A Series of Unfortunate Events 1

I cannot believe I’m back.

It’s surreal to be home again. This has been the longest time that I’ve spent away from California, or for that matter from LA, and it really taught me how much we have to appreciate here. After traveling the world (well, a few countries in Europe), I realized that it’s flipping cold everywhere but southern California. Coming out of LAX I had a sweater and I was hot. In Milan all the streets were iced; in London, I saw my first snowfall and in Paris the below freezing temperature sucked the life from my bones.

After finishing my final undergraduate semester with IES, my mom came to Milan to start our 9-day Mother Daughter Bonding Time.

It was a fing disaster. It could have possibly been the worst decision of my life. Spending nine days secluded with just my mom while attempting to travel through three different countries is really an impossible feat that we were constantly reminded of every step of the way.

The second my mom stepped onto Milan soil one of the world’s safest cities suddenly became Compton times a thousand. Literally everything from somebody pressing too close to her on the metro or a man staring at her weirdly was threatening. I obviously can’t take care of myself very well – if I could then I wouldn’t have gotten my wallet stolen. But I now had to look out for my mom and her stuff in addition to myself and mine, which is seriously a strenuous thing because that woman’s mind is like a kaleidoscope on speed. Her credit card wallet was stolen between her departure from LAX to her sitting at dinner in Milan. Two days into the trip she left her scarf at dinner. Four days into the trip, she lost her right glove. I seriously felt like I was losing my mind.

While we were walking through Rome, we could have had a bull’s eye drawn on our foreheads with a flashing neon arrow that read “STEAL FROM ME!” My mom attracted so much attention from the men with her petite stature and white skin that they kept peering into her face under the brim of her hat, asking things, yelling things that I had to teach her to stop responding for goodness sakes.

It was there in Rome when she told me about her “losing” her credit cards and at this moment I couldn’t take any more. It felt like the devil himself was grabbing my heart and wringing it dry, leaving it in a crumpled heap at the bottom of my stomach. Why were we left to the devil’s whims like fodder? Why was God allowing this to happen? What am I supposed to do – put my life inside my money belt? I couldn’t have felt more unprotected and vulnerable. If the devil is against us, what can we do? What power do I have? It felt like everybody around us were chess pieces that he picked up and moved around in whatever way he wanted. You, up, go take that women’s wallet, then turn around and leave. Now you, see them? Threaten their safety, cut open her purse, make perverse gestures, follow them on the metro.

The rest of the night was spent me bawling and my mom trying to counsel me, saying that I was allowing the devil to enter me by receiving all of his emotions and thoughts. It made me want to never go back to Europe ever again.

The thing with the emancipation of women is that though we are now equal politically, in the work force, and even in the household, the unchangeable truth is that we actually really aren’t equal at all. Put any average woman against any average man and it is a guarantee that the man will win. There is really not much the woman can do. It’s a sad reality. One I never felt the angst of until now. In Rome I had to come to terms with the fact that I may need a guy after all. That a woman alone is subjected to so many more threats that really can’t be overcome.

I have always been a pessimist. The glass is never half full. Whenever somebody pours me a glass of anything I always wonder why he doesn’t fill it up to the top.

The Italian Way

My lips are so chapped I can’t stop biting into them.

Today is December 1st! I can’t believe I have spent three months in Milan already. Today is the first of December and it was a fabulous first day. December marks Christmas and the holidays. The lights are all up throughout the city and a Christmas tree that’s supposed to be twice the size of the one in NY is up in the Duomo Piazza. My boss and my fellow intern and I are going to go see a nativity scene together tomorrow for our last day of work. 

To celebrate we invited our boss, Silvia over for dinner. Liza cooked (obviously since I managed to evacuate an entire building from microwaving a pizza), while I took care of the dessert: Tiramisu. 

The funny thing is even though we’re the ones that were cooking and hence in control of the menu, Silvia told us what we were supposed to eat with what in what order. It was nerve racking to say at the least. Thank goodness she came a bit tipsified (there was more color in her cheeks than from the cold) and brought with her two bottles of very strong red wine. 

