Lights, Camera, Milano

Last week was a whirlwind! The week seemed to just drag on forever.

On Wednesday, I became a legally recognized temporary resident of the country, completing the steps of my permesso di soggiorno (finally). I had to report to the immigration office and have my fingerprints taken at 9:00 in the morning with two other classmates whose paperwork had been misplaced the first time. But when we got there, the officer at the front didn't let us in. We had to wait another 30 minutes for our times to be called - long past the times we had scheduled. As I walked past the officer, I saw that my name wasn't actually next to my time - they had scheduled someone else in my slot!

I went up to the window to talk to an officer, and everything was running smoothly - until he couldn't find my packet in the pile. Which, of course, made me panic. Apparently, my packet had been placed in the wrong pile, however, and as he walked back, I collapsed and said a little prayer of thanksgiving. The officer noticed and asked me if I was okay. When I said I'd been worried, he shook his head at me and, waving his hand, said, "Don't be worried." It went pretty smoothly from there.

All three of us were given sheets telling us when to complete our third step, and I was told that I needed to do mine before 12:30 on Wednesday. The other two didn't, so one left to go to Italian class, and the other came with me to find the police station we needed to go to, since her appointment was the next day. When we arrived, I saw a woman who had spoken with us at the immigration office, so I was more comfortable and knew we were definitely in the right place. My classmate left, and I waited in line to be fingerprinted more fully.

This time, the government (instead of taking copies of just my fingerprints) copied my thumbprint, palm print, and full handprint. They also measured my height. Then I was free to go.

Walking back from the center of town, I realized that I had 15 minutes until my Italian class started. So, thanks to the Italian government, I was late to Italian class.

Thursday, my art history class went to visit a church a few minutes walk from Poggeschi that contains a copy of a Raphael painting, The Ecstasy of St. Cecelia. The original, painted in 1514, is kept in the Bologna National Gallery, but at the moment is on display in Torino. For a copy, the painting managed to capture the gracefulness of Raphael's work perfectly. I can't imagine what the original looks like.

On Saturday, I needed a break. So my roommate and I headed off to Milan, a two and a half hour train ride from Bologna. We left early in the morning, taking a 7:00 train and arriving in Milan at 9:50. Once we got to the city, we had to make our way to the very bottom of the station, where we needed to buy tickets to the Metro for the day. Once we had tickets, I had to teach my roommate how to use the Metro, since she had never used one before. We took the Metro to the Duomo stop, and came out into the Piazza del Duomo, the heart of the city.

Piazza del Duomo

Immediately, we were faced with two things: the Duomo and people. The Duomo dominates the piazza, its Gothic facade looking with an imposing glare down its length. Around it were so many people - many more than we've seen anywhere else we've gone this entire semester, even in Venice. Vendors kept coming up to us, hawking selfie sticks (when did this become a thing for street vendors? the only people I've seen with them here are Japanese tourists, not Americans or any Europeans) and trying to grab our wrists and "give" us bracelets. One man actually did this to my roommate, who tried to fight him off, but he grabbed her wrist and tied a bracelet to it anyway. A friend of his came up to me, trying to give me one, too, and grabbing at my wrist, but I crossed my arms and refused. I'm not sure I could have made myself more clear - I only said "No, grazie," to him, and despite him trying to force one onto me - literally trying to tuck it into my hand - and telling me it was his birthday and it was very much for free, I continued to say no and walk away from him (while staying near my roommate, who was fighting her own battle). I even dropped the one he tried to force on me on the ground and he wouldn't stop. If my roommate hadn't finished with her guy any faster, I would have been forced to call the police over.

Il Duomo

The ticket booth had this handy map sketched on it

Once that ordeal was over, the two of us walked into the Duomo, passing by the stage for an outdoor concert being hosted by the MTV European Music Awards. As we entered the church, everything became very quiet - and both of us were awed by the beauty inside.

The Duomo is gorgeous. It's so chockfull of art that I can't even begin to explain it all. My roommate and I just wandered around, trying to analyze the pieces (since we're both in art history) and talking about what everything was used for (since she's not Catholic, and was a little confused). Then, after taking a long last look, we left.

