Visitation hours are Ending

Four posts in a week and a half??? Wow. Anyway, let's get to it:

The thursday the week the family was here, (March 17th) was the 150^th Anniversary of the unification of Italy by King Vittorio Emmanuele II of Sardegna, so I didn’t have class. This allowed us to head out to the Cinque Terre first thing that morning. We got in to Monterosso al Mare (the farthest north of the Cinque Terre) around 11 and checked in to our hotel right on the water. Here is the view from our window:

We decided to get to know the town of Monterosso a little better so we wandered around for a few hours and saw the city. When we got back down to the main square we a community band gathered and a crowd of people watching them. After waiting a few minutes, the ceremony started and a Monterossan gave a speech about the unification of Italy back in 1861, and how awesome it was that Italy was still a unified nation. After his speech, the band started to play and a local elementary school choir started to sing. It was pretty awesome. That night we went to a restaurant recommended by Rick Steves and got delicious Monterossan food and some awesome Cinque Terre wine, and were the only people in the whole restaurant. We had come to the Cinque Terre before tourist season really began, so the whole town was pretty empty. Some hotels were still closed and a few restaurants hadn’t opened for the year either, so the town was pretty quiet. It was nice but weird at the same time to be the ONLY people in the restaurant, especially because we might have interrupted the family dinner of the owners when we came in. After dinner we headed down to the beach and looked out on the water. Beautiful. Then headed over to the jetty off the shore, and looked over at the shoreline of Monterosso, all illuminated and breathtaking and stuff. And that was our first day in the Cinque Terre.

For Friday we planned to hike the 7km (or mile, not sure which but its 7 of something) trail connecting each of the 5 towns of the Cinque Terre: Monterosso à Vernazza à Corniglia à Manarola à Riomaggiore. We got up bright and early and started our hike at 9. We headed up the trail without getting our ticket, because I assumed there would be some sort of ticket counter once we really got on the trail, a bit outside of Monterosso. This was not the case. We kept on trekking anyway, up the endless stairs of the most grueling part of the hike (according to Rick Steves) and saw very few other people on the way. At parts the path was so thin that the side of your foot would be hanging over a cliff. It was awesome. The whole walk to Vernazza was awesome, grueling and beautiful. The views were incredible the entire way:

Monterosso

Cliffs outside of Vernazza

Vernazza

We walked pretty quickly through Vernazza and headed up to the next part of the trail, from Vernazza to Corniglia. This was the view looking back:

Currently the background on my computer

We looked again for a ticket office but the only one we saw was closed, and it didn’t look like it was opening any time soon. We decided to keep on going once again. The trail continued to be all of the adjectives mentioned above, but slightly less horribly strenuous. Along the way we saw a few stray cats…

who were apparently being fed through the generosity of whoever happened to walk down the trail. We saw signs asking for people to leave food for the cats if they had any to give, and it seemed to be working.

When we got to the end of the trail at Corniglia, we saw an open ticket booth and decided to finally buy a ticket. We found out then that all the trails we had just hiked, along with the one from Corniglia to Manarola, were closed due to landslides. We had managed to hike on the three more dangerous ones because the ticket booths were all closed and there was no signage indicating that there was the possibility of being crushed by falling rocks while hiking due to the recent inundating rains that the Cinque Terre had endured. It was worth the risk. So now that we knew we weren’t allowed to be hiking the trails, we had to take the train to skip what would have been the most boring one anyway, and got off at Manarola to walk the Via dell’Amore, or the original Lovers’ Lane. The walk itself didn’t offer as many views as the previous, deadly, three, but the waves crashing on the rocks were mesmerizing:

CRASH

I’m not entirely sure why it’s called the Via dell’Amore, but I do know that there is this statue:

Of two people kissing that people hang locks on and around to symbolize the strength of their love. That’s nice.