One of the girls at the table were reaching for the salad while we just served the appetizer (or the first course, I’m not even sure anymore) of lentil soup when Silvia exclaimed in her usual way, “Ma NO! Are you going to eat that cold salad with this hot soup at the same time?!” Incredulous. Preposterous. You could’ve just suggested that you were going to go dance naked in the December air waiting for the snow to fall. 

It was the exact same air that Chiara gave to me when I was feeding her dinner. Chiara is the middle child of the three Italian kids that I babysit. The family is a very well-off Milanese household with large, spacious rooms, antique furniture and china on the kitchen walls. The oldest is Bernedetta who I tutor in English. Then there’s Chiara who yanks me around like her pet dog telling me to go away or stay or read a book depending on her mood, and finally there’s absolutely beautiful l`amore, three-year-old Bernardo. Ugh he is SO adorable I want to whisk him away forever. He’s such the player, you can tell right away. Apparently at the end of school he always blows kisses to all the girls in his classroom before leaving saying, “Ciao ciao ciao!” 

So yesterday the mother put me in charge of feeding these two dinner. They sat at their small plastic table in the kitchen and were served their appetizer: a bowl of cooked spinach. I made Bernardo say “spinach.” When they were done with the spinach, I served them their first course, which was plain risotto. It looked just like rice. It didn’t look too good. Bernardo spit it out and said, “Non mi piace!” I made him finish it though by disguising it with the second course which was slices of proscuitto and a bowl of nuts. 

Weird, right? 

I asked Chiara while trying to force-feed Bernardo if they always ate like this. 

“What? Of course? What, do you want to eat this with that?” She says pointing to her second course and then the dessert sitting on the kitchen counter, scoffing. And before I could even respond she goes, “Eh.” Like how could it be any other way, you are asking such a stupid question. 

Even at the age of 9, these Italian children have the Milanese air down. 

Liza just got yelled at for putting the olive oil into the salad dressing before the vinegar. 

“Ma dai!” (Which means, really?! C`mon!) 

There’s an old Italian saying that is in the Venetian dialect for making salad dressing.

“The salad wants: 
salt from a stingy person
vinegar from a mean person
olive oil from a generous person
while a mad person mixes it all together.”  

It sounds better in the original dialect, but anyhow, Silvia recites this to us while Liza passes around the corrected salad.

Before I used to refer to my California home with pride, but now it’s referred to as a pity. Oh, you poor California girl, you who knows no snow or season.

Poor California girl has to go back to her California home where all she does is swim all day and wear her flip flops. 

Today I got some “California love” sent in a box filled with Korean market goodies and Hot Cheetos and English Breakfast Tea.

I love Milan but I miss home. 

After another 13 hour day, I get home too exhausted to wash up, let alone read the 80 page Italian novel I’m supposed to discuss in class tomorrow.

Sigh. I’m just going to go get some gelato.

Remember Milan

Every Tuesday and Saturday morning streets all across Milan are closed off for the markets.

Carts line up through the streets with men screaming “un euro, un euro, tutto solo un euro! una carta solo due euro!” Vegetables, cheese, meat, make up, cashmere sweaters, and boots for €20 euro – all sold at a discount price in these open air markets. After my first week in Milan I wondered how the Milanese could afford to pay for everything at such an escalated price – there was no Target, no Wal-Mart, no Costco. Then I found out about these markets. They are packed every time.

I stood behind a grandpa who just bought literally three bags of large green apples, which the vendor dropped into his shopping cart. I bought a bag of tomatoes, garlic, pears and clementines all for €5. I love these small moments when I feel so very Italian.

After dropping off my purchases, I tossed  a few Clementines into my purse before heading out to La Scala.

La Scala is a name known worldwide. Even my uncultured self knew of it before coming to Milan. As an opera house, the theater shows ballets, operas, and classical orchestra and is home to world renowned ballet dancers and opera singers. “La Scala” literally means The Ladder, and can be found on the family crest of Regina della Scala, wife of the Duke of Milan during the 16th century, who built many of the city’s important features including a church which then took after her name, Santa Maria alla Scala.

