Spring Break Plans..

Tomorrow I am heading to Sardinia. I will return to Milan on Sunday. My phone should still work there, but I am not sure yet. Then, next Monday, I am heading to Turkey. I will be back in Milan on the 19th. When I get to Turkey, I will be using my Turkish sim card again. So if you want to call, use that number. It is listed on the right side of this page. I promise many pictures upon my return. Ciao

Turkey

I bought tickets to Turkey for one of my Spring Break weeks :) April 13-19th. I am going with a friend from VCU, too. Half of my spring break is officially planned. I still have to buy tickets for the other half. ..

In other news...

I do nothing here.... Absolutely nothing..

Quite bored.. Waiting patiently for my birthday and spring break..

Gelato Discovery

I was looking on the internet for places to see in Milan and stumbled across a list of the "best" gelato places here in town. I took one of my roommates to one of these places and we were quite impressed.

I had two scoops, one of Cassata, which is kind of like fruit cake, and one of a vanilla-ish ice cream with caramelized almonds, maybe?

But, as you can probably see, it was not a very easy choice..

They also have cakes and gelato balls?

It was definitely worth the 30 minute public transport ride ...

First Cooking Class

So I am in a class taught in Italian, about Italian cooking. We finally had our first session in the kitchen. We have to go to a cooking school which happens to be down the street from my house (like the only thing that is near my house). This woman in this picture is my regular teacher, and the blurry man is the chef we work with. Hes cooking meatballs for us.

The chef was actually born in England, but moved to Italy when he was ten or so. He seemed like a pretty cool guy. He is teaching one of my classmates how to make risotto here:

The finished product, with some extra sausage on top:

I helped make these roasted potatoes. They were very delicious. Roasted in peanut oil with garlic and salt.

And the evidence that I helped make the potatoes:

Snowboarding Pics

So the snowboarding trip was fun, but a bit disappointing because I could not do very much. My leg started hurting again, so I decided not to push it too hard. I did manage to get out on the slopes each day, though not for very long. Weather was great, almost hot.

I stayed in an apartment style hotel with these two Russians and a French girl. It was definitely an interesting weekend. The French girl, who is actually one of the trip organizers, spoke little English but she was very nice.

This is another one of the trip organizers. He is a very interesting character, and always very well dressed.:

One of the slopes:

This is the French girl and the other guy. We had a pizza night our first night of the trip. We got there at 9pm and finally got our pizza at 11pm. Apparently it takes a while to make 50 pizzas..

So all in all, it was a good trip, but I think I will have to give up on snowboarding. At least until my leg is completely healed, if it ever gets to that point..

Around Town

So I decided to bring my camera along tonight on my way into town. I was heading to a pub to watch the Manchester United v. Inter Milan soccer match. (For those who care, Inter Milan lost, 2-0, but they also played really poorly). So here is the entrance hallway to my apartment building:

And this is where I catch the bus. I lovingly refer to my neighborhood as Turkey/Morocco/Egypt, take your pick, because there are literally like five Italians. And you can always spot them because they look really scared. My neighborhood is very ethnic...

And this is the front of the bus...:

So if I ever want to go into town after about 6pm, I have to ride the metro. To get to the nearest metro stop, I ride a bus for 5 or 6 stops. Then I walk down to the metro:

And wait for the yellow metro to come. Later at night, the metros come about every ten minutes, but during the day, they are pretty regular. After the yellow metro, depending on where I am trying to go, I have to transfer to the green metro..

And finally I get to where I am going. This is my friend Costanza:

And another friend, Elizabetta:

Tomorrow I am heading to Bardonecchia for some snowboarding. I will be back on Sunday. Ciao