But honestly, the Via dell’Amore was nothing special after the Via della Morte (Death’s Lane. My attempt at being witty considering the potential deadliness of the trails we hiked). After lingering there as little as possible we hopped on a train back to Monterosso (10 minutes to get back by train, while we took four hours to get to Riomaggiore, and that was skipping a 2km (mile?) part of the hike). We got some awesome gelato outside the train station and meandered our way back to the hotel to clean up and get ready for dinner.  

We got dinner at a restaurant right on the shore, and it was fantastic. I got a shrimp scampi in pesto sauce (irresistible) and we partook of some more of the fantastic Cinque Terre white wine (pair whites with seafood!) and then got tons of dessert to end. Awesome dinner. Went back to the hotel and slept wonderfully.

Saturday was a quick day in Monterosso; we got breakfast and walked around a bit more, took some family pictures by the sea (which I don't have on my computer) and got gelato before we hopped on the train back to Milano. Got back in Milan around 2 and dropped off our entire luggage at my apartment. Our first order of business? The roof of the Duomo, now that it had finally stopped raining and was just incredibly overcast. We spent a while up there, taking pictures and looking out over the city, and then headed back down to see the cavernous monstrosity that is the inside of the Duomo. It was as big as ever. It might get easier to take in each time I go, but that doesn’t take away from the fact that it is just an enormous place and I will never really grasp the enormousness of it, or of the intricacy of all the tiny tiny details that pepper every inch of every wall. Its just an overwhelmingly intricate building.

View from the top

La Maddonina

After taking in the Duomo, we went to get some Panzerotti from Luini’s Bakery, thus completing the list of essential touristy things to do in Milan. So now that my family had gotten their fill of Milan and of delicious, greasy baked goods with those Panzerotti, it was time for them to head out to Malpensa Airport, to catch their plane back to the states. It was a great visit and I was sad to see them go, but this blog is long enough already so I’m not gonna keep rambling. Hope you didn’t fall asleep reading my ridiculous ramblings! Till next time (who knows then that will be)

Chris

P.S. I took Mom, Dad and Kammeron to one of my favorite gelaterie in Milan, Cioccolati Italiani, but I don’t remember when or which day, so I’m gonna throw it down here. But it was awesome and now I really want gelato. 

Visiting Hours are Now Open

Three weeks ago, my parents and sister came to Milan for a week to visit during my sister’s spring break. They got here on a cloudy, rainy, normal spring day in Milan; the weather the Friday before they got here, we had the nicest weather we had had all year. The rain was prophetic, however, and everywhere we went it rained (except Florence, but I wasn’t there so it doesn’t count).

They arrived in Milan on a rainy Sunday morning, and I left my apartment around 8 to meet them at Cadorna Station (where they would be arriving at 9ish). I walked up to the bus stop and was waiting to take it to Cadorna when, sitting there, I watched it drive right on by. Good start. So I had to walk up to Cadorna (the next bus was estimated to take 30 minutes to get to where I had just been left in the other bus’s dust). So I walked and walked and finally got to the station around 9:30 and got to see my family after a month and a half!! Joyous reunion. Then I walked them over to their hotel, about 5 minutes from Cadorna, and gave them a brief overview of where they were staying (just off of Via Dante, the main pedestrian street in Milan which goes directly from Castello Sforzesco (the big fortress/castle which was the town center back in the day) to the Duomo (essentially all the sightseeing you need to do in Milan on one street).

So they got settled in to their hotel and then we headed out to get some much needed breakfast. I took them to my favorite bakery near the Duomo, an place called Princi. They didn’t have the opportunity to see Princi in its usual state of controlled chaos, with Italians yelling orders across the counter to the incredibly efficient people serving them from behind the counter, but they still got to enjoy a few authentic Italian pastries and cappuccini.

