The Ancient Ones

This post doesn't really serve all that much of a narrative purpose, it's more just to confess something to all of you. Old Italian ladies scare me.

That's it. Go and ahead laugh, but I assure you, until you have a had a direct encounter with one don't be so quick to laugh it off. On the vast whole, they're all about 5 feet tall, wizened, and truly hate me. Yes its true. Every female over the age of 60 in all of Italy despises me and are determined to make my life difficult. They glare at me with tiny eyes glittering with... I don't know what to call it but it freaks me out. I've withheld judgment for several months, but over the past several months I've had many encounters that neither have my peers experienced nor my Italian friends been able to explain. The only answer: le donne vecchie don't like me and I should fear them. Let me regale you with a few tales...


The Metro (Part 1)

In the first month of school, I was getting used to taking the metro everywhere. That wasn't all that difficult, Milan has a fantastic public transportation system and I can get most of the places I need to go in about 30 min. The metro is speckled with the usual people, various musicians who trap you in the car with their old violin or accordion, gypsies who shout their (to me) unintelligible messages, and beggars with their signs and outstretched hands (a great source of moral trouble for me. I give what I can but the truth is that I just don't have that much money. Then their is the fact that some beggars here aren't working from necessity but rather work for the Family). Anyways, I had just really began to feel comfortable with my ability to negotiate a system filled with people who I couldn't communicate with. It was my first month here so I didn't really speak any Italian by that point. I mean I could have told them my name and how old I was...but not really anything too useful.

Now before I continue, you all should know that here in Italy age is a big deal. The elderly are generally very respected and on public transportation if there is an elderly person standing you're expected to offer them your seat. Totally cool, I think that's great. Well...

I was coming back from class one day and I climbed into a metro car that had literally nobody in it. So I just chose a seat back in the corner where I could see the vast expanse of no one in front of me. Unfortunately, my solitude only lasted until the next stop. The doors hissed open and in walked an imperious old lady in her ankle length fur coat (she was maybe 5'4") She looks over her sunglasses around at the empty car and then shuffles towards me. I ignore her until it is obvious that she is standing next to me staring down at me. Kind of awkward right? I glance warily up at her, and then she starts berating me in Italian. Not just a normal scolding either, a full-fledged-whiny-sounding-fast-as-hell-word-blurring tongue lashing. After about 2 minutes I realized what she was talking about. She was pissed off that I didn't offer her my seat.

What the hell?

This lady literally walked PAST 15 open seats to get to me. Easier to get into seats as well. You had to climb past other seats to get where I was. To put it lightly, I was more than irked. I'll happily give up my seat to an older person if there is a dearth of seating, but this was just abuse of the "I'm old" card. That day I was already a little irritated, so I just decided to try and ride it out. She couldn't keep it up forever, right? Wrong. She not only kept it up, but she was going ALL the way to my stop, nearly a 15 min ride. AND not a single other person got on the entire time. I couldn't have made that happen if I paid people to not get on at each stop. So I just sat there awkwardly and pissed off with an old Italian lady yelling at me. And so was my first encounter with....The Ancient Ones.


The Gelateria

Almost a month and a half later, I was showing Jenna and Brett around Milan and decided to show them what I (and my Italian professor) consider to be the best gelato in town, a small place called Grom. (Okay quick side note, in Milan there are only two schools of thought when it comes to opinions of where you can find the best gelato, Chocolat and Grom. Chocolat is apprently a more Milanese styled gelato, heavy and rich. Grom on the other hand makes a more light tasting gelato, though still delicious. It hails from down south in Firenze. Speaking of which, they had a new flavor the other day, Cassata Siciliana. It was a ricotta and candied orange peel combination. Blew my mind.) Anyways, I had been wearing a light jacket all day since it had been cool in the morning, but since we were in the dead heat of the afternoon I had pushed my sleeves up to try and cool off a bit. We wandered into Grom and stood in line for a minute while I translated the menu for Jenna and Brett and made some recommendations. Behind me I heard someone say "Ragazzo!" (Boy) I paid this no mind, you hear somebody yelling ragazzo at someone at least three thousand times a day. I continued trying to help Jenna and Brett decode the menu and then I heard another "RAGAZZO", meaner this time and it was accompanied with a tug at my sleeve. Puzzled I turned around only to find not just one, but TWO angry old Italian ladies. The sleevetugger began rapidly scolding me, and the entire time I'm sitting there wondering "What have I done wrong? Why does the entire population of elderly ladies in Italy hate me so?" Finally, I understood that they wanted me to roll down my sleeves. Why? Frankly I have no idea. I even double checked my arms to make sure I hadn't written "SHIT" or "DAMN" or "ASS" on my arms. (Not that this is something I usually do, but it would have made their request seem more reasonable. There weren't any naked ladies on my arms either.) So there was little else I could do but roll down my sleeves and be uncomfortably warm until we could get our gelati and get the hell away from the old ladies. I've run this story past my Italian teacher Paolo and he had no idea why my rolled up sleeves could offend anyone. What would they have done if I had been wearing a short sleeve shirt? I have no idea, it was just another encounter with .....the Ancient Ones.

Nor would I be so lucky that these would be my only such encounters with these beings. I am continually running into them, somehow inconveniencing them in some way and leaving awkwardly, my back pin cushioned with their daggers of ocular origin. Why? No one can say...no one that is....but The Ancient Ones.

I've been a wild rover for manys a year....

This is a true story. None of the details have been changed to protect the innocent.

So a while ago, Arseniy and I left for a short jaunt up to Ireland. Why Ireland? (Why not Ireland, don’t question me) Actually we chose the Emerald Isle because

A) it seemed like a pretty sweet place to spend a three day weekend
B) It would give us a short break from Italian (or so we thought)
C) Beer

Okay to be fair, beer wasn’t that big of part of that decision. But the other two reasons are valid. At that point we didn’t mind the idea of being able to go up to a shop keep and be able to explain in no uncertain terms exactly what needed to go down. So we bought our tickets, made reservations at a hostel and packed or bags to head up north. Luckily we thought about the fact that we were going north (we were to later find that Ireland even at the end of March is cold enough to freeze the balls off a brass monkey (Not as dirty as it sounds, I’ll explain later if I have to)).

Since our flight was leaving at 9:30 p.m. on Ryanair, that meant we needed to be at the Bergamo airport by around 7:30 or so (Ryanair only flies into Milan at Bergamo). Not all that bad right? Wrong. Bergamo is about an hour bus ride out of Milan…a 8.70 euro ride no less. Cripes. So that meant we needed to leave Stazione Centrale at about 6:30, which meant that we needed to leave the flat around 5:45. Ugh, this was starting to look like an ordeal. Our biggest fear was that Dublin would become Venice, and no one should have to go through Venice twice (see earlier post Masks and Oranges, I can’t exactly remember the title it something like that). To our complete surprise, everything went as well as could be expected. Our bus left Centrale right around 6:30, we rolled into Bergamo at 7:30, checked in, had a coffee, waited for a while, and the flight left on time (HA HA!! Take that Murphy, you jackass!).

A quick word about Ryanair. I don’t know how many of you, my readers (of which there are now undoubtedly fewer due to my negligence. I beg your individual pardons), have ridden Ryanair but there are some really cool things and some slightly less cool things about it. Let me detail it in two lists:

Cool things: Cheap as crap (providing you book well ahead of time), over 90% of their flights arrive on time (this is tied to an uncool thing though…wait for it…), and ummm…. that’s about it.

Uncool things: The inside of the plane is unbelievably yellow (It’s like drowning in Mountain Dew inside a rubber duck), the seats don’t recline at all (forcing all manner of inventive, but equally uncomfortable sleeping positions), I have to go to Bergamo to fly with them, and when you arrive on schedule you have to listen to recorded fanfare and an Irish dude telling you that over 90% of Ryanair flights arrive on time.