Centuries later Milan’s theater Regio Ducale burned down after a gala and the rich box-holders clamored for a new theater. The then empress Maria Theresa of Austria decided to destroy the Santa Maria church and build the new theater there instead, which adapted its name from the church and was called La Scala.

It was much different in the 1700s. The wealthy box holders would decorate their own boxes according to their liking while a gallery was built above the boxes for the common people called the loggione. Here everyday commerce happened with horse dealings, gambling salons and kitchen foyers where servants cooked meals and refreshments for the box-holders and their guests. Since then La Scala has undergone a thousand renovations, once after the bombing of World War II, which tore through the roof and the walls. During this reconstruction, an enormous blown-glass chandelier was added that had 365 lights, one for each day of the year. They say it’s so large that a man can fit inside of it.

Because the original layout of the house didn’t have seats in the loggione or even the main floor, not all the seats in the theater actually have a view of the stage.

And as luck would have it, I bought a ticket for the loggione (where the poor people used to sit and still do, i.e. me) and was in the topmost corner of the U. The theater seats are in the shape of a U with the center being the base. From where I was sitting I had a fabulous view of the chandelier, but the stage was absolutely nowhere in sight. Like at all.

When the theater lights shut off and the doors closed at exactly 8 pm I left my seat and walked towards the center of the U. Everybody else was also standing in the back and as I was thinking how awful it would be to have to watch Giselle standing up I found a seat in the front row! Yay me!

Giselle was beautiful! I can’t underline, bold or italicize it enough. 

It’s about a girl who is sought after by two men (of course). The first is a peasant boy who leaves flowers at her window. The second suitor, however, is richer, handsome, and a better dancer (he was the male lead). As the story goes, the richer, better looking one gets the girl. They fall in love, they wish to be together. Then something terrible happens. It’s confusing, it’s dramatic, Giselle gets heartbroken and in a whirling crescendo of twirls and faints, she dies by the end of Act I. 

I nearly cried. 

The second act begins with the lover visiting her grave and is haunted by beautiful ghost ballerinas all in white dresses. The scene ends with the ghost of Giselle and her lover having one final dance together before she disappears.

This was my favorite part.

 Oh I wish I were a ballerina. 

Parma Day!

The day after we arrived from Paris, Jordan and I decided to go to Parma. The name should sound familiar to you. Hint: The most common cheese used to grate over pasta is from here. The American company Kraft sells this cheese pre-grated in plastic bottles.

Still don’t get it?

It’s PARMESAN!

The town is also famous for its Parma Ham, where prosciutto is cured in its remote hills for at least 4 months. Then it is thinly sliced to produce Prosciutto Crudo, the most popular sandwich meat in Italy.

Jordan and I were, thus, anxious to get to Parma. Unbenowst to us, however, the traveling gods were set against us and threw every possible obstacle in our way.

Observe:

1. Jordan’s cellphone mysteriously turns off and refuses to turn back on, thus rendering us unable to find each other at the train station. While Jordan was downstairs, I was upstairs, then we switched, and then switched again. Five minutes before our train was supposed to leave I finally found her at the platform and we rushed to buy her ticket and get on board blessing our narrow luck.

2. Three stops from Parma, the conductor tells us to get off and switch trains. This is unexpected considering that we bought a direct ticket. Without questioning, we get off at a town called Piacenza.

3. We realize that the next train leaving for Parma is in two hours. By this time it has started to rain. After walking around getting drenched it dawns on us that there is absolutely nothing in Piacenza but a McDonalds inside a mall that only has a supermarket. So we sat at McDonalds for two hours. I ordered a Big Mac.

4. When we return to the station the train that we were waiting for got cancelled. According to the Departure Board, all the following trains are also cancelled. Once talking to the ticket guy, we learn that there is a regional train strike. We had absolutely no idea. The strike began around 12 pm and would continue until 9. And until then we were stuck in god-forsaken Piacenza.