Fragolata

Brioche e Cappuccino

Mom Me and Dad

Right after, we headed to the Piazza del Duomo, to see the Duomo (obviously), the Galleria Vittorio Emmanuele II and il Teatro Alla Scala (Milan’s famous/historic Opera House). We didn’t take the time to go in the Duomo, seeing as Sunday services were going on and I feel rude/uncomfortable being touristy in the middle of a sermon, but marveled at how enormous it is and how empty Piazza del Duomo was (very rare). Then wandered over to the Galleria to see the ridiculously ritzy stores/restaurants housed there (along with McDonalds) and then over to La Scala, to see the museum and hopefully get a look in the theater itself. The museum was pretty interesting, with a collection of clavicembali (the predecessor to the Piano), portraiture of former Scala stars and outfits worn in the last few plays produced by the Scala Company. We also got to see in the Theater itself, but it was pitch black because they were setting up for a piano concert to be held that night, and so we didn’t get to see the enormous chandelier that hangs in the hall in all its decadent glory.

Our next stop was Castello Sforzesco, to see the Michelangelo as Architect exhibit (how he designed the Duomo in Florence, Santa Maria del Fiore, and some other buildings I can’t remember the names of). It was pretty cool too, but really just a collection of a bunch of sketches Michelangelo made, nothing world-changing. We also stopped in the Egyptian Museum housed at Sforzesco, and learned that Cats and Ibises were the two animals most often mummified by the Egyptians, so obviously I took a picture of a mummified Ibis:

Creepy? Yes. Awesome? Not really. Random reference to Miami’s mascot? Absolutely.

I also wanted to show them around Parco Sempione (the park right behind il Castello) but the gross weather and the jet lag dampened interest. It would have been a little miserable to walk around on the sure to be muddy paths. Just not worth the hassle. We headed back to the hotel to rest up and figure out what exactly the plan was for the rest of the week, and I got my new computer finally! (that actually happened when we went to the hotel the first time, but I just remember that I got it when my parents came so, here you go. Stream-of-consciousness blogging strikes again). So I played with my computer and got it all set up, and we figured out the plan for the rest of the week:

Monday: Padova and Venezia

Tuesday: Florence

Wednesday: Como

Thursday-Saturday: Cinque Terre

Saturday  noonish: Return to Milan, get a bit more sightseeing in, head to the Airport (parents + sister, not me).

As for the rest of Sunday, we left the hotel and headed over to my school so I could show the beautiful Chiostri off, but it was closed. Instead we visited Chiesa Sant Ambrogio, the church right next door to my school, and then headed to my apartment so I could drop off my new computer!! and so they could see my fortunately recently-cleaned apartment. After all that we headed back to the hotel once more to figure out where to get dinner. The concierge suggested a place right across the street, and it turned out pretty well! For some reason I ordered three courses, while everyone else got one, so I was eating for an hour more than them. And was full about halfway through my second course. I hate leaving food behind though, so I kept going and going until I legitimately could eat no more, and then waited a few minutes and ate a bit more than that.

After dinner we went our separate ways, ready to get up early tomorrow to go to Padova and Venice!

Somehow, I managed to wake up too late to make the first train we wanted Monday morning and yet the people who had traveled 12 hours the day before and were 6 hours jet-lagged managed to be up on time. Whoops. We ended up taking the 9:05 train to Padova, and got there around 10:30 (maybe? Remembering exact times from 3 weeks ago is pretty tough). The big attraction in Padova for us was the Orto Botanico, the oldest botanical garden in the world. We headed straight there (in a cab, which to my public-transportation obsessed self seemed like sacrilege) and went in to explore the awesomely old garden. There’s not much to say about the garden, so I’ll just post pictures I took:

Ants!

Berries!

Flowering Pitcher Plants!

Pretty!

Orchids!

