Monday was a fairly ordinary day as I spent it mostly with the 5th and 4th class. I must point out, however, my disappointment that I was, not for the first time yet in Italy, served for lunch a nice big bowl of "Pasta Bianca" which translates into "White Pasta" a.k.a plain cooked pasta with olive oil and, should you choose (or in my case not choose as I get through lunch using only one word with the kind non-english-speaking lunch ladies; "tutto" which means "everything") a too-big serving of parmesan cheese on top. Don't get me wrong, it's freshly made Italian pasta, so nothing about it tastes BAD. I just suppose that the knowledge of how many incredibly tasty pasta sauces there are in the world leaves me discontented with this effortless dish.
Monday's lunch; the one and only boring dish that exists in Italy
After school Alice and I planned to meet our neighbour Francesca at the metro station called "Famagosta" to go to the pool with her and her daughter Ceci again. However we had about an hour after school before we had to meet Fra, so we entertained ourselves with gelati and browsing through magazines in the newsagency at the station.
Gelati, beautiful gelati
On the metro on the way to meet Fra I was overjoyed to see this dog because in Australia my dog is a cross of this breed and another and this dog acted exactly like my Sasha does. How beautiful!
Something interesting to note about Italy is that there is considerably less, I suppose "hush" about things that are legal for over-18-year-olds only. Here, you can see that in this small newsagency there are poker machines! And as for alcohol, beer is served at McDonald's and Burger King and all grocery stores (even small ones like the equivalent to Australia's IGA) have an aisle of alcohol and because of this I don't think there are liquor stores like in Australia!
Picked up this magazine. Discovered that the Italians love Taylor Swift too. This is fantastic news.
When we arrived at the pool Alice and I decided (okay maybe I pressured Alice into it a little) that it would be fun to trial a class that I saw happening while I was there the week before called "Aquagym". Basically it's a class where a whole load of people get in the pool and the instructor stands on the edge of the pool controlling the pump-up music he has playing and yelling at you what to do in an excitable, cheerleader kind of way. The hour of this class was even more interesting because despite that I am now able to understand about 80% of Italian, words and phrases like "change sides", "knees up" and "double time" weren't yet in my vocabulary. It was a lot fun though and if it weren't for Alice's death threats that followed I might even consider doing it again some time!
On Tuesday I left school early to go to my Italian tutoring lesson with Eugenio. Eugenio is a boy who is in the 5th year (one year older than me) at a Liceo Classico somewhere in Milano, who tutors Alice and her friend Elena in Ancient Greek and Latin a few times a week. As I wasn't able to get myself into a language school (because all courses here start in September when the school year starts) he offered to tutor me in Italian. I found the lesson extremely helpful and Eugenio is an excellent teacher (I believe he actually wants to become a Latin and Greek teacher one day) and I walked away feeling much much better about my Italian.
From the time when I left school to when I had to meet Eugenio I had about 45 minutes spare, so I went to Duomo (it's about a 2 minute walk from my school) and enjoyed myself a Gelato :)
This statue marks the centre of the square and I suppose, hence, the centre of the city, although for me it is memorable because Alice told me that whenever groups of teenagers want to meet somewhere in Duomo they agree to meet "under the horse's bum" and in fact that is where we met Alice's friends the week before
Gelato with nutella on top!
On Tuesday night Chiara and Massimo had arranged for us all to go to a Jazz and Swing music fest in Milano with some friends of theirs! Before the concert (which in true Italian style didn't start until 8.30pm) we went out to dinner where I had my second ever Italian lasagne, my first being the one Alice and Chiara made at home on the first day I arrived.
Lasagne!
The music festival was absolutely wonderful. The whole show was decked out with excellent dancers, a wonderful band and guest musicians who did wonderful solo performances on the trumpet, clarinet, piano and my very, very favourite, violin.
Our view of the stage!
As the performance then didn't finish until 12.30am we all awoke on Wednesday morning dead tired, and I'm sure I spent most of the day at school sleeping. Dinner that night, however, was interesting. I've found already that here seafood is very popular (generally meals have the first course of pasta and the second of fish and vegetables or fish and salad) however on this night Chiara made something that although my Dad would have loved, I personally couldn't look at without thinking of the cute character from finding nemo; small octopuses. Despite my disgust though, my Dad especially will be pleased to know that I did in fact try one (like the good little exchange student I am). But I think it's safe to say that next time I'll stick to the plain old pasta.
I don't like coffee myself (a complete waste sending me to Italy then, I know) so I ordered a hot chocolate instead. Now this is something incredible, because in Australia a "hot chocolate" is typically hot water and/or milk with chocolate powder/flavouring mixed through it. But here a "hot chocolate" is literally like someone has taken a block of chocolate, melted it, added cream and served it in a cup. It is extremely rich, thick and heavy and personally I can't managed to drink it, instead I eat it with a spoon!
The nice bar where we stopped
Fresh breakfast pastries
School that day was fairly boring as, no matter how much Italian I learn, I can't see that I will ever be able to follow the 9 hours a week of Ancient Greek and Latin, or 5 hours of French classes they do here. However the upside is that it was pizza day in the cafeteria (who knew "cafeteria" was in Italian word?), which means gelati, which makes everyone happy.
Pizza day with gelati on the side! Terrible quality Italian food, great gelato.
