Week 10: 10/28 - 11/3

Study Break in Milan!

The Duomo di Milano!

Finally, the sun has returned!

Monday and Tuesday are always perfect days — I have afternoon classes, so I don’t have anywhere to be until 3:30. On Monday, I took the opportunity to sleep in and finish up my blog while snacking on an extra croissant that I had bought at the bakery yesterday. I checked out a few other things — homework, internship applications, and my spring class schedule, and then I headed out for the day. I started by journeying to the nail salon in our area. If you can’t tell from the photos, my wedding nails have grown out way past their due in the past three weeks, so I had to get them off. A sour-faced Italian drilled them down for a staggering 20 euros, and then I was on my way to the next errand. I’ve been popping by the leather market at Il Porcellini every few days to check on the daily leather cardholder offerings. One of my friends from home has requested one, but they didn’t have any that caught my eye, so I headed onwards to the panini shop for my lunch. As expected, the boys recognized me and prepared my sandwich as soon as I walked up. It’s always a tickle to have shopkeepers know you and care for you here.

Ceramics class came and went in a thrillingly mundane fashion. My professor continued his trend of spending the first half of class on a needlessly-redundant demonstration, and then he allowed us to build on our own. As you can see from the photos below, we crafted stumpy little pots with feet. I didn’t mind this one!

I wasn’t planning on grabbing dinner after class, but I passed by a Chinese restaurant right after leaving, and the food just smelled too good to pass up. I had a nice little time chatting with the waitress and ordering her recommendations: the shrimp dumplings and a plate of the black pepper beef. They were both delicious! Again, a little different than the American Chinese food I’m used to, but I enjoyed trying them out and practicing my Chinese.

On Tuesday, I (shamefully) returned to Wild Buns Bakery. Now that I’ve had a taste of their iced latte, I just can’t get enough! I enjoyed that with a pain au chocolat, and I spent the morning drawing in their sitting area and eavesdropping on the other customers. Once I ran out of subjects to sketch, I headed up to the city center and stopped at the leather market again — this time, there was a lovely lady with some great options for cardholders! Morgan, if you’re reading this: I’m not telling you what color I bought you, but I do think it’s perfect. My last stop before class was a mandatory snack time, and I just so happened to stumble upon a Spanish restaurant with hot empanadas! She had all kinds of flavors, but I was a bit overwhelmed, so I just grabbed the classic cheese to test the quality. As expected, they were delicious; I’ll have to try out the chorizo or the hot chicken next week!

my Wild Buns order!

History with Virginia (and Ingrid and Faith, my new class friends) was a bit of a bumpy ride today. Our professor came in hot with a decidedly aggressive attitude — she went so far as to ask if one of my classmates fingers were shattered while taking attendance. Why, you might ask? “Well,” she explained, “you didn’t send me an email to explain your absence last week, so I assumed that something was terribly wrong with your hands.” Gulp. Tough crowd today! We stayed quiet and attentive to avoid more of that nonsense.

On Wednesday, I had HR Management. Today, we had to do mock interviews using the resumes we had submitted to the professor just a few days before. I was selected to be one of the interviewees, so I had to participate in front of the whole class. It was actually a good exercise; it’s always good to get more practice with tough questions. After class, I plugged away on homework, submitted a few job applications for the spring semester, and watched a show.

Thursday was History of the Mafia — I made it to class on time, and I even got a good seat at the couches along the side of the room. The professor surprised us by taking us on a walk today; we visited the memorial to a mafia bombing site just a couple of blocks from the classroom. According to him, they were trying to bomb the Uffizi, but they couldn’t make it close enough, so they settled for an apartment building close by. It’s worth noting that he started the trip by rolling his eyes and announcing that “this will not be an American tour group. I will not wave hand for you to see. If you are too slow, you will be lost. I will not wait.” So, we kept an aggressive pace. The visit was pretty interesting to see in person, but I mostly enjoyed the fact that we were outdoors and moving around instead of falling asleep in one of his lectures.

Via dei Georgiofilli mafia bombing memorial.

After class, I got some more work done, and then I headed out to walk down towards Porta Romana and peruse a few of the stores over there. Then, I looped around to the huge patio in front of the Pitti, and I sat for a few hours to draw. Aside from having to shift spots every ten minutes to race against the setting sun, it was really nice. I enjoyed watching people start their aperitif at the cafes across the street, and making faces at the children running around after school. Once I couldn’t find anymore spots of light, I hiked across the river to meet my friends at a Mexican restaurant (!) for early drinks and dinner. It was perfect; just like the Mexican I have been missing from home. I got birria tacos and absolutely crushed them.

Birria at Marga.

Buona Festa! Friday was Halloween — it was funny watching Americans and young Italians zip around the city to the few stores that sold halloween costumes (although calling them costumes is a stretch). Places like the Tutti 99 Cent and Flying Tiger offered a few bare-bones pieces like devil horns, alien masks, and princess crowns, but not much else. I bought a pair of skeleton bone tights and called it a day.