Goethe’s Palm: Oldest plant in the Orto, from 1585. So old

Kammeron really wanted to visit this garden because she is going to grad school for Landscape Architecture, so we went in to the library of the garden to see what we could find. There were drawers and drawers of seeds going back to the first years of the garden and pressings of some of the first plants grown there. It was amazing how much they had kept from almost 500 years ago. (these three pics are all from Kammeron's camera)

Pressings

Carvings of Mushrooms

Drawers of Seeds (from 400 years ago)

We headed out after that and walked around Padova a bit (mostly looking for a way back to the train station to get to Venice) and saw la Basilica di Sant Antonio (I think? It was the patron saint of oppressed peoples or something along those lines) and then decided to forgo the taxi route and got bus passes back to the station. We got on the bus at the stop down the street from the Tabacchiero where we bought the tickets and since I was leading got on the bus going the wrong direction. Figure it out pretty quickly, luckily, and got on the bus going the right direction at the next stop, but of course I do public transportation wrong in some way. We made it to the station eventually and hopped on the next train to Venezia, to take a canal tour and wander around a little. When we got there the weather was gross (of course) so it wasn’t as awesome as when I went a few weeks before, but the canal tour gave us awesome views of the city and the family got some good shopping in while we were there. 

Gondolas

Piazza San Marco, not nearly as packed as Carnevale

View to San Giorgio

We headed back to Milan around 7 and got a quick/cheap dinner from a café on Piazza del Duomo. I had class the next morning so I went home and got some sleep, while Mom, Dad and Kammeron planned for the trip to Florence the next day.

They went to Florence and spent lots of money then came home and we went to aperitivo at Bar Brera, one of the most famous aperitivi in Milan. There they finally got to meet one of my roommates (Jorge) and we all had a good dinner while watching an Inter Milan game with a bunch of rowdy Italians who were also at the bar. It had a certain kind of serendipity that they got to see real Italians really getting crazy watching a soccer game, and to hear all manner of Italian swear words being yelled, while doing one of the quintessentially Milanese things: getting aperitivo in the Brera district. After we finished dinner, my parents went back to their hotel while Jorge, Kammeron and I headed back to the apartment to go out to Hollywood, one of the trashy clubs we love to go to. And that’s pretty much Tuesday (at least from my perspective)!

On Wednesday Mom, Dad and Kammeron went to Vernazza, a town on Lago Como, while I went to class. And I’m honestly having trouble remembering what we did Wednesday evening. Whoops?? Thanks to my mom's help though, I just remembered that we went out to dinner at a pizzeria called Fresco, right off of the Piazza del Duomo. We got three different pizzas and shared all of them, and they were delicious of course. After dinner, we headed home to get rested up for our 8 am train ride to the Cinque Terre the next morning! That's coming in the next blog however, which will be up in a few days. Talk to you then!

Milanese Life

So I’ve been in Milan around two months now, and I thought I would give you (all), my reader(s), an idea of what life is like for me in Milan (the three or four days a week when I’m here and not traveling elsewhere).

I guess I’ll start with class. I’m taking classes exclusively in Italian, which means I’m taking them with the normal students at my university. It’s been an interesting experience so far: trying to understand as well as comprehend the entire lecture and take notes at the same time is actually impossible. Today, for the first time ever, I managed to listen passively and understand Italian at the same time in my Psicologia Sociale class. So exciting!! I’m hoping that by the end of the semester I will be able to take notes and understand the lecture at the same time, at least at the same level as I do in classes back at Miami. In other words, be able to write down powerpoint slides mindlessly and pick up a few words here and there that the professors say about them, such as “and”, “the” and “got it?”. I think it’s doable.  The thing I’m most worried about is my final exams; I wonder how hard the professors are going to grade me considering this first month all I’ve done is try to understand what they’re teaching me, not comprehend what they’re teaching me. I need to start reviewing my notes and hope I understand them I guess.