5. The ticket guy, who is awfully helpful, tells us to have hope and wait for the non-regional train. It costs more but would for sure get us to Parma. It was in another two hours.

6. After buying McFrosty’s and going a bit crazy spending another two hours in McDonalds, we finally get on the train for Parma with McDonald stickers on our faces.

7. By the time we arrive in Parma it’s 4 pm. It starts to rain and it won’t stop. We got to Parma so late that everything was closed, except for one restaurant.

Like a lighthouse for a drifter in an ocean, the restaurant stood as a beacon of hope for all that Parma had to offer. We sat down and had the most amazing, amazing Italian meal ever.

We ordered Prosciutto Crudo con Pere e Mozzerella for our appetizer. It. Was. So. Good. The prosciutto couldn’t have been sliced thinner and felt so fresh and slightly peppery. We wrapped it around pieces of sweet pear and Mozzerella balls – it was the most perfect combination of tastes in one bite.

For my entree, I ordered Zucca Ravioli, which is ravioli stuffed with pumpkin. This alone would have been fantastic, but then I doused it with Parmesan. Wow. I was never Parmesan’s biggest fan until tasting it in Parma. The taste and smell was less pungent then the Parmesan from the markets. It was lighter, yet more flavorful at the same time. I couldn’t have enough.

In the end the traveling gods tried, but we still succeeded. There is no better way to travel than with your mouth.

Our restaurant in the middle of the piazza.

Isn't the food just gorgeous?

Us and the restaurant's butcher. He cut the prosciutto right in front of us in the center of the restaurant. That machine in the front with the wheel is his cutter.

A salumeria display! If you look carefully you can see "Parma Ham" stamped into the gigantic meat.

This will be an entirely different experience for you.

Favorite Gelato Flavor of The Week: Malaga

After two failed attempts we finally got ourselves on the 12:25 train leaving for Verona, a city built like a Shakespearean stage. With an ancient Roman amphitheater as the center piece, the town is surrounded by the Adige River that is crisscrossed with beautiful stone bridges. Gas lamps light up a path covered in the yellowing leaves of fall trees that line the canal. Cliche romance novel words come to mind: idyllic, beautiful, picturesque.

We walked through the ruins of a Roman theater, remnants of Verona once as a Roman city before Napolean and Mussolini took over; bought jewelry from the open-air market in Piazza Spignola and haggled for scarves; we left love notes in the hallways of Juliet’s house, touched her right boob weathered from a million others who wanted good luck; witnessed mass at the beautiful Duomo; and ate dinner at Osteria al Duca, Romeo Montague’s house now fashioned into a restaurant where we had polenta and horse meat.

Verona is beautiful. Any two lovers meeting by chance in this town would fall in love and follow the course of Romeo and Juliet if they also were forced to separate. The city is perfect like a movie set. Who wouldn’t fall in love here?

Hello Verona!

The Roman Amphitheater

Under the Roman amphitheater

Out of nowhere a man started singing opera and it rung through the empty theater. It was amazing.

A couple. =)

My favorite orange house.

The market.

Haha. Of all the souvenirs to get from Verona.

Here were the houses of the Capulets where Juliet left of which many kind hearts cried and poets sung.

The hallway into Juliet's courtyard was covered with graffiti and love notes and gum sticking these love messages to the walls. We left our own notes too.

Juliet's balcony where Juliet and Romeo have their entangled conversation that all other love stories lust after.

The Adige River.

Beautiful.

I'm Romeo. Are you my Juliet?

Welcome to The House of Bordello

“What does ‘bordello‘ mean?” asked Kim.

I typed it into wordreference.com and gasped. 

“… it means whorehouse.” 

This is Plastic. Without contest, Plastic houses the most over-the-top, crazy disco nights in the city. And of all the nights to go to, Saturday night was not just Bordello night, but also happened to be “gay-friendly” night.

“Gay-friendly” was a severe understatement. 