After lunch I left school early in yet another attempt to find an after school activity. This time I went with the family's friend Beatrice (Bea for short) to a nice place called "Portafranco". The place is actually designed as somewhere where kids who need any kind of help with their study or a place to go to study can go and it's completely free. It just so happens that recently they've decided to start up a theatre class for anyone who's interested. The class had already started, of course, and they were working on a performance of "La Bella e La Bestia" which is The Beauty and the Beast. For me it was difficult because the whole script was in Italian (naturally) and no one in the class spoke English except Bea and one other girl who are both fourteen so don't speak english very well. But I really enjoyed going because I spoke only Italian and found it a real challenge to speak for so long with people who couldn't understand english, so I couldn't just say "Italian Italian Italian, how do you say "english word"?", instead I had to make the best use of whatever words in Italian I did know and had a lot of fun with it!
On the way home we made a couple of stop overs; first to pick up family friend Francesca (Bea's sister, not our neighbour Francesca - there are a LOT of Francesca's in this country) because she is coming to live with us for a while while her family is in the process of moving houses, and then to Nonna Lydia's house (in the same street as our house) as she had prepared a roast for us all for dinner! This was in fact the first time I had been inside Lydia's house and the moment I walked inside I saw something in the corner I'd really been hoping to see: Lydia's harp. A fun fact about Lydia is that she was one of the first ever professional female harpists in Italy, and her career was spent travelling and playing harp not only all over Italy, but all over the world! Hearing her play was incredible, but even more, she let me have a turn!
Beautifiul, beautiful harp
Arriving home Massimo had prepared the table and the first course of the meal for us already and I was particularly pleased with his method of decorating the dishes.
On Friday I spent the whole day in the 4th Class as I am finding it easier to follow lessons if I stay with the same class all day, and the 4th class are the same age as me so I can stay with them when school returns in December (instead the 5th class will graduate in June). Friday was International Women's Day and so as Chiara had told me on the weekend, the yellow "Mimose" flower was given to women all day. In some classes in the school the boys organised in advance for every girl in the class to receive flowers, although as there are only two boys in my class the only one who received flowers was Catherine, and they were given to her by her younger sister.
Cathy and her Mimose
On the streets walking to and from school in Milan there were people everywhere trying to sell me these flowers, just like this
Happy International Women's Day!
Friday had also been a cold, rainy in Milan so and hence my throat was feeling a bit sore so on the way home we stopped into the grocery store. This wasn't the first time I had been in an Italian grocery store but I always find it entertaining to spot the differences from Australian grocery stores.
The rainy view from our classroom window
Adorable Italian butchers chatting away
I FOUND TWISTIES
AND THEY'RE CALLED "FONZIES"
HOW GOOD IS THAT
Well I thought my throat was sore
And then this happened
And somehow I feel better now
That night the girls in Alice's class decided they wanted to take me out dancing in Milan for the first time, because in Italy clubs are for 16-year-olds and over, not 18 like Australia, so on the weekends teenagers tend to go out clubbing. First we met for dinner at a Japanese restaurant called "Kisen" for dinner and were "spotted" by a photography group called "TamTamMilano" who go around on Friday and Saturday night taking photos of young people having fun around Milan!
Myself, Sara and Fra (Yet another Francesca, different to the other two)
From left to right: Myself, Sara, Fra, Viola, Alice, Fra, Ludovica, Nadia, Elena
Afterwards we went towards the clubs however thanks to some kind of argument over which club was best and that Ludovica felt sick so her and Fra left early, we never actually went in one. It was a lot of fun anyway though because we did a lot of walking around Milan's most popular areas at night where there are a lot of bars and clubs and I personally enjoyed watching those in heels attempting to walk straight on the cobblestoned streets.
Sara and I
Fra Bellini and I
I was looking forward to Saturday all week not only because it's a school-free day, but because I had organised to go out with two girls from my class Maria Pia and Catherine. We had planned just to get a gelato but they instead made a plan to take me to some places in Milan I hadn't yet seen, namely the most expensive designer part of the city.
There is a cafe that I walk past every morning on the way to school called "Bastinello's". It is absolutely beautiful, complete with shiny tablecloths and waiters wearing suits, and I have been dreaming about spending a cute afternoon there ever since I first saw it. And Maria Pia, Catherine and Catherine's adorable sister Olympia who came along with us, decided we should have our gelato there!
A part of the inside of Bastinello's!
Bastinello's Gelato
Myself, Catherine and Maria Pia
Next, the girls asked me if we could make a quick stop at their gym to renew their membership there. And it was undoubtedly the most modern, fashionable gym I have seen, just a 2 minute walk from Duomo.
A sneaky photo I took of the gym
Then, it was time to wonder Milan's most fashionable streets, and here I think the photos can do the talking.
This here is the cue to get into Chanel. A que, JUST TO WALK INSIDE!
And it was a rainy day! And people were still standing outside on the street waiting to just walk inside the Chanel store. Oh my God.
The last stop of our tour was the all-famous American store Abercrombie & Fitch. For those of you who don't know, Abercrombie & Fitch is a very famous clothing store that sells clothes for children and teenagers that are honestly quite over-priced but extremely fashionable (literally all anyone wears at my school) just because the clothes always have the words "Abercrombie & Fitch" written on them. More importantly though, it is famous because it hires models to stand in the store doing nothing but wearing the clothes, looking attractive and saying hi to people. And most importantly, they hire incredibly attractive male models to stand at the front of the store wearing Abercrombie pants, no shirt and having their polaroid picture taken with anyone who pleases. And the photo is completely free! Need I say more?
From left to right; Olympia, Catherine, super attractive Abercrombie model, Maria Pia and meee
After all of this excitement and terrible weather Sunday was spent at home enjoying the fire and Nonna Lydia's cooking before another week of school next week!
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