My school is beautiful

I wanted to write about all the things that were culture-shocky for me when I got here, those big differences between the states and Europe that you normally hear about, but everything here seems pretty normal to me now. There are a few things that are still out of the ordinary, but they seem less and less so each day. I’m trying to think of what I wanted to write about but it’s hard, because I just look at those peculiarities and think to myself, “oh, Italy…” not, “oh, I need to write about that in my blog because it’s SO Italy”. I think the thing that strikes me the most (or at least the thing that just came to mind) is that everything is a parking space here. The sidewalks? Parking Space. The middle of the street? Parking Space. That space between two cars already parked that is just slightly (an inch or so) larger than your car? Parking Space. I have seen so many people parallel park by nudging the cars in front and behind them just enough to fit in the space they want. Parking is at a premium, sure, but this is slightly ridiculous. Another thing is lines; I’m sure most of you have heard this but Italy doesn’t believe in lines, it believes in crowds of people where whoever is the best at getting through a mosh pit wins and gets to order their delicious, carb-heavy Italian pastry (or pizza or sandwich or coffee or drink or anything else you would ever have to order). Even at the Post Office, people just stand in a group. This strikes me the most because I assume governmental offices to be really orderly and rigid, the one place in Italy where they would have lines, but instead it’s just a more ordered chaos. Also, there are no SUVs here; people are the same size relative to their cars: tiny! And by tiny I mean not morbidly obese, like America. I can count the amount of fat Italians I’ve seen on my left hand (3)(but not my right hand, not really feeling it), but I would need a lot more than that to count the amount of fat tourists.

Not exactly horrible parking, but really Italy?

Speaking of gaining weight, for dinner a lot of times we go to this thing called aperitivo, where you buy one drink for 5-10 euro and get an endless buffet along with it (almost all of the restaurants in Milan do them). I’ve been to a few so far; one of them is free because I’m an international student (Old Fashion) so obviously I go there the most. My other favorites are a place called Cheese (Lebanese/Israeli) and a pizzeria called Slice (which has the BEST Nutella® pizza I’ve ever had. aka the only one. But it was amazing). When I went to Cheese I went with my friend Sarah’s (who named this blog) friend Fede, who goes to school in Padova (like two hours east of Milan), along with two of his friends who go to school in Milan and his friend from Padova who had never been to Milan before. They were all Italian so they spoke in Italian the whole time, and I understood next to nothing. I was listening as best I could and it just wasn’t happening, but luckily Fede was there to translate for me. It sounded like the stories they were telling were hilarious/riveting, and I really wish I could have understood them. I had a great time going out with them though, they showed me an awesome new restaurant and I got to meet Italians the same age as me, outside of the circles provided us by Cattolica. It was a really cool experience. After dinner at Cheese we walked over to this AMAZING gelateria called Cioccolati Italiani (the original. I had been to their franchise over by the Duomo). We all got coffee (I felt obligated to, as they all did and it’s Italy, so I might as well) and mine was too bitter (but I always say that about coffee soooo). We stayed and talked (I listened) for a few more hours and then parted ways.

Fede and I outside the Duomo

Cioccolati Italiani!

So decadent

Speaking of gelaterie, I’m completely addicted to gelato here. I have gotten it almost every single day since I arrived, and get cravings when I haven’t had it within a few days. Right now I’m working my way through every flavor offered at various gelaterie around Milan, and I haven’t found a flavor I dislike (at least, a flavor that is legitimate, not one made with chemical flavoring). I’m still making my way through all the flavors so there might be a dud, but I doubt it.

                                                  

Here’s a selection of pictures from around Milan:

Sant Ambrogio, the Church next to my school

Blood Oranges at the biweekly market

The only fashion week show I went to, Nara Camicie

My building, my balcony is the really empty one, 5th floor

A tram decked out for the 150th of Italy

Spring has sprung in Milan!

P.S. I don’t have anything to add but wanted to have one of these anyway. See you guys in a week! (at least, that’s what I’m trying to do. Make this a weekly thing. We’ll see how that goes.)

The Hiatus Ends

Again, a weeks-long break between blogs. Waiting this long to write them makes it really difficult to remember everything I wanted to talk about, but it also forces me to make them shorter (because of that lack of memory) and therefore easier for you all to read, and more enjoyable despite them being poorly written because you’ve been waiting so long for a new one. Right? Well anyway, three weeks ago I went on a 4 day long skiing trip to the Alps with ESEG, an international students organization here in Milan. The group was a mix of people from Cattolica (my school) and Bocconi (an English university in Milan); it was only 6 of us Cattolicaites and 40 or so Bocconians. We Cattolica kids were a little cliquey but we met some new people as well. We stayed in a town called Bardonecchia, and were a 10 minute walk (15 minute in ski boots) from the slopes.