Once school let out, children started trotting around the city in their costumes with parents close by. Trick-or-treating has been adopted in Italy, but the apartment-style living means that it’s a bit different than in American neighborhoods. Instead of stopping at houses, children visit bars, cafes, and shops to hold their bags open and say, "“dolcetto o scherzetto!” It was quite entertaining to watch little children pop in and out.

I received some sad news on Thursday night about the death of one of my high school friends, so I spent most of Friday processing that. I treated myself to Wild Bun again (and I’m not sorry about it, iced lattes are better than cappuccinos), and sat there for awhile to draw and listen to music. After that, I finished a few homework assignments and started looking over my midterm study guides. My roommates and I have noticed that our school seems to be concerned about presenting themselves like a “real university” so they seem to overcompensate academically. The crazy-strict absence policy, for example, and the seriousness of midterms, are both pretty odd for a school teaching classes on wine-pairing and ceramics.

On Saturday, Brelan and I took the train to Milan for the day! We’ve gotten into the habit of booking with the private line instead of the public one, so our two hour trip north was quite pleasant. From the train station, we took the metro to the city center and popped out right at the Duomo di Milano. We started by taking it in and clambering around the hundreds of other tourists fighting with us to take photos and get a better look at all of the details. Then, we headed up to the church to get into line for the terrace, but unfortunately it had sold out for the day. It was a little disappointing, but we pivoted and decided to keep exploring.

The Duomo di Milano.

After getting turned around with the Apple Maps for a few blocks, we made our way to the Galleria Vittorio Emmaneule II, which is Italy’s oldest shopping gallery and the current home of some of the biggest designer stores. Brelan and I checked out Prada first, since they were founded here, but they didn’t have much to look at. We’ve noticed that they are not a brand willing to experiment or be playful; they stick to their silhouettes and their colors, and they don’t care what you think about it. For example, I had hoped to see some sort of special piece that was exclusive to their founding city’s store, but we couldn’t find any. A stamped pattern of the Duomo? A special metallic edition? (Hire me, guys, we need to work on this). Louis Vuitton and Gucci were much more exciting — they had special Christmas edition pieces, and purses in bright colors and patterns.

Brelan and I were starting to get hungry, so we strolled around outside the mall and found a cafe that would do the trick. After cleaning off some margarita pizzas, we were ready to move on to the next place. We made it to the Sforza Castle: this was originally built to protect the city in the medieval ages, and it was occupied by the family who ran the city. It was really beautiful! The property was all made of red brick, and it held multiple courtyards, a moat, and several different buildings that now hold small museum collections. We paid 6 euros for the pass and then checked out as many rooms as we had time for, including their armory, their picture gallery, and their Michelangelo sculpture — it didn’t look like much, but that’s actually because it was unfinished. The sculpture was the last piece that he was working on before his death.

Once we had exhausted all of the offerings at the castle, Brelan and I strolled around the city center and checked out some stores before our early dinner reservation. We visited the Duomo at sunset, and we also stopped by the Chiesa Santa Maria Delle Grazie.

We had snagged a table at the Ralph Lauren bar — it was gorgeous; all natural wood, deep green, and flannel pillows. We had a wonderful (and expensive) meal out on their cozy terrace. I got a lobster roll with French fries, and a lemonade — it felt like America! We ended up running out of time after about an hour, so we paid the bill and took the metro back to the train station. Before we made our way to the platform, we stopped in a beauty store and grabbed some cheap items! I bought a volumizing spray (you guys know this is important for me) for 99 cents! The train home was another easy, peaceful ride spent listening to music and chatting with Brelan.

Ralph did a great job with this one.

My Sunday was classic: I headed to Wild Buns with Virginia and grabbed my favorite iced caffe latte with a croissant, and then we made our way to the Santo Spirito market to check out this week’s offerings. It was very clothing-heavy this week; most of the booths were selling all kinds of winter jackets. Once we’d finished there, I wanted to visit a museum for Florence’s “First Sunday Free” series, so I walked over to the Pitti Palace. The queue was insane! It basically stretched the length of the entire palace. I decided to check out the options across the river, so I made my way to the Palazzo Vecchio. At the ticket office, a very pretentious, pursed-lip Italian let me know that they would only be honoring the free tickets for Florentine citizens. What, you don’t want thousands of Americans getting in your museum for free today? How odd.

With my museum plan foiled, I shopped around a little more and then made my way back to the apartment to study for my midterms. I have Ceramics tomorrow — which, surprisingly, is a bit more to study for than I expected. I have to know all of the different stages of clay and clay firing, all of the different cultural etching techniques, and the different types of hand-building techniques. Luckily, class isn’t until 3:30 tomorrow, so I’ll have some time to review before I get there.

This week was good! I’ve been pinching my pennies a bit, but it was nice to spend time in Milan and enjoy Halloween for a bit. Now, I’ve got to dial in and prepare for all of my midterms. I guess by this time next week, you’ll know if my GPA is going to survive.

Bye for now!!

Charlotte