Luckily for Ryanair, the first cool thing (hella cheap), is sweet enough to make up for all of the uncool things. Okay, back to the trip.

We rolled into Dublin at about 10:30 local time, and stepped onto the tarmac is a whirl of a category 4 hurricane and freezing rain. Ok not really, but it WAS really cold, windy, and rainy. So far Ireland had not disappointed my expectations. After getting through customs (by the way, the Irish are waaaaay more uptight about who is coming into their country than the Italians), we eventually found the bus that would take us in the general direction of our hostel. We arrived on O’Connell street, and in short order found our hostel, Marlborough Hostel. Typically this is where you would expect me to go on in great detail and describe how awesome our hostel was and all the sweet people we met there. Well, I’m not. It was a pretty cool place, but not epic or anything. Way too many pink, electric blue, and lime green rooms for my taste (And it smelled like….chicken bullion. Everywhere all the time). Here is a picture of our room which we shared with 4 girls, all from the states.


Never really saw them. On the plus side, we asked the guy at the desk, Steven, where would be a good place to grab a beer. He directed us to this pub where we stood at the bar and ordered our first pint of black. Excellent. There was also some guy playing Irish drinking songs, a few of which I knew. (It was awesome. I was in Ireland, drinking some of the black, and singing The Wild Rover. Ranks pretty high up there in travelling experiences). After our pint we headed back towards the hostel to grab some shuteye so that we could jump up early the next day and start exploring.

Which didn’t happen, we actually got up at about 10 but in all fairness we were out the door in 10-15 min. We quickly decided that the best way to prepare ourselves for the cold, blustery day was to have a pint of Guinness. Just kidding, we actually had an Irish breakfast and tea. It was my first face to face encounter with black pudding (yes I knew what it was before I ate it), which was actually pretty dang tasty, and I have no trouble saying that I would eat it again.

(Oh snap, I have to run downtown for photography class, I’ll be back)

(Ok, I’m back. Also went and bought some killer provolone)

Ok, after our hearty breakfast, we wandered around for just a short while before heading out for our main goal of the day…the Guinness brewery. (According to some of the girls from our room, it was waaaay to far to walk. It took like 20 min. Pansies.) It was a nice enough walk, taking us down the Liffey (seen here)



and letting us take in a few sights. Then we started up the hill and started smelling some of the fermentation gas being released from the vats. Ahh…fart smell… Visitors aren’t actually allowed to go inside the actual factory anymore, I guess to keep people from accidentally dropping mud from shoes, hair, or spitting into the tuns. But they have a really cool set up, where you get to walk around and see all the various ingredients and read about the history and stuff. There is a little place where you get to watch some really pretentious guy on TV and tell you how to properly taste Guinness and so you get to have a quarter pint. Then you can continue going up in the museum, checking things out and such until you get to the top where you can enjoy a complimentary pint while overlooking the whole of Dublin.



Excellent. I can also say that Guinness has truly never tasted as good as it did there in the factory. Whether or not there was an actual difference or if it was all in my head I’ll leave up for you to decide.

After the factory, Arseniy and I just kind of nonchalantly wandered around the city seeing some nice churches and enjoying some temporary (and relative) warmth during the afternoon. We found out several things about Dublin, it’s a very nice city: clean, open, friendly.


My kind of place.

The second thing is that Dublin is in fact just an extension of Italy. (Seriously I heard more Italian in Dublin than I heard English. Everywhere I looked there was a pizza place…..*sigh* so much for having a break from Italy) That night we set out to fufill our goal of eating some fish and chips while in Ireland (for those of you that know my fear of fried fish, I figured I should try to overcome it for this). We eventually found this place that both had really good fish and chips, but had also apparently been visited by everyone famous and their mother. You can see both the meal (I went with cod), and the list of people here) Afterwards we went to a small pub and I crossed another Irish beer (Smithwicks, a brown ale and really good) off my list, and I then found out that good cider is also “proof that God loves us and wants us to be happy”, to erroneously use Franklin’s words. Afterwards we went home for a good night’s sleep in preparation for the next day’s plans, which was to simply make it to the coast. But as it turned out the night wasn’t nearly over yet…

At some point, Arseniy asked if I wanted to go on a walk out into Dublin. Thought tired I was game enough (don’t let it be said that Sam Howell is anything but game for walks). So we left the hostel and decided to go in a direction we hadn’t explored before. After a walking for a while, through the ghetto and under some bridges, we found ourselves in only what could be described as the nitty gritty of Dublin. Nothing to really worry about, I mean we’re too wary enough dudes so we weren’t too worried. That’s when things started to get weird. As we were walking down the street in an aging neighborhood, I saw the king of spades laying on the pavement.



Summoning the artist in me, I tried to make the most of it and took a few pictures (I mean coming across a random card in the street is pretty crazy, and I was on the lookout for pictures for my photography class). After snapping a few pics, I reached down and picked up the card. Immediately things started getting weird. About thirty seconds after I picked up the card a woman had appeared on the previously deserted street. She looked to be around 40, with kind of a vacant look on her face and kind of tawny, mousy hair.

“Please don’t gossip.” She implored softly.

This isn’t what we had expected at all. From our experiences in Italy, if anyone actually approaches you at night, they probably want a cigarette. And we hadn’t even been talking so this gossip comment threw us for a loop.

“Excuse me? Asked Arseniy

“Don’t gossip. I’ve been fighting gossip for ten years and I’m afraid it’s going to kill me.”

“Um...thanks.” I muttered, and we strode on. Looking back over my shoulder, I saw her looking at us and shaking off some chills turned back and continued walking. Not a minute later some large drunken man stumbled past, only pausing to blare a horn in our faces. Not inherently weird or creepy in and of itself, but in combination with the lady we were starting to get pretty uneasy. After the horn man, things were relatively calm for a while, and we were probably about ¾ of a mile away from where I had picked up the king of spades. And there, scattered across the road, we saw the rest of the same deck of cards. Though all rationale and logic says none of this had anything to do with the king, I threw it down among the others and we hastened on our way. We decided that the best course of action was to stop into a nice crowded pub for a steadying pint. We found solace in a cool drink and rowdy company. But upon our exit, Dublin seemed determined to have one more go at us, and there staring at us was this creepy old man doll, blankly staring with a slight smirk and holding a bottle. We made it back to the hostel intact but in silence. We settled in for some sleep, not really talking about the odd events during the witching hours of Dublin.

Our original plan was to just spend the next day out on the coast. But we actually ended up going to the Bodies exhibit first. Yes, I did actually go, believe it or not. I know many of you are shocked, and there were no dire consequences, though I was truthfully rather unsettled by it all. Call me a pansy if you wish, but that’s the truth of it.

After the exhibit we just kind of wandered in the direction of Dublin port, and after a good hour and a half of wandering finally came upon the sea. I actually had the thought to take a video, so here it is. I had been taking some pictures so I forgot I had the zoom on so you all can enjoy a close up of my face.



We then just kind of sauntered around the coast for a while, finally coming to the longest damn breakwater I’ve ever seen.



It was literally 2 km long and it felt like an eternity to walk to the end of it, but walk to the end we did. All the way to the lighthouse. You can see me extending my empire over the Land of the Celts and Picts.