We got there via coach bus, and I felt like I was in High School again, on my way to Niagara Falls with Mr. Beck and MUN about to go fail once again at pretending to be a foreign country in another foreign country in an imaginary United Nations conference. Oddly enough, that’s exactly what we ended up doing in Bardonecchia!

We got to the town around 10 (I think. Honestly at this point I’m just gonna make things up) and checked in to our hotel. The view from our balcony was fantastic, and there was a little stream gurgling along just behind our hotel.

After getting settled at the hotel we headed up to the lodge to get all our equipment for the week. Just so you know: ski rental places in Europe smell just as bad, if not worse, as those in the United States. Made me feel at home. We had to give our shoe sizes and such in the weird European sizes; luckily I over prepare and had looked it all up the night before (45!). So we got our boots, our skis and our poles and had to lug it all back to the hotel: our introduction to the soreness we would be feeling every morning and every evening for the next 4 days. After we got home we all napped (I think. I know we all napped at least one day. Maybe each day? Something) and went out to get groceries to stock our fridge for the weekend. Cooked some delicious spaghetti with pesto and then headed out for the night to the bar at the lodge, called I Due Merli (The Two Blackbirds). We drank, we danced, we were out until 3 am the night before we were supposed to start skiing in the Alps at 9 in the morning. Needless to say, waking up was a pleasure. So Benoit, Danny, Jorge, Andrew, Forrest and I (the 6 of us in our hotel room/apt type thing) got our awesome ski boots on and trekked up to the lodge. I didn’t mention this before but Jorge had never, ever, gone skiing before in his life. Why not start in the Alps? Luckily our roommate Benoit is French, so he’s been skiing since before he could say “Oui”. He took over Jorge duties for the week.

Pizza that hill

They grow up so fast

Forrest and I were around the same skill level (mediocre at best) so we buddied up to tackle the slopes together. We started with a few blues (meaning Easy in Europe, but these slopes would have been Black Diamonds in NEO) and decided to try to go to another side of the mountain. We caught the #2 bus right outside the lodge to go to Les Arnauds, but there’s two #2 buses and the other goes to Jafferau (the difficult mountain) so of course we ended up there. We realized our mistake immediately but were feeling a little daring, so we got on the Gondola up the mountain and hoped for the best. This is what we found:

No way to get down but to ski, so away we went. Luckily there was always a blue available to go down, and they were some really fun runs. There were some great views along the way too:

Of course, all good things must come to an end, and the only way to get down to the base of the mountain was to ski a black (most difficult slopes) or a red (medium slopes). We chose the red and still chose wrong: it was the steepest thing I’d ever skied down in my life (not saying much, but still. It was intimidating). I pizzaed my way down for most of it but started getting a feel for parallel turns and decided to try my luck. My luck ran out pretty quickly and I made myself fall so I didn’t go flying off track and ended up tweaking my knee and breaking off a ski. I was a little shaken up but made it down the rest of the slope all right. We headed back to the easy mountain and finished up our day with a few runs on the reds there, which were nothing compared to the red we had just “conquered”. We stopped around 4 and my legs had never felt more useless in my life; it was great! That night the whole group got dinner at the pizzeria downstairs in the hotel and it was delicious. Somehow I had the energy to go out too, and was out until 2 at a bar/club in the town of Bardonecchia. On the way home we had a snowball fight. At this point, I fell in love with Bardonecchia.

