What do you do when you're in Italy with your girlfriends and you haven't had lunch, but it's not really dinner time? You have a "Judy's in Italy 5 o'clock meal," of course. I visited Beth in Milan last weekend and so did her sister/my friend, Grace who is studying in London. Lucky for us, Beth has an apartment in Milan and enough space for all of us to sleep there so we saved some money...although I did get totally ripped off on my cab fare...twice. Ahh, well, when in Italy (and you don't speak Italian), suck it up and deal with it.
Beth is really the hostess with the mostest. She made us some fabulous food (brie and crackers with apple, gnocci with herb-cheese-mayo topped bread, tortellini, kiwi, potato soup) and we did what us girls do best. We Skyped with Laura back home, watched the Fashion channel, talked, explored. I arrived late Thursday night, having only slept one hour the previous night, and Gracie was already there. We slept in the next day and when I woke up, I couldn't tell what time of the day it was. Beth had closed the shutters, so I thought it could have been either
very, very early in the morning, or the afternoon, for all I knew. So I checked the time on my iPod. 5:45am. I was pretty sure that was the time in Michigan, but I really wasn't sure. So I checked my cell phone. 11:45am. But I wasn't sure if that was the time in Spain or in Italy (turns out they're the same time zone). As it turned out, we slept all morning and it felt great, if not a little bit like the Twilight Zone. It rained hard all day, so we only ventured out for a trip to the grocery store for sustenance. Basically, it was a perfect and much needed day relaxing with friendly faces.
Saturday we enjoyed the perfect weather by eating gelato (5 in total for the weekend) and walking to Duomo, the Galleria to stomp the bulls balls, and through the big park. Sounds like pretty average, tranquil day, right? Wrong. It happened to be Carnivale so little kids in costumes throwing confetti and silly string had taken over the plaza in front of Duomo. There was confetti EVERYWHERE. Stomping the bulls balls sounds a lot harsher than it is, in reality. Its a tile bull in the floor of the Galleria and people stomp on the bulls balls for good luck. There's a big indent in the ground where everybody stomps. There was a fair going on, too, so Beth bought some cotton candy and we went down the giant slide. I guess I would have expected a fair in Italy to be different than in the
US, but it's really much the same. There are rides, junk food, games, giant stuffed animals to win. I guess the main difference is that people yell "step right up- a winner every time!" in Italian.When I returned to Valencia, a lot of people asked me if I liked Milan. Well, sure, I liked Milan like I like all cities. Mainly, I really liked my friends who were in the city. I mean, really, Milan is a big city. People don't really speak English, but you can get by pretty well by pointing and nodding. There is much more history in the architecture and such, but it
didn't feel so drastically different and fantastic than any other city I've been to. My I'm just completely desensitized because I've been dealing with cultural difference nonstop for the past however many weeks. There is one more thing I really ought to say about Milan, though, and this is very important, so listen very carefully. Everybody in Milan is FABULOUS.
We did do one very Italian thing. Aperitivo. You go to a bar-type place and order a drink. Yes, I said a drink. Just one because that's really all you need. It was the most massive drink I have EVER seen. Then you get to eat from a buffet of appetizers. It seems like such an American idea to me. Pay a small amount of money, eat from a huge buffet. The Italians, do it with so much class.
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