We tried to hang out for a while at the end of the breakwater, but we were in imminent danger of being blown off into the waters. The trek back was waaay harder, seeing as how it was around 4-5 in the evening and we had failed to eat anything that day. So we started slogging our way back…it started to sprinkle at a few points, but our vehement curses at Murphy and Finagle were apparently of some use, because we were never actually subjected to full out rain. By the time we staggered back into actual Dublin, we were absolutely wiped out. We decided that the only cure was to take the money saved by not eating the first to meals and apply them to dinner, so we had some really good Chinese food in a restaurant around the corner from our hostel. It was so wonderful to once again taste the flavors of the east upon my tongue, after such a long dry spell (2 months. Don’t laugh, it’s a hard two months) After dinner, we did little more asides from go buy some cider to enjoy in the comfort of the hostel’s courtyard (comfort=really damn cold). And later, in the wee hours of the morning we set off back to Italia.

The Visitors

So, the fact of the matter is that I am currently about two/two and a half weeks behind blogging schedule. I'm going to do my best but I've determined the only way to catch up and still do all my homework is to give some portion of the Milan experience the short shrift and I'm afraid it is going to have to be this part, no offense to my awesome visitors who I was thrilled to see. It's just the only way I can make up in some part for my own negligence so I apologize to you, dear readers for being a bum. But on to the story...

So three weekends ago Matt Warner rolled into town on his way to Avignon to visit our friend Sarah Idrissi. We had been facebook messaging back and forth several weeks prior trying to figure out which airport he needed to fly into and what time and all that little nitpicky but really kind of important stuff that you have to straighten out when flying, especially into a foreign country. (Early on in the negotiations, I made it clear to Matt that he had a place to stay only if he met my demands:

1)Giant bag of peanut M&M's (Really, really expensive over here. I can drop 2 euro on something only slightly bigger than a fun size bag. Cripes!)

2)A jar of salsa (B/c I hate eating eggs without salsa, and they're one of the cheaper ways to get protein over here and so I've been forced to eat a lot of non-salsa-ed eggs. sad face)

Luckily he quickly gave in to my demands as he realized had no hope of winning the negotiations. So finally I told him that I would meet him on Friday at Cadorna station next to the giant sewing needle (Yeah, for some reason Milan has this giant public sculpture of a needle. No idea where it comes from. Check it out)after my class got out at 12. As Murphy would have it, I got out 15 minutes late that Friday. "Cripes," I thought "Matt's going to have gotten impatient and wandered off and I'm going to have to go around asking people if they've seen an American wandering around with several suitcases and a large black fro." Luckily when I turned the corner and the needle came into view, Matt was standing beneath it thereby saving me lots of awkward Italian conversations (Also I don't know if there is a different word for afro). I was really glad to see someone from back home, though it was incredibly weird at the same time. As I would find out later, walking around with someone from home makes my brain feel like everything should be in English, but it was of course all in Italian so my head was kind of muddled for a while. Anyways, moving on with the story, I took Matt back to our place so he could dump off his stuff before taking him on the Milan-in-a-day tour.

I took him up around the Piazza del Duomo where we went inside the Duomo (speaking of which, I don't think I've given you all a picture of the Duomo yet. I'm not sure how I haven't done that yet. Huh, well here you go. This isn't taken when Matt and I were there, it's from a night long ago at about 5 in the morning) and afterwards grabbed some Gelato from one of my favorite places, Grom. After our finishing our gelati, we decided to drop 5 euro to take he stairs up onto the roof of the Duomo. This might seem steep, but upon arriving on the roof it was clear that it had been money well spent. You could see all of Milan and the Alps off in the distance. We spent a probably an hour and a half up there, just enjoying the view and chatting about stuff home. I also took a video, which you may find below for your viewing pleasure : (Or not. I can't really guarantee that you'll enjoy it, but at least I tried)


While on the roof we ran into my friend Johannes and his girlfriend. He said they might be trying to set up an aperitivo later that day and we were welcome to come along if we liked. Since aperitivo is an important part of the Milan experience, I told him that would be cool and to just let us know where and when once they had it figured out. As it turned out we never ended meeting up with them and instead just took some beer out near the columns with my flatmate Luka. Good enough for a slow night out on the town. We took the rest of Matt's visit kind of slow, with the exception of an aperitivo at Costanza's house which was pretty cool. Matt got to meet some of my Italian and international friends and at the very least he seemed to enjoy himself. And a day later he was off to Avignon, where he would spend the week and come back and spend a night back here in Milan before heading back to the states.

My weeks was then spent with general schoolwork, I had a critique in photography to prepare for, so I had plenty of things to keep me occupied before the arrival of my second set of guests. Jenna Thorp and Brett Jacobsen had chosen to spend their spring break bumming around Firenze, and had asked if they could swing through Milan on their way back. (I was really happy to have the chance to see two groups of people. I was entirely ready to go and entire semester without seeing anything more than a skype image of anyone, so this was an awesome surprise. Without thinking about the fact they would be coming in on a train from Firenze and not the airport, I told them to meet me by the needle, since that had worked out so well last time.

So when I got out of class Friday, I had a text message from Brett telling me they were up at Stazione Centrale (Of course they were Sam you doofus, real trains go into Centrale not Cadorna). After mentally beating my head against a wall for being stupid, I told them that I would meet them up there so just hang tight. Twenty minutes later, I was wandering around trying to find them in the cavernous building that is Centrale. Finally I found them out by the "center" of Milan (Here's the deal. Mussolini was all about Centrale reflecting the glory of the Fascist regime. It is a very austere, imperial, and beautiful building. Outside you can see the circle which is (According to Mussolini) the exact center of Milan. However if you look at a map, I have no idea how he came to that conclusion. Maybe if you stripped away all the growth since the end of WWII...anyways that is where they were). After I found them I immediately went about removing any sense of competency by not paying attention and getting on the metro that continues north instead of getting on the southbound metro which is the one we needed. (Good job there smart guy, way to demonstrate some competency there :/ But nevetherless despite of my stupidity I did manage to find my way home so that they could deposit their bags and...yes thats right...go to the Duomo.

Here I could type another paragraph about what we did, or I could refer you to three paragraphs previously. We went inside, ate gelato, went on the roof. It was a lot of fun though, and in contrast to when Matt was there we got to art nerd out on the Duomo itself and we did spend a good deal more time there than when I was there with Matt. Then we started the walk home and I took them through the Castello and around to Cadorna where they could see the meeting place that never happened. As we walked home, I threw out a few ideas as to what the next days activities could include. Museums, walking around, shopping (I mean if that's what you're into), but then a bolt of genius darted through my mind. "Hey," I said "what do you think about going to Como tomorrow?" That was a big hit so we decided that the next day I would return to and they would explore... Como.

The next day we were a little late getting out the door...again. (We just can't be punctual when trying to get to Como apparently) but eventually we got to Cadorna and jumped on a train. As it pulled out of the station, I could feel the relaxing influence of Como seeping into my body, and I knew we were in for a good day.

*Here the author needed to go buy some food for dinner. This part of the blog could be omitted but this is real in-the-now information from Milan. Just letting you know.*

So okay, now I that have some sauce simmering so on with the story. Arseniy and I advocated that going a different direction than last time. (We went right last time, so we thought going left might be exciting) Once again we wandered for about a kilometer or so before we found a nice park area to chill around in. We sat and enjoyed the sun, talking and watching a couple swans and pondering why they are one water fowl that has somehow escaped making its way onto humankind's tables. It was another gorgeous day, and no surprise that we all napped at some point. Later in the afternoon we ventured back into the actual city of Como, which was also really quite calm. It actually felt like Venice to tell the truth, which was kind of weird (I started to ave this paranoia that I would soon be forced to freeze in a train station somewhere). But soon enough we decided that it was about time to head back, b/c we were supposed to meet Costanza around 8 for aperitivo in the vicinity of the columns.

