First class today (9 am too early!). Mis took us to class to ensure that we knew how to get there since it is a bus ride and a decently long walk. Funny that she was not ready in time and made us late! It was not a problem though because Professor Donno was trying to organize everything for the first day. We take our class in the IES center. Since class ended very early, Professor Donno showed us how to walk to the Duomo, which is the central area and astonishing church of Milan. A large group of us grabbed lunch at a small cafe overlooking the gorgeous site of the Duomo. We explored a few local shops, and surprisingly found our way home afterwards!! It is very hard to navigate this town! Due to the ridiculous amount of carbs I have been eating (I don't know how these skinny Italian women do it), I decided to go for a run. Not many people in Italy seem to exercise, especially on the streets, so I headed to a local park. The park had many sites, including large statues, a lake, waterfall, dog park, playgrounds, food stands, and white tents which I simply could not figure out what they were for.
Next I decided to take on the burden of planning our weekend trip to Venice (mistake). Italian train websites are extremely difficult to navigate, and it was way too hard to figure out! Also, we needed a printer which we don't even own! So, we decide to venture to the train station to buy the tickets ahead of time in case they sold out. Obviously, we ended up at the wrong train station but eventually found our way to the correct one, where the machine would not let us purchase our tickets with our credit cards. What a hassle! We finally figured it out and got a 7:25 am train ticket for Venice tomorrow. After this interesting catastrophe, we met some of the people from the IES program at the Duomo for a tour of downtown Milan, which was a very interesting site with each of us sporting a blue chat box with headphones to listen to the tour guide while walking around the city! We learned lots of cool things.. For example, the doors of the Duomo are actually supposed to be gold instead of the color green that they are, they are just very dirty. People touch the doors for good luck, and they most common places that people touch glean gold because the oils in your hands actually clean the doors! We also came to an overhand that used to be an Italian market. You can hear whatever a person is saying in the opposite corner of the market because in the olden days, workers needed to hear what other vendors were offering as prices for their goods so that they might remain competitive when customers jumped between different vendors.
Next we went to one of my favorite things we have done to date.. The famous Milan apperitivo!! In an apperitivo, you go to a local bar and order a drink, but you get to eat tons of free appetizers! However, you probably pay for the appetizers just for the price of the drink..Italy isn't cheap! It was great hanging out with the IES students who I don't have the chance to have class with. It is hard to know what to order in Italian, so Luca helped me to order a delicious strawberry flavored drink that I could in no way pronounce. After heading home to pack for Venice, we went back out to a local bar to hang out for a bit before going home to bed. Waking up at 6 am tomorrow for our weekend trip.. VENICE!