Milan

Well here I am, sitting in my room in Milan, Italy. So far today, I woke up very early and, along with my roommates, I went to eat breakfast in these girls' apartment in our program. I then went on a run (it is hard to breathe here. Polluted like crazy) and then had to deal with a lot of wallet-loss problems. My roommate John and I didn't have class today because our class (Italian 305) doesn't start until Monday. Everything so far (and I will elaborate, of course) has been amazing, minus one thing-my wallet is now gone along with everything inside. (Still have my passport thank goodness) but all of my cards and IDs are gone. I have been going back and forth with my parents trying to call banks and send new cards ASAP. It's no fun. Not at all. BUT, now it is time to make you all a little jealous/tell a happier tale. The fun part-

So we arrived into Milan on Monday morning, tired yet excited. Interesting story, I never had to go through customs. I walked through a gate in Madrid (first stop) where they stamped my passport, but my bags never had to go through any special customs. I should have brought more dangerous things I guess. Italy doesn't seem to mind. So we arrived at the airport and were met by many young Italian people that were working/volunteered to help us get where we needed to go. AKA our apartments/homes. We took a train from the Malpensa airport to a train station close to the center of the city. Once we arrived at the train station we (one of my roommates, Chris, that was on the same flight as me/we hung out on the train ride over) got into a taxi and drove to our apartment building. We met a couple of our other roommates (Tim, Nick and Lorenzo. Lorenzo is our C.A., which is like a live-in R.A. and he is a student here in Italy) We have another roommate named John, but is doing a whole year in abroad so we didn't meet him right here. (He was traveling) So right when we arrived, Lorenzo was already making pasta for lunch. It was delicious. We hung out for a while, walking around and talking. We went over all of the house rules and how everything works. Then later in the evening we went to a very cool restaurant that overlooks Il Duomo di Milano (Probably the most famous building in Milan http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Milan_Cathedral). We had a welcome buffet filled with all kinds of delicious types of Italian food. There was prosciutto, pizza, tiny sandwiches, cheese and, what it seemed to be, an endless supply of red wine and prosecco. Everybody was introducing themselves and talking and it was a very fun time. The next day we went to breakfast at our new traditional breakfast place. It is this little cafe with outdoor seating and they make some delicious, well, everything. It is a little expensive but I don't go there for the food. I go for the orange juice. Everybody that knows me will read that and be confused because I have never been one for drinking orange juice. This is OJ like none other. It is freshly squeezed/made and it is absolutely amazing. We plan on eating there all the time. We then had many boring meetings about orientation things and had lunch at the local university. A normal cafeteria in Milan is not too bad. I thought the food would be better but it was better than in Madrid. I ate some risotto with mushrooms, chicken and some pear juice. It was quite ok. Later that night our program took us all to one of the premier spas in Milan. It was so awesome. The name of the spa is Terme Milano. I highly recommend you all look it up. The place had everything from different hot tubs to spas to steam rooms to outdoor pools and hut tubs. They also had a buffet for us with lots of small food and a whole lot more wine. It was such a relaxing and fun night. The next day we had more meetings in the morning but then we were free for most of the rest of the day. A couple of my roommates and I walked around the block for about 3.5 hours. We learned a lot. At night, we had an aperitivo, which is where you go to a bar and buy something to drink and you can have as much bar food as you want. They have all different kinds of little things to eat and it was a really nice bar so we had a good time hanging out and meeting more and more people. After the first bar we went to a friend's apartment and hung out for a bit before heading to another bar where most of the program had already gathered. From there we all went to a club and danced for a couple of hours. The next day we hadto wake up for a tour of the Financial/Fashion districts of the city and it was pretty cool. The fashion district is the coolest. It is potentially the greatest in the world. They had all kinds of the best labels such as Gucci, Prada, Armani, Versace and everything else that you can imagine and not afford. It was pretty incredible. That night we made (my roommates Nick and Lorenzo) a very good dinner of pasta and homemade meatballs. It was so delicious. Afterwards we went to a bar to meet up with another girls' apartment group and hung out for a few hours. The rest of the story was told at the beginning so you now know where I am. Tonight we are going to go plan some trips with some friends of ours and then hang out at there apartment before going to another club. Life is good. More to come after the weekend.

Luke