Once we arrived we of course had another Italy-out-of-order situation, which refers to the country’s repulsion to anything orderly and efficient. Hence what should have been a line in front of the club was actually a mob. A gigantic mob filled with women in tight pink tutus waving glittery wands, and boys in nothing but a tank top, and middle-aged men in complete suits and tie pressing up a bit too close behind me. The crowd turned unpleasant in a matter of minutes – we were pressed together so close that it was no longer cold outside. During the thirty minutes of strange bodies being forcibly plastered to mine, I wondered why the hell I was enduring through this and every time I would look up and see the sign: “This is Plastic.” That’s why.

The bouncer was actually a skinny Italian man with flipped black hair, earrings, and dressed like Fidel Casto. He refused to let us in and instead held onto the hands of large men who shoved their way to the front. I couldn’t understand how he was choosing these people at random and why he was completely ignoring us when I started to see the pattern. For the first time in my clubbing life, MEN were preferred over women at the entrance. Usually a group of guys would never be able to get inside a club without some ladies, but at Plastic, the group of girls was denied and asked if they had any men. Get it? 

Once we finally got through, we got stamped as “STUFF.” To enter, you have to be plasticized and become a Barbie doll. Because inside was a world of beautiful, crazy plastic people in beautiful, crazy Barbie clothes.

A sign, “The House of Bordello” flashed in neon lights in the main room where a stage was dominated by men perfectly dolled up in make up and earrings and tight black tube tops, lip sang and danced while pulling up their tube top every time it slipped. It was crazy. 

I fell in love with a skinny boy who was dancing on a ledge wearing a thin white tank top. His hands were pressed against the ceiling while he danced. We made eye contact to which I blushed and looked away. The other boy that he was dancing with had a shaved crew cut and was wearing a green strapless dress with black silk nickers inside. I know because he frequently lifted up his dress. 

We were ignored throughout the night. We never got hit on, nobody ever approached us. They were too much into themselves, or even more into their boyfriends. Plastic on gay-friendly night is the most flamboyant, crazy night that would probably top all other “gay-friendly” events. I danced next to Madonna who was lip singing on stage dressed in a blonde wig and a skintight leopard dress, while gay men all around belted out the lyrics to the Italian song we didn’t know and jumped and danced. It was the craziest club I’ve ever been to. 

Don’t know if I’m going back there, but being Plastic sure did feel good till 4 in the morning.

Oh, the weather outside is frightful

Overnight, winter arrived. 

Out of nowhere, the wind came. And the wind is merciless – so cold and bitter and seeps into your bones and through our cracked kitchen window that I can’t shut. 

Milan has an inefficient way of dealing with conservation. They’re so obsessed with recycling that if you don’t recycle then they’ll dig through your trash, somehow find out who the trash belongs to, and fine you 300 euro. So basically, recycling is mandatory. I’ve never recycled a day in my life before coming here where now I’m washing out empty sauce bottles and sorting paper from plastic. 

Milan also has controlled heating. The whole city doesn’t get heating until tomorrow. As in we couldn’t use our heater because the city had it on lockdown. Not only is it shut off during the warmer seasons, but it also shuts off starting at 10 p.m. every night. Uh, hello – that’s when it gets FREEZING. 

Apparently the reasoning is that at 10 p.m. you should be in bed so since you have your blankets you don’t need the heater…

And for some odd reason, during the day when the sun is out and when nobody is home, the heater is again, available. 

Milan is so backwards. I’m still freezing.

This entire week I’ve lived off of vegetable soup willing myself to stay at Stage 1: runny nose and sore throat. Stage 2 would be my life crumbling into a feverish mess.

 

Milan is covered with a thin, invisible film of coldness. Over the trees, the buildings, the park, the street, the stores – everything is cold, cold, cold.

The return home…

…was a bitch.

I’m super sorry, really sorry, about my recent cussing habit. I promise I’ll stop, but it is really difficult for me to convey what happened this weekend at Florence without cussing.

Why? Because I missed the train back home. Again.

Yea.

