Buona sera!

Ah, where to begin.... Starting from where the last entry left off - Milan is very satisfyingly enormous and overwhelming.

Saturday, while I was typing the last blog entry, Maria came in and completely randomly announced that we were leaving for Milan in twenty minutes. So I clapped and shouted in excitement, and then asked "perchè?" (why?) Maria's response: "boh" (linguistic note - "boh" is a really lovely word that very eloquently and concisely expresses all sorts of things ranging from "whatever" to "who knows" to "I don't care," and is highly favored among Italian youth). But since it's Milan, you really don't need a reason to go....

The distance between Monticello and Milan is more or less the same as the distance between Providence and Boston, but it takes longer because, as usual, the roads aren't straight. Luca drove us all (Maria and me) to a subway station, and then the three of us took the train the rest of the way in. Walking up the subway steps, the first thing that you see is a sweeping pedestrian walk-way completely lined with grandeur buildings filled with fashion labels (Prada, Armani, Dolce and Gabbana.....the works), all leading to Milan's greatest treasure, the Duomo. We got there around four, so everything was lit up by gorgeous afternoon sunlight.

There are lots of pictures of streets, because streets in Italy seem to be particularly photogenic. :)

We walked around for a couple of hours, absorbing the atmosphere and stopping to look at the Scala theater and Luca's office, which is RIGHT IN THE VERY ABSOLUTE CENTER of everything. When I asked him what it's like to work RIGHT IN THE VERY ABSOLUTE CENTER of Milan, his response was also "boh", and said that except when you come in the morning and leave at night, from a street RIGHT IN THE VERY ABSOLUTE CENTER of Milan, it's no different from living or working anywhere else. Go figure.

This week is Carnevale all throughout Italy (and there will be more on that after this weekend), so the streets were filled with little kids dressed up in costumes, exactly like Halloween in the US. And Carnevale is synonomous with confetti, so the streets were also covered with little pieces of colored paper.

If it hadn't been Milan, the whole trip would actually have been a little counterintuitive. We traveled a total of 2.5 hours, braved Italian drivers and, even more frightening, Luca's driving (again see below), so that Maria could buy a plain gray sweatshirt at H&M. But again, it was Milan, so definitely worth it to see the city. Hopefully there will be more trips soon, and a chance to actually go inside the Duomo!

Now, Italian drivers. To put it in perspective: having lived here for six months, when I get back, there will never again be any reason to fear driving in Rhode Island. Seriously. A few days ago, my host dad was driving me back from school, because I had stayed after with the English teacher to try to hunt down more textbooks. Roads in Italy are pretty narrow; as in, there's usually just enough room for two cars to comfortably, but narrowly, pass without having a head-on collision. That would mean that there really isn't room for a truck and a car to pass each other, although somehow it magically always ends up working out. So, my host dad is driving and we're getting pretty close to bridge, which means there isn't really a shoulder on either side. Then, all of a sudden, his cell phone starts ringing. So, of course, he answers it. So, he's driving with his left hand, holding the cell phone with his right, and Oh? did I mention? the car is a stick-shift - occasionally letting go of the wheel completely to change gears. And I almost forgot- Italians also like to talk with their hands. A lot. Including on cell phones. Are you picturing all of this in your mind? Okay, now imagine us approaching the bridge, with an enormous tractor trailer coming the opposite direction, just far enough away that we'll intersect it RIGHT IN THE MIDDLE OF THE BRIDGE where there isn't any extra room. At this point, I've said goodbye to everyone and said thanks for at least having a chance to read the 7th Harry Potter before I died. But since this is Italy and things like this are a daily occurrence, the car magically and smoothly slid past the oncoming truck and we continued on our merry way.

Driving with Luca is even more of an adventure, because you get to add him singing along in Italian to all of his favorite songs on the radio.

School continues to be one of the best parts of the experience!

This is my class:

And my philosophy teacher (the one from Calabria who always chews an unlit cigar:

We spent an entire class period taking pictures because the Italian\Latin teacher wasn't in school (this made for a very, very happy day - "la lotti", as she's known, is by far the most severe and difficult teacher that we have. When we found out she wasn't going to be in school, there was a class-room wide round of hugs and kisses).

More ways in which school in Italy is different - last Friday, as a joke my class decided to give the philosophy prof a birthday party, since his birthday was Saturday and they were hoping to bribe him into not giving them oral exams this week. So on Friday when he walked into the classroom, Anna ran up to the front with a bottle of champagne (yes, really) and Claudia and Cecilia put a cupcake on his desk with a candle in it. This all seems really generous and extravagant, right? But the prof takes one look at everything and shrieks at the top of his voice that we can't possibly celebrate his birthday because it's unlucky to do it the day before! All of the students kept asking "stai scherzando, vero?" (you're joking, right?) But he was totally serious. So we had a bottle of champagne sitting in the back of the classroom for a week, until yesterday the prof finally let us celebrate for him and we split the bottle 17 ways.

No school tomorrow, Saturday, or Sunday for Carnevale! AFS is going to Lecco for the festival\parade on Saturday, and we all have to dress in clothes from a different country, so tomorrow I'm going to spend the day trying to figure out how to make origami flowers for a lei. I decided that Hawaii was the cheapest option, despite my horrendous track record at origami projects.... Vediamo!

Tonight eight or nine of the girls in my class are going out to a pub in Casatenovo! None of our other plans to go out have worked out, so this will be the first time. Everyone's really nice (and very mature and responsible, compared to impressions of American teenagers) so it should be really fun.

Everything is set for me to go with my class to Florence for three days in March!! We're going with the History of Art teacher who's BRAVISSIMA - incredibly nice, very enthusiastic, and very very funny. I can't wait!! Hopefully it'll also be possible to go to Strausbourg later in the year with another class, since Max and Ryoto are both going too. The school is also going to be offering free classes after school for music, so I've just signed up for piano and voice lessons! It'll be really good to have a chance to meet more students and be out of the house more... Teachers and students are also really enthusiastic to help me find a school for dance, so hopefully that will work out as well! At the least, I hope to connect with people enough that it might be possible to see a show at The Scala... :)

A presto!

baci

Mary