I'd tell you some entertaining stories about the train ride back, but truth is we were all asleep until we rolled into Cadorna station at about 6. We decided to run home before meeting up for aperitivo. Aperitivo was good, filled with tasty food and chilly weather. Afterwards we spent the rest of our night hanging out at this streetfront bar called the Paladin. By the time we left, it was waaay past the time when the trams stop running so I got to show Jenna and Brett one of the more frequent parts of life in Milan, walking an hour through the deserted streets all the way home. By the time we got home it was probably 3 or so in the morning, and I don't know about the two girls, but I was wiped out. Unfortunately they needed to get into Cadorna to catch the train to the airport by 5, and the metro doesn't open until 6. So I had to exercise my extremely tired mind and call a taxi to the house, which luckily wasn't all that difficult. (To be honest, I was insufferably pleased with myself at how smoothly it had gone) and they were off into the Italian night just a short while later.

Well, I finally managed to document my visitors. Hopefully sometime tomorrow I'll have finished my post about me trip to Ireland. Until then, peace!

Como Lago

Hey everybody, I know that you're all probably thinking "Why hasn't Sam updated his blog recently? Is everything okay? What am I going to do with my spare time now that I can't read his unimaginatively titled blog?" Okay, I realize that none of you are thinking that, and in fact, the large majority of you bums are on spring break. Well spring break is for scoundrels and rouges, I have midterms this week. I actually can't complain, I only had one written "study-for" exam, then I had to make a book of fotographs out of found materials, and then come up with a proposal for my final project in working with artists. In contrast my flatmates had at least 4 exams a piece, so it hasn't been all that bad. Matt Warner was here for the weekend, but I'm going to write about that in my next post entitled "The Visitors" So stay on the edge of your seats for that. Now to the main part of this blog post, my visit to Lake Como.

I'm dreadfully late in writing about this adventure, I actually went to Lake Como not quite two weeks ago. I can't actually think why it has taken me so long, just the usual conflagration of homework, sleep deprivation, and procrastination. So Saturday before last, Arseniya and I were just chilling in our room, reading and checking email and so forth.
"Dude."
"Yeah man?" I replied.
"We should go somewhere this weekend."
"F'shiz" I quipped wittliy. (Yes, I know this response was neither a quip or witty, I'm embellishing)

So a little while later we decided that we should go to Lake Como, for several reasons: A) It was supposed to be beautiful B) It was relatively close and cheap to get to C) George Clooney lives there sometimes (running joke, you had to be there, but really he does) We decided we would leave early Sunday morning so we could catch a train from Cadorna and give us a nice leisurely day of wandering around a gorgeous Alpine lake.

So at about 10:30 we hauled our groggy butts out of bed and grabbed our friend Kyle from his sleeping place on the couch. (I don't think I ever told you about Kyle. He is this 18 year old Australian dude who is going on this long crazy walkabout typw thing around Europe, sleeping in parks and trying to get by on as little as possible. Pretty chill dude and fun to hang with.) And we headed to Cadorna where we met our three Italian friends, Elisabetta, Martina, and Costanza (as awesome a group of girls you could hope to hang with).

And here we are, the Como adventurers:


Martina


Elisabetta


Costanza


Arseniy


Kyle


Me

So as it turned out, we didn't move our groggy butts (I think this phrase is funny) fast enough and missed the first train out to Como. As it turns out, this is a theme for the large majority of my trip so far, just missing trains... But not to worry, all we had to do was hang out in front of Cadorna and enjoy the beautiful sunny day. We only had about 40 minutes to waste anyways. In a while we bought our tickets and boarded the ghetto train for Lago di Como. (It really was, everything was carpeted in a poop brown, including parts of the walls.) We had a nice chatty train ride, a smattering of English, Italian, fighting for window seats. Como actually isn't all that far away only about an hour. And once in Como, you're aggravatingly close to Switzerland, so I'm going to hate myself if I don't go visit for at least a weekend. Here, look how close it is:

I'm pretty sure that if we set our minds to it and had our passports with us, we could have walked there. Ach, well...another time perhaps. Anyways, we arrived in Lake Como and it was just beautiful. There are mountains right up to the point where the lake starts, and buildings scattered on the slopes of some of the lesser Italian Alps. We didn't really have any particular plan for the day, just wander around and enjoy the beautiful weather and at some point get pizza and gelato. We casually strolled down one road that followed the shore, occasionally stopping in small parks and looking around at our beautiful surroundings. Here are just a few pictures of the first few sights we encountered in our passegiatta (literally translated a walk with no real purpose other than enjoyment).



After we had walked about maybe a kilometer, we ran into a pizzeria that seemed ready to fit our needs (i.e. they served pizza, and my Italian muddled brain has doubts whether or not I just used i.e. correctly). After a delicious repast of about 5 diferent types of pizza, we waddled our stuffed bellies out into the sun, where there were some very conveniently placed steps in a sort of odd park-hang-out-here kind of way. So hang out we did. For the first little while our activities consisted of this:

Which was awesome. But after a while Arseniy, Kyle, and I felt the urge to explore so we followed this path behind the stair area up the mountain a ways. We would later find out we had not ascended far at all, but it felt like we could see everything. We hung out on the bend of a road for a while, sitting on a wall and erasing a little more dreariness with the sun's rays.

Walking up...

Lake Como

Me

Arseniy really enjoyed the sun.

And I actually have another video for you all. So here it is:



And afterwards we made our weary way back down our little trail and back to the girls on the steps. Naturally such a great endeavor as taking a 5 min walk had worn us out, so we settled back down for nap due. This may sound ridiuclous but let me explain something about Como. As soon as you get there every muscle in your body starts relazing, and your stress and worries just melt away like snow in Tennessee. This is only the fourth place on earth where I have felt this utter relaxation, the others being Marathon Key, Kalaloch WA, and the Blue Grotto in Malta. I love these places so incredibly much, I'm not even going to try and describe it. Anyways, I decided to forsake the sun (redhead you know...) and found a nice place and settled in for a nice nap. About an hour later I woke up and found Martina sitting by my side. She asked if I was all right. I told her of course... why did she ask? "Because you are all the way over here," she said "away from everyone." I laughed and explained it was merely b/c of my condition(redhead) and I didn't want to push my luck with the sun (Isn't that right ASB 2008ers?). But moving on, shortly thereafter we began moseying our way back to the train station. Just in time too, as soon as the sun dipped behind the mountains it got really cold very fast, and none of us were really that prepared for it. We boarded the rain, and headed back towards Milan, tired somehow in spite of all of our napping, but happy with a beautiful day up in the mountains.

Well, I think I've finally finished this post, and now can begin on my next two. I hope to have one more up today and the other within a day or two. Until later...ciao.

Under construction

I have so much info it's ridiculous and midterms tomorrow, but I should have some posts up this evening. Sorry for the radio silence!

WARNING: ART NERD POST!!!

Its true, so brace yourself and strap in for some good old fashioned nerdiness in relation to the art world. But first a little normal news. This week has been pretty uneventful, just going to class and doing some minor exploring. I took the Italian exam that I mentioned in my previous post. And I have only one thing to say about that darned thing...

MY CHEST!!!

Ehhmm, sorry. It went pretty well. The hardest part was writing the composition (side note: being so immersed in Italian is REALLY messing with my English spelling/speaking ability. I just had to go back and rewrite the word composition in its English spelling). We could write about a friend of ours, so Joey, there is now an Italian professor who knows all about you. The hardest part about writing the composition was I couldn't use all the words I needed (i.e. drums, quarter baron, victory boxes)

And for the oral examination, Aresniy and I talked with Paolo about how rather than studying the night before, we watched some tv and drank wine. Later the subject moved on to calcio (soccer). So the long and short of it is that the exam was dominated and now we're moving on to round two...the semester course. So at the very least I can say this: Parlo piu italiano di prima.