…

So I get to the hostel after a fitful three-hour train ride. I ended up sitting in somebody else’s seat for the first two hours nodding off and probably drooling until the guy next to me poked me to wake me up to the conductor asking for my ticket who then directed me to my correct seat three compartments down. -__-

Florence itself was beautiful. All that everybody said it would be. The Duomo is breathtaking and walking up the Duomo is also, literally, breathtaking. I climbed 375 stairs – alone – and it was liberating. The stone stairways were endless. They wound round and round through narrow passageways and slanted stairwells and I felt like I couldn’t climb another step. Right about when I thought they should really invest in making signs like the ones on the 5 that say “100 – San Francisco,” except they would say, “50 steps left, you’re almost there!” I turned a corner and saw the light. The sight was beautiful. I didn’t know Florence was completely surrounded by mountains on all sides. Beautiful, green mountains with the clouds lazily dropping in and the intricately ancient town of Florence stretched out in front.

Some of the highlights of my time in Florence:

1. Buying a pair of sky blue leather gloves, like Carrie’s from Sex and The City. =)

2. Standing in front of Michelangelo’s David. He is definitely not the small boy from the Old Testament. He is HUGE. And not with any sexual undertones, but he really is a goliath himself – 17 feet tall. Seeing him in person really underscored why the sculpture was such a big deal and why there are a hundred plus replicas of him everywhere. I sat there staring at David for a very long time. You can see his left hand clutched around a rock, his blood veins showing through his knuckles; his curly hair that invoked in me a strong desire to run my hands through it; his beautiful boyish face staring out knowing that this was the moment where faith was all that he had – faith and the rock in his hand.

Next to David was a hallway filled with paintings from various artists depicting the life of Jesus. Scenes from his crucifixion, his resurrection with angels and flowers falling from the sky, his crowning of the Virgin Mary in heaven. And then there was the one of Jesus after he was taken down from the cross. The dead Jesus was lying on the floor, crumpled, leaning on Mary with his left arm outstretched underneath his head, heavy with death. The artist painted Mary in obvious grief, her face stricken with pain. But her head also was tilted in a disturbing position, completely sideways, parallel to the floor. The painter intended Mary’s body to parallel that of Jesus’ to show how his pain was just as much hers. It made me cry to imagine the horror and pain it must have been for Mary to see her son on the cross dying.

3. Getting lost in the Uffizi Gallery while trying to get the hell out. It was overwhelming. I thought I finally saw everything after triumphantly exiting a hallway when I was only faced with yet another endless corridor filled with room after room of paintings and church dome embellishments and statues and frescoes and it was just TOO MUCH. After awhile all the paintings of Jesus and the Virgin Mary blurred into each other and when we finally found the ambiguous room that carried the Da Vinci’s I was so exhausted that I took a glance and walked out. It took us nearly 20 minutes to find the exit. Shivani got lost completely and somehow ended up in the bathroom.

4. Spending an INSANE amount of money on one dinner: Florentine Steak. For crying out loud I really can’t even write down how much the whole dinner ended up to be. And I definitely won’t be converting it into dollars.

5. Talking with an old Florentine man who went into a passionate fit asking, “Ma perché Milano, perché? Firenze é piú buono di Milano. Why are you studying there? Study here, be here. I’ve been to Milan, and it’s nothing compared to Florence! Florence is beautiful, Florence has everything, there is nothing in Milan!”

6. Seeing the Leaning Tower of Pisa. The second I saw it I started laughing hysterically. It really is so funny. It’s unbelievable that they really made a leaning tower. It’s just so silly. It’s ridiculous to actually see the tower in person, leaning. hahaha geez. Even looking at the pictures crack me up.

From Pisa we had bought a train ticket from Pisa to Milan for only 16 euro. But of course it was too good to be true.

Because, of course, we missed it. And our options were either to stick around till 2 am for the next train going to Milan (which was 7 hours from then), or pay 40 additional euro and get on the one leaving in 3 minutes.

I paid 40 extra euro.

Ran to catch the train from Pisa to Florence. Then waited at the Florence station because our train to Milan was delayed by 70 minutes. Can you believe our rotten luck?

