10/6 - 16/6
The holidays kicked off very, very calmly. With Mago and Chiara still in Prague celebrating their wedding anniversary the three of us had the house to ourselves and were absolutely happy to spend Saturday at home watch The Voice Australia.
On Sunday I wanted to do some shopping as, strangely enough, my wardrobe had almost no summer-appropriate clothes in it, so Lydia gave me a lift to Carrefour (the local shopping centre) where I spent almost all day wandering around stocking up for summer. Chiara and Mago's flight got in in the late afternoon and they picked me up on their way home. That night there was a storm and we lost power at home, so after lighting a few candles I rushed to get the playing cards for a game called "Phase 10". Phase 10 is a game that my Grandma and cousins at home absolutely love and we often play together, so I brought the cards along to show the game to my host family. Although they took a while to get into it and kept on comparing it to their favourite Italian card games in the end I think they got the hang of it!
On Monday Chiara and Mago had to go to work but Alice's friends decided it would be fun to come over to our house and have a "griglia", which is Italian for BBQ, in our backyard. Although we ran into some technical difficulties when we realised nobody actually knew how to use a BBQ, several hours later we sat down for lunch with some strangely cooked meat.
The holidays kicked off very, very calmly. With Mago and Chiara still in Prague celebrating their wedding anniversary the three of us had the house to ourselves and were absolutely happy to spend Saturday at home watch The Voice Australia.
On Sunday I wanted to do some shopping as, strangely enough, my wardrobe had almost no summer-appropriate clothes in it, so Lydia gave me a lift to Carrefour (the local shopping centre) where I spent almost all day wandering around stocking up for summer. Chiara and Mago's flight got in in the late afternoon and they picked me up on their way home. That night there was a storm and we lost power at home, so after lighting a few candles I rushed to get the playing cards for a game called "Phase 10". Phase 10 is a game that my Grandma and cousins at home absolutely love and we often play together, so I brought the cards along to show the game to my host family. Although they took a while to get into it and kept on comparing it to their favourite Italian card games in the end I think they got the hang of it!
On Monday Chiara and Mago had to go to work but Alice's friends decided it would be fun to come over to our house and have a "griglia", which is Italian for BBQ, in our backyard. Although we ran into some technical difficulties when we realised nobody actually knew how to use a BBQ, several hours later we sat down for lunch with some strangely cooked meat.
 |
| Lara and Nadia |
 |
| Elena |
The best part about the day was that it was lovely and sunny and finally, hot! So we spent the rest of the afternoon outside, until finally it was time for Alice and I to get dressed and go to our Paramore concert!
Paramore is one of the few bands both Alice and I love and a few months ago, while Alice was away in Belfort, I was looking online and found that they were coming to Milan, so as a little thank-you-for-helping-me-and-being-super-patient-with-my-crappy-language-skills present to Alice I got us both tickets! And in fact, Alice had never been to a concert before so I had the honour of showing her the ropes!
On Tuesday we spent the first half of the day at home, I sewed and everyone else did their own thing until after lunch Alice, Ceci and I went to Milan to do some shopping.
 |
| As our house is surrounded by rice fields, now is the time of year when they fill them up with water so it looks like we have a huge lake surrounding us! |
Having seen a few things on Tuesday afternoon, on Wednesday Alice and I spent the day shopping, then went to Sara's house for dinner before getting ready and going to a party of someone from our school.
Thursday was then the most exciting day of the week. Firstly because on Thursday morning Chiara and I went to the Questura, the office in Milan where they deal with Visas and permits to stay in Italy. We had an appointment to talk about if I would be able to extend my stay in Italy by a month. And we were successful! Which means that instead of coming home on December 8th I will now be able to stay with my host family in Italy for Christmas and New Years too, heading home on January 11th!
After our meeting and a half hour or so of me jumping around and up and down in excitement I went to meet up with my friends Cathy, her sister Olympia and another friend from our class Maria Giovanna at the castle in Milan. Not only had I before been unaware that you actually can go inside the castle, I also hadn't realised that inside the walls of the castle there is a hugeee, and I mean huge, park. As it was a really nice sunny day the girls thought it would be nice to stay there for the day, so we played volleyball together, ate some wraps we bought from a little cafe in the park and played celebrity heads for hours.
 |
| Cathy and I |
 |
| Oly and Marie |
 |
| The fountain out the front of the castle, facing towards the street that leads to Duomo |
After we left we walked to a place Cathy and Oly's mum had recently found and recommended we try; it was a fashionable cafe/yoghurteria so the girls gave me a Sicilian sweet to try called Canolì and then I tried one of the yoghurts their mum had raved about!
 |
| Sicilian Canolì |
 |
| Eat your heart out Dani |
On Saturday night Fra had friends over for dinner in the backyard and I was especially happy as one of them brought a dessert perfect for me; as I don't like coffee (yes, I know, maybe coming to Italy wasn't the ideal choice considering) I also haven't been able to fall in love with Italy's ever-famous dessert, Tiramisu. But this night a friend of Francesca's brought along "Tiramisu alla Frutta di Bosca" which means Tirmisu without coffee, but with forest fruits in its place. Aaaaaaammmmaazzzziiiinnnggggggggg. She even gave me the recipe afterwards!
On Sunday after calling home it was time to sit down and pack our bags because tomorrow we depart for Isola d'Elba; an island off of Tuscany where Nonna Lydia has a holiday house!
No comments:
Post a Comment