Il Duomo

Il Duomo

And turned into the oldest shopping mall in the world, Galleria Vittorio Emmanuelle II. It's absolutely  awe-inspiring. We wandered into shops that I never in my life would walk into - except, since Milan is the fashion capital of Italy, it made sense for me to walk into Louis Vuitton, Prada, Gucci, and Versace within minutes of each other. I still managed to see things that I was interested in, too, though - we walked into the oldest bookstore in Milan, an art book store, which sadly had a (very) limited English selection, and one of the largest, Liberia Rizzoli, a three floor bookstore with beautiful books and a great selection of bookish accessories (tote bags, notebooks, and pens, among other things).

Galleria Vittorio Emmanuelle II - Prada on the left and Louis Vuitton on the right

We made a stop for lunch outside of the Galleria, at a place called Granaio - which my roommate termed "an Italian Cracker Barrel." The restaurant was decorated with the store's homemade pasta and biscotti, and they specialized in Milanese comfort food. I managed to try both the risotto alla Milanese and the pork ribs with beans, which were delicious. We topped it all off with a pot of tea, which was nice after all the coffee we've been served here.

After lunch, we walked into a chocolate store, where we bought chocolates for ourselves and for friends, and then made our way towards the Pinacoteca Ambrosiana, about ten minutes away. The Pinacoteca houses art by Sandro Botticelli, Leonardo da Vinci, Raphael, and Caravaggio, and when we went to visit, was hosting a special exhibit of Leonardo's Codex Atlanticus, the largest collection of his scientific drawings. The art was beautiful (and they let us in with a student discount!), but I don't think I've ever been so excited to see documents before - especially the picture of Leonardo's first flying machine, which was practically just a boat with wings. That image definitely made my day.

Pinacoteca Ambrosiana

As we wandered back, we stopped in a gelateria and tried chestnut gelato - which was amazing - and popped into a few more shops, before deciding that we needed to make our way back to the Metro and the train station. However, all the stops for Duomo were closed off.

What we didn't know was that, due to the MTV Music Awards, all of the stops for Piazza del Duomo had been closed for the evening, and we would now have to find an alternate route back to the train station. We ran completely around the Piazza, looking for an open station, and when we couldn't find one, we stopped a security guard and asked him where to go. He pointed to a station down the road that was open, and we ran to it.

Once we got on the train, we knew we needed to switch onto the yellow line - and the only way to do that was at Duomo. But we had forgotten that it was closed, so when we passed the Duomo stop, we had to get off and do a complete recalculation. We wound up going down another four stops, switching to the green line, and then taking THAT train back four stops to the stop for the train station. Once we got there, we took off down the platform at a flat-out run, realizing at the last minute that we had twenty minutes to spare. We bought some water, walked onto the train, and collapsed.

But then our train had technical problems, and our conductor told us that it had been cancelled.

We now had two options: wait for the 10:15 train to Bologna, or take the 8:50 to Lecce, which stopped in Bologna and was completely sold out - which meant we would have to stand in the hallway for two and a half hours.

We took the train to Lecce.

At first, the train was very crowded - my roommate was squished against the door, and I was up against the bathroom - but an hour into the ride, practically everyone was off the train. We had about 45 minutes left into the ride, and only myself, my roommate, and another man were in the hallway in our car, when we stopped and let other people off. As soon as we started moving again, the man asked us if we were professional singers (we had been playing music to pass the time, because we were bored and it was too bumpy to do homework). When we said no, he began to ask us if we were married or in some other way attached to someone back home, because we were "too beautiful" to be single - and then, when my roommate said no, he proposed to us both. At this point, I had the creeps - it also didn't help that when we asked where he was from, he had told us that he lived in the Como train station - and I stopped talking to him completely. But my roommate kept talking to him - she even told him her first name, which was more than I would have done - and I didn't even notice that she was uncomfortable, too, until he got up to walk down the hall and she turned to me and said, "We need to move."

And so we switched cars, just in time to run into the conductor, who checked our tickets. As we stood in the hallway (checking anxiously to see if the guy got off when he said he would - we didn't want him following us to Camplus), we met two people from Bologna who overheard us talking and asked where we were from. When we said we were students, they started asking us what we thought of Milan and Bologna, and we wound up having a very nice conversation with them about places to go and things to do in Bologna.

Once we arrived in Bologna (random homeless guy from Como didn't follow us, thank goodness), we walked right back to Camplus and curled up in bed. It was a relief to be back.

Milan was definitely an adventure, but it was worth all of the stress and craziness. I'd definitely go back again.