70 minutes.

“Who died?!” I yelled.

“Somebody probably did,” said Christine.

“Oh…shit…”

We finally arrived in Milan at 2 am after waiting in another line for a taxi. Overall I had lost 75 euro to nothing.

It was an exhausting weekend.

Cursing Ahead

So I missed my train. fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck.

I missed it by 4 minutes. FOUR minutes.

I’m supposed to be getting off in Florence right now. I’m supposed to be with everybody else trying to find our hostel and dropping off our luggage and going to get a beer somewhere. My HOSTEL. Damn hostelworld.com. Damn Plus Florence. “I can’t touch your reservation. You can try again in the morning but I’m 90% sure you will most likely have to pay for it.”

This is all Sephora’s fault.

I had lunch at Cioccolati Italiani, an unbelievably decadent chocolate bistro where coffee, salads and panini turn into desserts using chocolate as the main ingredient. I had the Cioccolati Italiani salad, caffé chiocolatatino bianco (an expresso shot with melted white chocolate on top), and a £6 gelato with three different flavors and a cone filled with cream. =) After we walked down Via Torino, a street similar to LA’s Melrose, and shopped until we reached Sephora.

I’ve been suffering for the last month in Milan, because my makeup was running low and I forgot to bring extra makeup products. I was lamenting that there wasn’t anything like a Sephora in Italy when just a week ago I found out that there actually was a Sephora here. Hallelujah. When Anna and I got there, I was in makeup heaven. Though it only has a fraction of the brands that America’s Sephora carries, and everything is nearly double the price thanks to the euro, I still couldn’t resist the new Make Up Forever HD foundation and lipgloss.

I might have lost track of time.

Either way the next 40 minutes was spent running to the metro, to my house, back to the metro, until finally arriving at Centrale Station 4 minutes after the train pulled out. fml.

Although considering the situation I’m not flipping out as much as I typically would. I must’ve gotten used to this kind of stuff. I rationalized that considering how much I travel and will continue to travel in the next three months I was bound to miss a train at one point or another and really £35 euro lost is £35 euro lost. It’s like an H&M dress.

I waited in line at the train station for 30 minutes and then spent another 10 trying to exchange my ticket with the employee in complete Italian. “I missed my train di cinque minuti, posso cambiare il mio biglietto per favore.” And he proceeded to tell me that there are no more Innercity trains leaving today and I would have to pay £29 euro to some other guy (couldn’t understand who) to buy the ticket, which I promptly said no to. So then I asked if I could leave tomorrow morning, to which he said I couldn’t. My ticket was only exchangeable with the train that was leaving at the same time tomorrow, which would be at 5:45 p.m. I would have one day and one night in Florence. Um, no thank you. So then I asked if I could get a refund. And he said yes. YES! Thank you, yes please, I would like the refund. And then he said a word I didn’t initially understand but then made much more sense considering. “Metà.” Which means half.  It was a 50% refund. I would only get £13 back.

I sighed and said “va bene.” I took my £13 euro, then gave him another £26 to buy the next morning’s ticket.
Anna is coming over and we’re eating pumpkin ravioli and garlic potatoes with a bottle of red wine before heading out to Alcatraz, a discoteca down my street.

Hopefully I won’t miss my train tomorrow.

Tutte Cose Svizzere!

Favorite Gelato Flavor of the weekend: Marrone Castagno (roasted chestnuts!)

Benvenuti a Switzerland!!

I love Switzerland!

On Saturday we took a day trip to Lugano, Switzerland. The land of Swiss cheese, the Swiss army knife, Swatch, the Swiss Alps, and everything good and wholesome in this world.

MMM, MMm! With out first step into the little town of Lugano we were engulfed by a smell so amazing that we had no choice but to follow it through the winding cobbled streets until coming across five gigantic stone pots bubbling with polenta, tripe soup, sausages, and beef and beer stew. They were being stirred with equally huge wooden spoons and the cooks weilding such large utensils invited us over to help them out! Amazing – I actually helped cook (sorta) the polenta that was later served to hundreds of people for lunch for the Autumn Festival.