But now for the art nerd part of this post. This Tuesday I went to La Acadamia di'Brera to see their advertised Caravaggio exhibit. Unfortunately, they didn't have student discounts unless you were from Europe, so I ended up paying 10 euro to get in (I feel like it was some type of discrimination. My bad that I was born on the wrong continent. Cripes) But luckily it turned out to be totally worth 10 euro. I went with my friend Anja from Germany, so I got to play docent to some extent. We spent a little while wandering around rooms of medieval and Byzantine icons, which was pretty cool. I mentioned to Anja that if all else failed, medieval artists only needed to follow this simple formuala:

1 Madonna
1 Child (creepy man/baby of course)
Then select one of the following hosts (and if necessary combine the two):
Saints
Angels
Bling (gold leaf preferred)

And voila, you have a religious medieval masterpiece.

Then we turned the corner and I ran into a painting straight out of Art 212.



Andrea Mantegna's Dead Christ.

I was so filled with incredible art nerd joy I think I scared Anja. But it was amazing. It had been one of my favorite paintings in Art 212 and I had just randomly
stumbled across it. Awesome.

After spending what Anja thought was an inordinate amount of time in front of the Dead Christ, we continued on through the museum. I was surrounded by names such as Della Francesca, Rubens, Barberini, and many other names that probably don't mean anything to the great majority of you dear readers (But the following posts are filled with lots of not art history! So don't stop reading! Please!) I also got to see a few random pieces by Raphael and El Greco. And of course we finally came to the Caravaggio exhibit...

Which consisted of four paintings.

What the devil?

I was really puzzled for several minutes. Where was this giant tour-de-force of Caravaggioness? I talked to one of the real docents and found out that they had been able to temporarily get two more paintings, and it was a very exciting opportunity. (Wait, you mean there are only two more paintings than usual? And this merits posters all over Milan?) I realize that I sound unbelievably whiny right now, but I had been expecting to wander around at least two rooms of one of my favorite painters, and instead was faced with only four paintings. *sigh* In all fairness though, they were spectacular works and were not disappointing in and of themselves at all. I'm really happy to have any chance to see anything by Caravaggio, so I left the museum with my mind blown from the sheer amount of great art I had been lucky enough to see.

Okay, I got some of my art nerd out now. Thanks for bearing with me. My next post will contain such exciting things as...a lake, planning, hopes unfulfilled, and a visitor.


Man...the suspense I leave you all with.

Bumming around....

No surprise there right?

I'm actually just giving you all a quick update in this quirky little span of time I have before I have to go to my 5:30 class. It's Shaping the Contemporary,and since its Monday that means I'll have the professor who is trying to teach me to be an elitist (psssh, like I need help with that ;). I'm also turning in two papers: 1) the doomed paper :Me telling an exhibition designer who considers himself an artist that I don't think he is 2)an analysis of a local artist who we visited, and then read two terribly translated review of (like you know, all someone did for these documents was plug them into babelfish or something. Its really bad). Then I'll probably spend the next two hours bored as hell. Then come home and cook. Hmm, what should I make tonight? Probably some tortellini. Ugh, I'm having trouble eating enough and healthily on a budget. I still haven't gotten my codice fiscale (Like a SSN. I've already applied, just haven't gotten it back), which the school needs to open a bank account with which to give me my meal stipend. Here in Italy I'll probably get it around the end of April.... Pasta is really cheap, I mean fresh pasta too. For a pasta lover like myself, its pretty awesome. I'm just going to have to watch it or I'm going to come back and be all unrecognizable due to a pot belly or something. Oh yeah, I have my final in my intensive Italian course tomorrow. I'm not too worried about it. Just the part where I have to chat with Paolo for like five minutes. I know I can do it, I've had much longer conversations in Italian than that. Its just...you know. Okay, well I have to head out so I can catch the metro downtown so I can make it to class in time. Wouldn't want to miss this class... Not at all.

ciao

Videos!!

So I have managed to strike a truce with youtube, and you should be able to find my videos now. The ones about me being in Venice are entitled The Night (I couldn't think of a more creative title while I was uploading. I'm sorry). It starts with number one and goes on from there. Then there is another one called Venetian balloon dance.

All of them have the tag of sam howell, so hopefully you can find them. Let me know what you think.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EXhpmZITD84

Masks, Tiredness, and Oranges

So, long time no see right? Well I guess technically its still long time no see but now you can at least hear me, or see my words anyway. Okay, now that we’ve got that straightened out let us move on. I obviously never got my video update to post. Apparently it was to big size-wise for blogger (Pansy server) and it was too long time-wise for youtube (Fussy stickler server). So I’m going to boil it down and say that the first few weeks have been: tiring, amazing, irritating, hungry, stuffed, cramped, epic, lost, boring, and so on and so forth. I’ll go back and talk about a few things but if you really want to know everything about the first few weeks, you’re just going to actually have to talk to me at some point. (Crazy right? This is a call for all of you to get skype by the way) So where to start….how about a quick overview of my classes so far? Sound good? No? Well tough noogies, it’s where I’m starting.

I started off the semester taking Intensive Italian, La Cucina Italiana, Intro. to Digital Photography, and Shaping the Contemporary :Working with Artists in Milan. Sounds pretty awesome right? I thought so. Then classes started. While I knew La Cucina Italiana was listed as a conversation class, I was down with struggling along and having difficulty understanding the directions as long as I got to cook. Then on the first day our professor began outlining the syllabus, and as it turned out half our grade would be composed of a 4-5 page paper and an hour presentation. AN HOUR. IN ITALIAN. NOT GOOD. So I began to start thinking about dropping it. My mind was made up later when the professor came up and told me that she didn’t think I could pass the course. (A little blunt manybe? Cripes) But all in all I appreciated her candor, so I am no longer in La Cucina Italiana. Bummer.

As for my art classes, I’m afraid I’ve been spoiled at Maryville with awesome art teachers and now I’m forced into the real world. My digital photography teacher is this dude who really likes being a photographer and wants to let us all know how it can set us free. (I mean he REALLY likes being a photographer and gave us his entire resume to be impressed by. It was like 5 pages of “Look at me!!”) The first evening of class he went around and asked why we take pictures. I told him it was just another method of image-making. He followed up by asking me “But what makes you prefer photography to other mediums?” to which I had to respond that I didn’t, and enjoyed drawing or ceramics far more than photography. I think I kind of pissed him off. But I was honest, and was respectful in my answer (Like I didn’t say “Photography SUCKS. I would rather attend the Republican National Convention than take piscture”(No offense to my Republican readers)). So yeah, that class is off to a good start. Then my other art class, Shaping the Contemporary, isn’t exactly what I thought it was going to be either. Turns out we don’t actually work with artists until around the midterm. We have two professors for the first month or so who alternate b/w classes. One is an art historian who keeps trying to teach us to view artists as some type of ubermensch (It’s kind of weird and irritating), and the other is a gallery designer who spends half of class wondering about the roots of words like “display” and then making random jumps of logic to monsters and stuff. He also tries to teach that an exhibition designer is an artist. I don’t think I agree with him, but I don’t want to say it considering that is what he does and thinks of himself as an artist. Unfortunately, he just assigned a paper where I have to discuss whether or not I think a exhibition designer is an artist. Crap. No way out. Looks like I’m going to alienate another professor soon. :/