We woke up the next morning a little bit later than we all wanted and hurried up to the slopes to get ahead of the huge weekend crowds. As soon as I started skiing my knee started killing me, but I kept on truckin because who needs their meniscus anyway? The day was full of pain but I figured out that it hurt worse when I was using crappy technique, so at least I was forced to actually ski correctly and efficiently. We did all the same runs as the day before, and I was definitely getting to learn them pretty well; I think despite the pain this was my favorite day. I just felt great going down some of those runs. We skied until 4 again, and then caught the lift up to the chalet on the main slopes to get dinner and ski down by torchlight with our group. Sarah, Danny, Jorge, Andrew, Benoit and I got separated from the other group (there wasn’t room in the back dining room where they were eating) so we ended up in the front of the restaurant next to a huge group of 20-something Milanese. After the endless wine started flowing they started cheersing (toasting) for anything and everything, and after our table caught on we started to chime in with them. We toasted to quite a few things (can’t really remember any, but they were all memorable) and blew threw a few liters of wine on the way. Dinner flew by (we had something like 4 courses) and then it was time to ski down a mountain under moon and torchlight after all those brindisi (toasts). It was a little nerve wracking at first, but luckily we were on the easiest slope on the mountain. 

Getting ready

Everyone made it down ok and we all headed home to change and go out once again, to that same bar from the first night. That night they were holding a raffle (every time you bought a drink with redbull in it you got a raffle ticket) and I ended up winning a totally rad Budweiser Fanny pack. Unfortunately I haven’t had an occasion to wear it but hopefully I will soon.

The next morning we got up even later (around 10:30) and got to the slopes at 11 (these times are all made up). What isn’t made up is the fact that the crowd at the ski lift was enormous:

So. Many. Italians.

The ski lifts at the resort moved pretty quickly though, so we got through that monstrosity in about 15 minutes. After, we took another ski lift (one that you rode on your skis) up to the very top of the mountain. This was the view (not an awesome pic):

Incredible

We headed down and my confidence did as well; some crazy slopes and that fall the first day did nothing to help. I made it down without completely wiping out but it just felt so much worse than the day before. I eventually got up to speed but stuck to my basic reds and blues; I made my way around the mountain finally (to both Les Arnauds and Melezet) and to the Olympic Snowboarding run on Melezet. All the slopes I ran that day were awesome, but my leg was killing me unfortunately. I kept up skiing until around 4 and went home to have some delicious something for dinner. I started feeling a little sick after dinner and decided to take it easy for the night. I ended up getting food poisoning or something like it, and felt horrible the whole night. I slept maybe four hours in-between all the puking. Good times…. But the next day because of my horrible illness my friend Sarah and I decided to take a walk around the city of Bardonecchia because we never really got to see it during our time there. It is a really charming little city, very Italian and very walkable. There wasn’t a ton to see but it was nice to just take a break from the incredible amounts of skiing we had done the last 3 days. After wandering around the town a little we decided to head back to the slopes to see what was going on, and ended up taking the ski lift up to the chalet we ate at on Friday night. I had my first solid meal of the day and finally felt alive after the endless night before and afterwards Sarah and I took a nalp (nap in the Alps. We’re soooo clever). We nalped right on the snow, lying on top of our jackets, and it felt great! We also got fantastic tans. 

Took this before the Chateau dinner, but its also where Sarah and I nalped.

from l-r, Bri, Sarah, Benoit, Me

Also on Sunday, the ski resort held a race for all the internationals in Bardonecchia that weekend (it was international weekend, so it wasn’t just kids from Bocconi). Actually I just remembered that the race was on Saturday, but act like it happened on Sunday as a grand finale to our time in the Italian Alps. Benoit, Andrew and Danny all competed and all did awesome (but not awesome enough to win) but I still got a few action pics of the competitors as they came down the run:

Benoit, victorious

Finally, it was time to pack up our stuff and hop on the bus back to Milan. I was sad to leave Bardonecchia but every time I come back to Milan after a long trip it feels more and more like home, like the place where I’m supposed to be. It’s an incredibly comforting feeling to have when all our trips take place in these places that are so foreign. And skiing at Holiday Valley will never be the same.

P.S. I'm sorry I'm not doing this blog thing right AT ALL. I have two more written and I'm trying to get all caught up on blogs before Spring Break starts this Thursday. I apologize, readers!!