Well, to say the least it has been an interesting and unpredictable beginning to my semester here at Bocconi. Most of January was spent with a lot of anticipation waiting to finally leave on the 23rd. The day finally came and I was on my way, for 5 months. The longest I have ever been away from home.
Luckily I literally flew in right behind Katy's Delta plane at the airport and we easily met up. We took the train about 30 minutes and finally arrived at the dorms. No rest for us though. Out to check into Bocconi and try and get started on finding an apartment. To make the story short Katy decided to stay in the dorms, but I was still restless and wanted to try an apartment. The next week was filled with an incredible combination of excitement and stress.
The Tuesday after we arrived we started our Italian Language Course, which I truly enjoyed. Our teacher was very patient and wonderful! I've been reserved about speaking spanish for years, but she encouraged me to just jump right up and speak Italian to the whole class. I love the language, and knowing Spanish grammar and vocab is definitely helpful. So during the days we would have 5 hours classes, and then straight away we would roam campus calling any advertisements we could for apartments till 11 at night. Such long days. I found a great girl and fellow master's student, Kiki from Canada, and we decided to go on the hunt together. It was the most exhausting, depressive hunt. Traveling for hours all over Milan, just to be disappointed in quality and price. But, the only comforting thing was most other students were in the same boat, so it was a sort of bonding experience.
After days of searching a visiting apartments, I received an e-mail from a woman asking ME if I wanted to see it. So we jumped at the opportunity. She was lovely, seemed trustworthy, decent rent and flexible with payments. Our friends David (from UVA who I met in the Philly Airport on the way over, random) and Moses from UF came with us. The 4 of us have been on the hunt together for days. Kiki and I signed and moved in that night! All was well. We couldn't find a third roommate, so we decided to ask the boys to live with us. Two girls in one room, two boys in the other. It was such a fun weekend. Then a week later, all hell broke loose. The owner decided she wanted cash instead of check, when she clearly agreed to check on the contract. That would be $4000 in cash from everyone up front! No way! She became very argumentative and aggressive and made it feel extremely uncomfortable. We tried to think of every solution to make this transaction safe, but she was uncooperative. We think it because owner gets heavily taxed in Italy and she wanted cash. So, it all came to a showdown in front of the Duomo on a sunny afternoon. She wanted cash, we couldn't get it to her the same day because of ATM withdrawal limits. At this point we were hoping she would evict us, so the contract would be void. We just wanted out, she was crazy one minute and offering us sweets the next. Unstable woman. So she said well, you can move out and move back in the next day when we had the money. no way! so we took the chance to leave, took the tram home with her, packed up everything in 30 minutes and left that crazy place. Phew. Luckily, haven't heard from her since. So I moved back into the dorms, where I am super happy and comfortable. I was not willing to go through the last 2 weeks of finding an apartment again. Plus the dorms are actually really nice, just a bit far from campus, but no big deal. Clean sheets every week, laundry (dryer!), cleaning service every week trash, maintenance. Really its nice, and a private room and I share a bathroom with only 1 other girl.
Now, that was the crazy stuff, I really want to write about all the amazing great things I have experienced in only 3 weeks here in Milan!
My first week discovered Aperitivo, which is an amazing Italian dinner tradition. You buy a drink for around 8 euro and then you have a buffet style dinner. You have small plates with lots of different finger foods. It is quite filling. It's been hit or miss at the restaurants, but we've had some pretty interesting food. Aperitivo is survival of the fittest really, whoever can get to the food first before its gone. After some experience now we have learned to take our time.
The first week here we also went on a tour in the Fashion District. WOW! Versace, Gucci, Prada, everything you could imagine. We even had a caffe at the Armani Store. It's really a site to see, along with the people shopping.
The City of Milan is incredible. Business mixed with Old Italy. The Duomo in the center on Milan is breaktaking and still after many times seeing it, looks fake. Especially at night. The Piazza in front of the Duomo is like Times Square, hustling with thousands of people, trams, cars, metro. The opera is right across the street. There is no justice to writing this, I just need to post pictures. The historic center of Milan and truly the Milanese experience. The ESN exchange group threw a huge welcome party at one of the best clubs in Milan, called Hollywood. It was really fun, but incredibly crowded. We left with about 40 people from the dorms. The music really catered to us, so hopefully I find other Italian clubs.
Ok, so many more GOOD things to write. I'm off to my first class at Bocconi today! So when I return I will write more. Its hard to even remember what I did last week. But I'm glad I finally have this blog up and running.
But I have met some really great people already and I am starting to settle in, that is as much as I can with every weekend planned for a trip!
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