On the good side though, my Italian class is rockin and our professor is one chill dude. His name is Paolo Della Putta, and makes 4 hour Italian classes interesting for the entire time, and that takes mad skil. (Also, he is a Juventus fan. A man of good taste). My Italian has come a long way, by which I mean I have come from not speaking to almost equaling my Spanish speaking ability, which may not be saying much. But we went over past tense today, so I can start not sound as stupid when I trip through Italian on a daily basis. Now just to continue building a vocabulary and things might not be so bad. I will say though, being immersed completely in a language like this can be rough sometimes. Sometimes it feels like I’m going crazy and I think my English is getting progressively worse. Ugh, I just can’t win with languages. But anyways, that’s the majority of stuff about class.
So in other news, I went to Venice this weekend for Carnivale. We got up at about 7:30 on Saturday morning to give us plenty of time to catch our 9:00 train. We were kind of tired from the night before, but overall spirits were high in anticipation of Venice. Originally, this “we” I keep talking about was composed of myself, my roommate Arseniy, and our friend Carolyn. But that morning Carolyn texted us and told us she was sick so Arseniy and I were flying solo. (Not exactly because there were two of us. I couldn’t think of another phrase. Willickers) We got on the train and after much puzzling of our tickets, found our car and seat assignments. Unfortunately there were two old ladies in our seats. Whether or not this was a mistake or not, neither Arseniy nor I were confident enough in our Italian abilities to argue with these ladies and explain why they, two old ladies, should get up for us, two young men. (Italian culture is VERY big on respect of elders, especially giving seats to elderly ladies. But I caught one of their eyes, and she knew….oh she KNEW she had stolen my seat…) So I withheld a well desereved stank eye and we settled down in the floor for the three hour train ride to Venice. Weak. But you make do with what you can and don’t complain too much….that comes later. We got into Venice around 12:30, and after being dazzled with our first view of the city, we began winding our way through the throngs of people towards where we thought the main square, Piazza San Marco, was. On our way we purchased two essentials for the day… masks and tricorner hats. (Awwww yeah!) I guess this is a good point to describe what Venetian Carnivale is like. It isn’t as wild or bacchanalic as what the stereotype of Brazilian is. Its more like a kind of classy Halloween. Everyone dresses up and walks around all day. This isn’t to say there isn’t drinking, but there aren’t people staggering around piss-drunk or doing it in the road. (But why don’t they? Why don’t they do it in the road?) Its kind of calm for the most part…









The majority of our day was spent wandering around the city, just kind of enjoying the Carnivale atmosphere and every once in a while trying in vain to meet up with our Italian friend Francesco. It was a great day and Venice is an epically beautiful city. I would love to go back sometime later this semester when it won’t be as crowded and I can take it in more and go to the museums and visit the palace and the basilica and stuff. But I would totally recommend it, it truly is that beautiful. You might want to hurry before it sinks into the sea though… sad face. The day was amazing and once the sun had set there was this crazy awesome show where there was this lady floating through middle of the square attached to a balloon and was dancing. The best way I can describe it is….ephemeral. I know that sounds overdramatic but it was unbelievable. You can get a little taste in the video I seen here. After that, we finally found Francesco and hung out with him for a while, and asked around when the last train left for Milan. Some peeps said they were catching a train at 10:20, so considering it was only 6:00 we took our sweet time winding our way back to the train station. We got there about 8:00…only to find that the last train for Milan had left at about five minutes before.


Shit.



Turns out the girls we had gotten our information from had forgotten to tell us they weren’t going to Milan, but Verona. Awesome you guys… maybe should have mentioned that to us. So we hung our heads and resigned ourselves to the fact that it was going to be a long night. We started off by going back to San Marco and drinking three bottles of Bellini, the cocktail of Venice. This may sound like a lot of drinking for three dudes but it had a lower alcohol content than beer. We drank it in a toast and an ironic finger to the city we were about to spend the night in. We tried to stay around the ocean until 2 (or that was the plan at least) but we ended up getting back to the station around mezzanotte (midnight). Things grew progressively worse from there. Please enjoy the following documentation of the night. WARNING: STRONG LANGUAGE BY WHICH I MEAN USE OF THE F-BOMB TWICE AND ONE RATHER DUBIOUS RACIAL STATEMENT (note times were hard. Realizing I wanted to post these I withheld serious language, but you know I couldn’t control my companions, so I apologize and hence the warning for anyone who doesn’t want to be offended.)


(I HATE BLOGGER. IT WON'T LET ME UPLOAD ALL MY VIDEOS. I'm going to post a long sequence of videos on youtube (yes it will work this time) and you need to watch them chronologically to get the full effect of the Venitian night. Sorry for the let down, but just look at it like you get another surprise tomorrow! ALRIGHT!)






Thank all things good that we were able to get on the train a half hour before departure. Not only did we get seats, but it was warm too. Ah. Well considering I hadn’t slept at all during the night, I quickly lost consciousness. I don’t remember any of the train ride back to Milan, except one delirious moment when I think some lady sat down next to me. Luckily we woke up just as we pulled in Stazione Centrale. Then we stumbled blearily off the train and managed to find Carolyn, who was at least feeling good enough to join us for the next leg of the journey, which was to go to Ivrea for La Battaglia delle Arance, or Battle of the Oranges. Basically what happens is there are various squares around the city, and there are a couple hundred defenders with ridiculous amounts of oranges at their disposal. Then a horse drawn wagon with 8 or nine offenders makes a circuit of the square, during which the defenders try to beat the hell out of the offenders with as many oranges as fast and hard as possible. The offenders return fire of course, but they are by far on the receiving end of one hell of a beating. Which is why they get to wear armor and stuff while the defenders just have to man/woman up and take oranges straight to the face and stuff. It was epically brutal, awesome, and juicy. For a slightly better description of why they do this, look up Ivrea on Wikipedia. Oh yeah, at the entrance to the Carnivale they sell red hats, b/c it brands you as an outsider and not part of the juicebath within. I bought one but once the fights started I couldn’t help but participate a little bit. (I mean really, how could I not) I personally hit three dudes in the face, and a couple others in various body parts. I got beaned in the back of the head, and my hand got destroyed. I could try to go into details but… words fail me.













Later we squished our way out of the city through about 4 inches of orange sludge (Gross) and ate an awesome sausage sandwich from a roadside stand. We then made our (unbelievably) weary way to the train station to begin the 2 and a half hour journey home. (I’d only had maybe 5 hours of sleep since I woke up on Saturday. And that was all on-a-train-wake-up-every-five-minutes-because-my-head-fell-down sleep. Since there wasn’t orange carnage going on around me to distract me, at this point I hated life). Once again I can’t share any anecdotes about the train journey home b/c I don’t really remember what happened. I think I slept, but sure as hell not good.

And that is a short overview of what’s been going on…so yeah. Be glad I didn’t tell you all that happened or it would be far more than… where are we now…2173 words. So once again, congratulations to all of you that actually read it all, though hopefully pictures and videos helped break the monotony a little bit. Well, I’m going to try and work on that sleep debt I still have hanging around since this weekend. I miss you all and I’ll see you ‘round. Ciao.

Fluch d'Schiesse

So, I have left my computer on for the past 24 hours trying to upload my video update. And it didn't work. CRAP. So my backup plan is to either post it on youtube and then give the link here, or otherwise buckledown tomorrow and write a post of biblical proportions in the evening...hopefully you can just watch it. But for you dear readers, I will write the entire epic tale if it takes me hours upon magical hours. Willickers.


Okay: I think I got it search Sam in Italy 1 on youtube and maybe you can watch it. Leave me a comment or something letting me know if it works.

