Ciao! I apologize for my delay in blog updates...I've been busy settling in to my gorgeous new apartment with my 6 fabulous roomates! The internet here is also somewhat unreliable, making it difficult to blog many days. Rather than providing you with a play by play of my past few days in Milano, I am going to address some of the biggest surprises and adjustments (aka culture shock) I have experienced upon arriving in my new city.
1. For starters, Milan is in fact a metropolitan city, not the Tuscan countryside. I knew this before leaving, but still had visions of wineries and olive trees in my mind when I arrived. Milan is the largest urban city in Italy with a population of 1.3 million in the city proper and over 4 million including the suburbs around the city, so it definitely has the feel of an urban environment.
2. People in Milan speak Italian. Again, this may seem like something I should have assumed, but I am an American so forgive me my surprise that not everyone speaks English. Even among the younger population I have met here, many do not speak a word of English. For example, Thursday night we were at one of our standard drinking spots, Bar Magenta, and we met a table of Italian men. One of the group of four spoke some broken English, but the others did not. Manuele, my enamored new friend, tried to communicate with me using a combination of sign language, Spanish, and translation. All that I understood was te amo (translation: I love you). Total Italian Move. TIM.
3.Coffee comes in a cup about the size of a double shot glass. Venti does not exist here. The coffee is very strong and comes in a tiny cup that you drink while standing up at the bar. Which brings me to my next point...
4. You eat breakfast and go out drinking at the same places. Our first breakfast in Milan was at Bar Magenta, where we ate brioche (Italian coissants) and tiny cappocinnos. Later that night we went out and where did we go? Back to Bar Magenta where they also serve a full selection of wine, beer, and liquor. They even had a live band! Definitely a space saver culture and fans of multitasking.
5. I also must touch on the driving style here in Milan. I suspect that the Milanese are big users of steroids because the drivers act like a bunch of juiced jocks in the locker room. It is a battle of agression. The cars go fast and they do not stop. It is a test of nerves to cross a street. The crosswalk is not a safe zone for pedestrians as in the States, but rather a test of whether you will trust the oncoming traffic to stop when you have a green walk sign. Although my roomates and I predict that odds show one of us will most likely be tapped by a car while we are here, thankfully, I have the experience of being a pedestrian at IU, where knocking over students is becoming a popular sport.
More to come soon...for now I am off to explore the shopping (which is just as fabulous as you here in the States, no shock there!)!
xoxo's
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