any event I can now confirm, for many who were wondering, that the menu is indeed different! While you can still order your classic Big Mac burger with fries and coke (as long as you pronounce "burger" with a convincing enough italian accent), there are also "more italian" options. I even ordered a focaccia bread with prosciutto and cheese! Still, it had nothing on true italian quality focaccia, but it certainly outdid any meal I have eaten at McDonald's in Australia.

Focaccia bread at McDonald's! What is this black magic!

Saturday night the Massetti's hosted a "Cascina Rovina" dinner (the name of our street) with the neighbours of both sides of our big yellow house. This was very fitting as Saturday also marked one month since I arrived in Milan, and on my first night with the Massettis one month previous there had also been a Cascina Rovina party!

Getting back in the game; my first time allowed to help with the salad since the day I arrived and almost cut off my finger trying to do so.