A Catch-up Formula

So, obviously the first few weeks have ludicrously hectic, more hectic than a bunch of ADD marmots on a coffee bender. So at least intermittently, I will post a short video of me updating you all on the goings on in Milan. I'll still do text, but that way I can just zip one off instead of typing for several hours. Not that you all aren't worth it. That isn't it at all. I just can't think of any other way to catch you all up on what amounts to two weeks of stuff without writing something of about the same length as Crime and Punishment (More interesting though ;) I'm just kidding Sara). So I hope you all enjoy the video, and that way I can still tell bad stories with no point, and it will be like I never left. Maybe they could be played in Pearsons...

So this video, while not an update, is me lost in Milano at about 3:30 in the morning. My friends and I had tried to go to a cool club called Le Banque, and perhaps because it was Valentines Day, they were wanting more girls than dudes. So without too much whinging from me, it boils down to my friends got in and I didn't. Later I would get home and find my phone and twenty messages telling me they could get me in, but obviously that didn't do me the most good. Anyways, enjoy the clip.

Heh Heh...

This was the most sterotypical Italian guy I've seen and this other dude in the brown turtleneck. I saw them at this club called Old Fashioned. I don't know which one I thought was funnier. I hope you enjoy it....

Weird Stuff..

I'm having weird formatting issues with blogger at the moment so my apologies. When I try to place pictures I just get the html code. So I'm placing here, in no particular order, pictures of my street and flat.

Moving in

*yawn*

So after my minipost the other day, I went to bed at about 1:30. I woke up the next time, feeling like a million bucks. I jumped vigorously out of bed (okay more like groaned and wrenched myself into a sitting position), and looked at my phone to check the time.

1:46 Schiesse damn

I guess I needed sleep more than I had previously thought. There was a chance that I was supposed to go to a market this morning. Yeah….well, I ‘m good to go now, so be prepared to delve into a wondrous world of literary excellence detailing the thrilling accounts of an intrepid young man in the far off and distant city of Milan.

As I recall, I left off going to sleep in the hotel. So after one of the deeper sleeps that I can remember I woke up to the sound of my alarm at about 8:00 local time. I needed to call the International Relations Office and see what time I needed to be at the school to check in. Unfortunately, when I checked the paper with the phone number it also said that the office didn’t open until nine. Crap. Grumbling and cursing under my breath, I climbed back into bed with the intention of getting up in about 30 in to an hour anyways. Next thing I knew it was 10:10 and we were in danger of missing out included breakfast, which stopped at 10:30. I went over to wake up Carolyn (This was awkward. Have you ever had to wake someone up that you don’t really know except having chatted to on facebook? No I guess not. Well it’s a little strange) I didn’t know if she’d appreciate being woken up. But it was all good and we stumbled up to the café for our breakfast. I was stunned. As you may have deduced from the pictures of our room, we weren’t staying in hotel Calypso here (That’s for all of you Malta and Tunisia people. You know what I’m talking about). But here before me lay a barista and an 8.000 euro espresso machine. At this point I knew all of the stereotypes about the Italians and their coffee might have some validity. We sat down at a little table and I ordered “Verrei un cornetto e un cappuccino per favore”. It was admittedly the best cup of cappuccino I have ever had. After eating a delicious breakfast and bemoaning the canned-ham sized flakes of snow coming down, Carolyn and I went to call Lea Senn, our program coordinator about moving into our apartments. I got a hold of her easily enough and I asked her when we needed to be there.

In about 30 min, and Carolyn was supposed to be there at about 9:30. It was currently 11:25. WOOOO nothing like getting started off on the right foot. We ran around like a bunch of chickens who had drank coffee before having their heads cut off, throwing our stuff into suitcases and stuff. We checked out and called for a taxi. Standing ankle deep in slush, we waited in the frigid cold for the taxi to arrive. Finally it pulled up in front of the hotel, we muttered a harried “Buongiorno” and helped load our luggage. A few minutes later we arrived at 28/30 via Carducci, our destination for all things international relationy. I was a little nervous about having incurred the wrath of Snra. Senn, I mean I was late and I didn’t know what was going on. Luckily, she was incredibly nice and told me not to worry about it. I filled out some paper work and sat around talking to this lady named Julie, who made fun of me for my passport photo. (Damn I hate that photo. Any of you who have seen it understand why I loathe that thing. Keely stop laughing….AND I have to keep it for another 6 years. Damn it.) But after a while a guy named Stefano came into the room and told me that he was going to take me to my flat. We loaded my three bags into his yellow fiat and started off. Stefano was a cool dude and we talked about how much we liked food. The only thing Stefano and I argued about was over the merit of a hot dog. Stefano thinks they are God’s gift to man, while on the other hand I still subscribe to my cousin’s description of hotdogs as pus rockets. There, now none of you ever want to eat a hot dog again. As it should be. ;)

But as we went on, Stefano explained to me that I didn’t really have flatmates of a permanent nature just yet. For the first week I would be living with two French girls who were finishing up their fall semester exams. After they left a couple guys from another apartment would move in and either a guy from Mexico or my friend Aresiny would be moving in as well. I told Stefano that sounded cool to me. Finally we arrived at the flat. Stefano, in his desire to make my life as easy as possible, parked the car in what must have been a puddle that qualified as one of the largest bodies of water in Italy (I mean, 4 inches deep and 10 feet wide? Should have packed water wings or something. Cripes). But after fording the lake and losing several teams of oxen, I finally had all of my luggage inside of the apartment building. We took a tiny, tiny elevator to the second floor and opened the door to the place that was/is going to be my home for the next 5 months. I met my me temp flatmates, Pauline and Coline. They’re both very nice and I enjoy hanging out with them. They showed me around the flat, and told me about some of the stores and bars near our flat.

After throwing my stuff into my room, Pauline asked if I wanted to split a beer with her. After much arm twisting and cajoling, I agreed. (Okay I said yes right off. No judgement per favore). We sat and shot the breeze, chewed the fat, and all those sorts of things. As it turns out, both Coline and Pauline are from the same general region of France as Chloe. Cool beans. After a while, I asked if they minded if I could sneak off and shower off my travel scum and take a much needed nap. Our bathroom is pretty awesome. We have a rotating glass door to shield the shower portion of the tub, and Jacuzzi-ish jets in the tub itself. (Don’t be too jealous, I haven’t taken a “bath” in about 4 years. All showers).
After the shower (no I ‘m not going to talk about the shower, I’m sorry), I climbed into my freshly made bed and slipped into blessed unconsciousness and dreamt dreams of Roman forums and gladiatorial battels between fashionistas…. Later I woke up and Pauline asked if I wanted to go to the store. Since I’ll presumably need to feed myself at some point over the next 5 months, this seemed like a good idea. We took the tram down the street to this small Dutch store. It was kind of tucked away down an alley so I felt like I was going to buy some drugs rather than milk and bread. It was a great little store, with very cheap foodstuffs and all the best types of chocolate and wine. I just got some essentials bread and prosciutto, cheese and spaghetti, milk and grapefruit juice. We took the tram back (I got some strange looks from people on the tram. Are you telling me they don’t see a lot of pale red-headed fellers down this-a-ways? Well I’ll be damned.)

After getting back to the flat, the girls invited me to come to an aperitivo with them to meet their friend Ines. Before I continue with my story, I need to explain aperiitvo. It is a big part of the culture here in Milano. You go to a bar or ristorante and buy a drink for anywhere from 7 to 10 euro. Then there is a buffet of little appetizer type things. The food ranges from simple things like cheese and meats to honest-to-goodness pizza and pasta. (I’ve been to aperitivo about 4 times so far and I’m a big fan). We took the metro down to Porta Genova and had a fantastic time. The food was great and aside from a little difficulty deciding what I wanted (No way right? I never take a long time to decide :/ and a little trouble with my ordering language, we had a great night. Getting to know Pauline, Coline, and Ines was a lot of fun.