With fortune on our side, we arrived in Lugano with the Autumn Festival in full swing. Vendors selling olives, roasted chestnuts, large sausages and knitted socks covered the piazzas and lined up throughout the tiny streets, while girls in traditional swiss dresses offered free grapes from their baskets, and beautiful little swiss babies with their blonde blonde hair and blue eyes danced in the squares along with the live bands playing traditional folk songs. Celebrating the beginning of autumn, wine flowed like water in the streets with people stopping every few feet for another glass of red wine or beer and the smell of cheese and sausages was never far away.

The best part of the afternoon was spent on a boat that took us past the breathtakingly beautiful Swiss mountains through the towns of Paradiso and Castagnola until dropping us off at Gandria. A town made completely of stone, the ancient village is built right against the water reminiscent of Cinque Terre. It was beautiful.

We then took off for the Olive Trail, which we used to hike all the way back to Lugano in two hours. There were so many beautiful churches in Lugano. Of them was Santa Maria degli Angioli where the entire wall from floor to ceiling is a fresco of Christ’s crucifixion by Bernardino Luini, a famous Lombardy painter whose style is likened to that of Leonardo da Vinci. The church was breathtaking to say at the least and it really reminded me of how Jesus is just everywhere.

I ended up spending nearly all of my franks at Merkur, the sweet heart of Lugano with homemade svizzera chocolate. Slabs of honey chocolate, white chocolate with pistachios and almonds, and corn flakes milk chocolate are piled next to perfectly round truffles of every possible flavor you could desire including honeyed chestnuts.

I couldn’t wait any longer and I just took a bite of the 70% wafer-thin Cabruca Carrés dark chocolate. Made from the cocoa from the Brazilian rainforest, the chocolate is perfection melting in your mouth with the Läderach company logo printed on the back. Contentment at its best.

mmmmmmmm the day just couldn’t have been more perfect.

After taking a desperately needed nap on the train back across the border, we rushed to Stadio San Siro, Milano’s home of the Associazione Club Milano, better known as AC Milano, and the Football Club Internazionale Milano, also known as Inter, the two bitter rivals of the Lombardy region. We spent the rest of the night cheering and cursing for the Inter team as the passionate Italian men do with all of them jumping up in unison, shaking their hands and ripping their hair out before sitting back down again. During half time, while Americans would restock on beer and nuts, the Italian men stood at the food stand with tiny plastic cups filled with expresso. =) How perfetto.

The game was tied and in the last few minutes of the game, orange feet assisted number 10 to make the goooaaaallllll winning the game for INTER MILANO!  The walk back to the metro station was spent singing throwbacks of NSYNC and Eminem.

…

After passing out last night from sheer exhaustion, I woke up this morning and went to the Fiera della Bovisa, an all-day street fair. I bought honey for 4 euro, then saw three grandma nuns buying tiny pots of cacti at the flower vendor.

I followed them into a church where they were having a garage sale for a benefit. I met a wonderful Italian woman who assisted me in my shopping and ended up giving me an 8 euro discount for being “che carina!” (which means cute). I bought two bags and two pearl necklaces, one which is from Moschino that was originally 117 euro. The grandmas all said, “Ciao bella!” as I left. When I got home I made Arrabiata pasta from scratch for lunch and rocked out to old school Cool. =) Then for a late night snack met with some gfs for an aperitivo at Bar Straf next to the Duomo. This has been the most buon weekend I have had since I got here. Although tomorrow is yet another monday and I have to start writing my two Italian essays due in the morning now.

Ciao ciao ciao!

 

Lake Lugano.

Lugano and the Swiss Mountains.

On the boat ride =)

Arrived at the Gandria dock.

 

Love Seat for two.

Piazza Riforma with the Autumn Festival =)

The cutest little baby dancing.

Woo hooo! GO INTER!

Ciao Svizzera.

 

Photos courtesy of A. Koida, A. Smaldino, C. Tesdahl.