Busy Last Weeks

27/5 -2/6

As the end of the school year draws nearer and nearer (only two weeks left!) we go into serious assessment time, even if I thought doing one test a day normally was enough, as it turns out, it's not. So this week I started bringing my laptop to school so that while my class did exam after exam after exam I could attempt to catch up on my blog writing.

A good thing, however, is that in the last few weeks of school people start to celebrate! Monday night, in fact, Alice's class had their annual class "Aperitivo", which translates best into "Happy Hour". It is basically where you eat from a buffet of finger food, drink something and sit around and talk at a low price. Alice stayed back at school to study before coming to the Aperitivo with some of her classmates, so I went and met up with Chiara and we went for a walk around the area near where the Aperitivo was held before it started, as the Aperitivo is in fact organised by the parents of the class so they all come along as well. The most interesting place Chiara and I saw was the Church of Santa Maria della Grazia, one of Milan's most famous churches and in fact where Leonardo Da Vinci's famous painting of The Last Supper is kept. To see the painting you need to book about three or four months in advance, so we are planning to go in December, but on this day we went inside the church and in fact there was somebody in there playing the pipe organ!

Then it was time to go to the Aperitivo, which was held at a very fashionable place in the centre of Milan, which I believe was once a courtyard of some kind of palace, but is now simply a bar! It was a really lovely night, hanging out with Alice's class who I love a lot, finally talking about things other than school and assessment!

Chiara and Margherita

Viola and Bianca

Martina and Francesca

Alice and Bianca

3/5 of the boys of the class; Andrea, Fabio and Giacomo

A sun clock!

Half of the girls of the class; Martina, Francesca, Ludovica, me, Georgia, Viola, Bianca, Chiara, Margherita

The parents

Almost all of Alice's class!

Fra and Ludo

The zone of Milan called "Cordusio", about a 1-2minute walk from Duomo

A shop we past walking about to the car FULL of clothes for Chihuahuas!

On Tuesday/Wednesday night Mago was away on a work trip so the rest of us went to eat a pizza at a little pizzeria in Noviglio and afterwards we went to try out a new Gelateria that recently opened in the town next to ours, Binasco. And this Gelateria was amazing! For such a small town, this tiny little family-owned Gelateria was huge and had more fresh, original flavours than I have ever seen all together in one gelateria!

One of Alice's friends, Gaia, is a part of the local Rotary club and constantly organises different fundraiser events for Rotary, so on Thursday night we all went to the Annual Rotary Comedy Festival. It was a lot of fun firstly because it was held in one of Milan's best theatres, Teatro Manzoni Secondly because I can now finally understand about 97% of Italian so I could easily follow what was going on and the acts really were good. Thirdly because, just like televised events, the audience members were given little devices to vote for their favourite act at the end!

On the metro

My enthusiastic host family

The theatre! 

Voting devices! Just like TV!

The foyer 

Milan's centre of high fashion, Via Montenapoleone

On Friday night two of the girls from Alice's class, Fra and Ludo had their joint birthday party at a small club called the "Shu Cafe". The club was a really nice place with a lot a people and a good DJ so I really enjoyed the night talking and dancing with all the girls from school!

One of the birthday girls, Ludovica, has decided that next year (from September) she is sadly going to move to another school, as the hours at this school are too long and difficult. So, as a surprise for her, her friends made this acrostic poem and stuck it up in the club, it basically translates into "Ludo one of us, now and forever. Truly inseparable, together once together forever!"

Some of the girls; Chiara, Elena, Nadia, Lara, Fra, Ludo, Viola and Bianca

Alice!

Me, Alice, Elena, Nadia, Lara and Bianca

Saturday was a big day, kicking off with the school's one celebration of the year where students, teachers and parents come to the school to see the performances of each class and eat. Unfortunately my class was "too busy" to organise an act so we didn't participate, but I still really enjoyed watching the other classes and students perform!

As our school is a square shape, there is a really beautiful square courtyard in the middle, although usually we aren't allowed to go inside. But for the school party they set up a stage in the middle and that's where the performances were held! 

Eating in the park afterwards

I then left school around 1pm to go and catch a train to visit my Swiss friend Céline in her host town of Lecco, a town north of Milan by about forty minutes in train, set on Italy's famous Lake Maggiore; even George Clooney has a holiday house on Lake Maggiore!

The view from the train of the countryside just outside of Milan

Whilst Milan and its closer surrounds are on land that is completely flat, Lake Maggiore is completely surrounded by mountains so this was the view I saw as the train got closer to Lecco! 

Céline came and got me at the train station and, as Lecco is small enough to almost never need a car, we spent the afternoon on a walking tour of Lecco where I saw her school, her favourite shops, the town centre and finally her host family's house.

When we got to the main square there was in fact some kind of festival organised by all of the students in Lecco, so it was full of people and we even ran into a few of Céline's school friends! 

Lake Maggiore

Of course she had to show me her favourite gelateria while I was there :)

Céline's host Dad then very kindly offered me a lift back to Milan as they were going there to have dinner with some friends that night, so he drove us back and left me at the metro wherefrom I went to meet up with Chiara. Chiara and I went home as fast as possible so that I could get changed and leave again to go, funnily enough, to the Shu Cafe as my friend from my class Cathy had invited me to go there with her to the 18th birthday party of her friend from primary school, Vivi. As it was Saturday night the club was much, much more crowded than the night before. But despite that I knew only Cathy I had so so much fun dancing and joking around with Cathy, Vivi and all of her friends too!

Cathy and I

Sunday was a nice sunny day so after Skype calling home in the morning we went out to have lunch at a little restaurant not far from our house, although it was a lovely place because you didn't have to order, the menu was set and they just kept bringing more plates. Afterwards, we arrived at home and Alice and I went and laid down to relax in the sun in the backyard for the afternoon.

Ravioli

Pannacotta<3