But it was getting late and the lag of the jet was still dogging my mental processes, so we eventually returned to the flat and I went to sleep in preparation for my orientation the next day. But that’s another post….

Geez....

So I have had several people file complaints that I haven't updated the blog yet. I know I said it would be updated regularly and it will be. Just note I didn't say what the regular schedule would be....

No but really, I apologize for not posting. I just need to find like a three hour block of time to do the past few days some pale shadow of justice. I've taken two days of Italian, and I can at least successfully negotiate my way around a bar. (Not bar in the American sense, a bar here is for coffee. Sorry) And one of my favorite phrases so far is: Non mangio pizza. Pizza e un chibo di paisano. (No I don't eat pizza. It is peasant food.) But it is about 1:30, and I need a wicked amount of sleep. But you all guilted me into staying up and writing just a wee bit to tide the blog over until I can write a full post tomorrow. I hope you're happy. ;)

Sam


This is my room, after my flatmates threw a grenade in and shut the door.

The Trip and First Night

So, I finally found a chance to write my first real post for my blog. Hopefully you’ll find it interesting and if you don’t….well there isn’t anything I can really do about it. I’m going to try and do this first post justice however, so here goes.

THE TRIP

For the most part, my trip went without any major hitches besides the fact that it was ungodly long, and my butt went numb from sitting. O’Hare wasn’t actually all that bad. I got through security in about 10 minutes, just in time to start boarding the flight for London Heathrow. I stumbled onto the plane (GIANT PLANE) and stumbled back to my seat, 45b, and looked around. OH MY GOD. I was surrounded by about 25 children under the age of 3. I sighed and resigned myself to the fact that this might not rank as my most awesome trans-atlantic flight. Actually, it turned out that all of the kids fell asleep about an hour into the flight and stayed that way until we landed. My only explanation for this phenomenon was that their parents had deprived them of sleep for two days and then passed out shots of benedryl. However dubious this method of parenting may seem, at the time I appreciated it. One of the people in my row didn’t turn up so me and my row buddy, Ubernerd, were able to put a seat in between us and later have to deal with the awkwardness slumping on the other’s shoulder at some point during the flight. Excellent. There were good movies available. Excellent. And dinner was good. Excellent. And British Airways is considered UK soil so I had wine with dinner. Excellent. I got a little packet with a toothbrush, blindfold, and socks. SOCKS. How cool is that? I made use of all of these fine creature comforts, and then leaned back my seat for an attempt at sleep. The chair leaned back to a surprising angle and I had a good feeling about being able to sleep. Unfortunately I hadn’t counted on Unreasonable-Needy-Whiny-I-Need-To-Get-In-The-Overhead-Every Five-Minutes-For-Eight-Hours-Lady, or UNWINTGTOEFMFEHL for short. Actually, that isn’t very short and admittedly isn’t what I called her in my head. The entire night she insisted on getting up to find crayons, or apple sticks, or carrot slices or whatever the devil else she kept getting up for. She would bump the back of my seat with a force just shy of giving me whiplash. Then sit back down complaining to her husband how rude it was of some people to lean back their seats and how could they be so inconsiderate of other people’s space. Well, lady I needed to sleep, it was a NIGHT flight, and deal with it. This is on top of her dropping a full fledged rolly suitcase on my head, which she chose to just pick up out of the aisle and ignore the fact it had bounced of a person’s head. If her 3 year old wasn’t there the stream of profanity would have probably ruptured the fuselage. But I digress from the trip itself….

I arrived in London, sleep-deprived and with a bump on my head, To find that we had arrived a little late and had missed my original flight into Milan. No big deal, 20 minutes in a queue and I had a new ticket for two hours later, and a 10 pound meal voucher. So I went and found a pub in the airport and indulged in a full English breakfast (On right). Nice. I later boarded the plan and was off to Milan. I really don’thave much to say about that flight. I don’t really remember it, just the bewildered pissed-offedness that I seemed to have gotten the one seat that didn’t recline at all. I mean it didn’t even have a button. So my main impression of the flight was the jerking awake as my head fell forward. I tried to see the Alps, but they were covered in cloud. Later I heard we were approaching Milan, and tried to get a view of the city. Clouds. Bummer. As it turned out, I couldn’t see anything until we were about a hundred feet off the ground. Finally we touched down and after trying for 6 years, I was in Italy. And it was snowing.

I don’t really remember much of my train ride into Milan that sticks out as being particularly memorable, asides from the fact that I was on a train in Milan. Happy Face. Oh, I did listen to the Bourne Identity soundtrack….and then next thing I knew I was in the middle of a snowy field with bruised knuckles, a gash across the bridge of my nose, and a 9 mil.

Just kidding.

I got into Milan and took a taxi to the Hotel ABC (inventive right?) I dragged my luggage upstairs, and clumsily checked in. Then stumbled in and locked the door, and fell on the bed, and was asleep within five minutes. (Me on right looking dead before my nap)

I woke up at about 6 and my facebook friend Carolyn who was supposed to share the room with me wasn’t there yet. Yes I do realize how sketchy that sounds but it was totally legit. I was starving, but didn’t feel like wandering by myself into a cold, wet, dark night in a city I didn’t know. I decided to wait it out. I was supposed to go to a Super-Bowl party later too. But where was it? I hadn’t thought to write down the email, so I had to resort to texting my mom and asking her to look it up since I was sans internet at the time. (Oh and mom, you know how I thought Andrea was a girl? Well as it turns out it was a dude. Andrea being the Italian form of Andrew. Strike one for Sam and being interculturally competent. (That was for you. You know who you are.) Dang. So I just bummed around and read a book and about 7 I heard a knock at the door and opened it to find Carolyn. It was my first of many experiences of meeting someone in real life who I had talked extensively to on Facebook. It was weird. And it hasn’t really gotten any more normal, even after having re-met/introduced myself to about 20 people. We then ventured out into the -3 Celsius Milan with snow falling copiously about our ears. As it turns out, food is hard to find (cheap food anyway) on a Sunday night in Milan. After about 30 minutes of walking and feeling the imminent threat of bumping against something and shattering our frozen limbs, we were face with a dilemma. We had found an open place, we were just troubled over whether or not we should go in. It stood before us, like the Globalization Gates of Hell. Or should I say arches. Golden arches. That’s right we faced the dilemma of the first meal eaten in Italy being a Big Mac. NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO. We were torn(I don’t know what is the proper punctuation right here, : ; or - ? Ach) starve or sumbit to the Mephistophilic McDonald’s. ….. Sweat beaded our brows….we started resignedly towards our doom…But then we a saw a supermarket and ,went and bought stuff for prosciutto and cheese sandwiches. Sweet. I was much happier with this result. And just as a point of interest, I found a package of pre-sliced deli horse meat. I didn’t get it… but I’m not ruling it out just yet.

We finally made it back to the hotel and drifted off into sleep accompanied by the sounds of an episode of House in Italian. Molto Bene. ( By the way these two pictures aren't in chronological order. They are at Stazione Cadorna where I first arrived in Milan.)

Oh, congrats to all of you who actually read my entire post. Sorry for it was so long, but I wasn’t able to grab the time until today. So if you talk to someone and they say “I tried to read Sam’s blog but it was just so long and I decided it wasn’t worth it”, Look them square in the eye and say “Fie on you”. But really, sorry it was so long. The next one, detailing my first day of activity at the University, will probably be just as long, but I’ll try to cut it down.

As for now, the international students are supposed to get together for pizza in a while and then go to a club, Hollywood Rhythmateque. Holy crap. The first of more welcoming parties than you and your friend could shake a stick at. Ciao mi amicos & amicas!