This is going to be a very long one since I haven't written in a while. Enjoy :)
Now we are in Milan! But again, I will finish up Paris.
Paris is not the city you would imagine from Hollywood movies. There are nice parts, especially around the Eiffel tower, but most of it is downright ugly. I have never seen so many hobos in one place in my entire life, and these are some intense hobos… many of them have mattresses and blankets and cookware set up in permanent locations outside of fancy stores and restaurants and of course in the dirtier parts of town. Everywhere smells like pee, its really disgusting. But despite how incredibly awful the city was, we still had fun. Especially on Bastille day (French Independence day).
Well, at least the night was fun. We woke up early to go to the parade, and I have seen my fair share of parades, some are very cool. But this one… well, we got there about half an hour before it was scheduled to start, and it started an hour and a half late. I don’t know how its possible to start a parade late that the entire country is watching on its independence day… but that is what happened. Good for us though, because we had spent an hour walking up and down the street looking for somewhere to stand… it was absolutely packed. Finally we found a McDonalds, and the only time I would ever go into a McDonalds is if I would get to exploit it for free… which we did, with a bunch of other people… we stood on chairs on the second floor and watched the parade from there- we had a better view than 95 percent of the people outside. Well, when the parade finally started, they drove by a few tanks and then some more and then some more, for about 20 minutes. Then there was a very long pause, and people outside started leaving. One or two motorcycles went by. More time passed and more people left, and it became clear that the parade was over. Well I don’t know about you France, but the Memorial day parade on my suburban side street with firetrucks and girlscouts and bagpipers was more entertaining than that thing. France fail.
That day we caught up on sleep, and at night we headed out to see the fireworks over the Eiffel Tower. We had passed a bridge the day before that had a really nice view of it all, which you can see in the pictures I took, so we set up there two hours before the fireworks. While we waited we did our homework, and by the time it was dark there was a huge crowd behind us and on the dock and walls to our side. The fireworks were really fun to watch, and it finally looked like the France from the movies. I listened to my ipod through most of it to set a good mood. Imagine the pictures I took set to your favorite song. Very nice. After it ended, me and Sarah found a restaurant where we got a midnight snack of cheese and chocolate cake while waiting for the crowd to disperse on the subways. When we finally did get to the subways, they were backed up for hours from a different crowd coming from a different set of fireworks. Not fun. We decided to walk back to our hotel from the Eiffel tower, which took three hours but was very nice and relaxing and we listened and sang to music for most of the time.
There is only one more thing that is worth mentioning about France. Besides the ridiculous prices. Most of the people seemed to be going out of their way to break the stereotype that French people are rude and pompous. There are many times when something like this happened, but here is one example. The first time I ate in a restaurant, I was afraid to ask where the bathroom was because I expected, as everyone had told me would happen, that the French waiter would get angry that I was not French and could not speak French and would start yelling at me in French. So I looked around the corner for the bathroom, and as I turned back a French waiter held up a coin and said “bathroom?” and I said yes, and he gave me the coin and pointed downstairs and smiled. So I went and it was not a trap and I was very confused. So I figured that maybe French people are not so rude after all, and in fact, most are not. Seeing a rude, angry Frenchman was on my to-do list though, so I would have been disappointed if I did not meet at least one. And our whole group did, on one of our professional visits, a chubby middle aged Frenchman who was giving a lecture and a powerpoint kept getting angry at questions that we asked and fighting with the students. It was very funny and at points we all just had to laugh.
So leaving France behind was not a big problem. Especially when the next destination is Italy. And even though we arrived via coach bus at 6 in the morning, we knew the second we woke up that Milan would be awesome. It was warm and sunny and the Italian language was all around on signs and posters and right next door to our hotel was a nice, big, inexpensive pizza restaurant. PIZZA! So we slept for an hour in the hotel lobby until we got our rooms, which are very nice! Also see pictures online. There are enormous windows that take up the entire wall and open completely… a huge lawsuit waiting to happen in America but really excellent here… and out the window we can see much of the city and the Swiss alps off in the distance. (We made a rest stop in a valley in the Swiss alps on the way here in the middle of the night. I had to ask someone if they were in fact mountains because it they were just ridiculously tall spots of darkness against the sky, and no mountains I’ve seen are that tall, so I didn’t think they could possibly be mountains. But apparently they were. Ski trip padre?) Well, after a good nap in our fancy hotel room, me and Sarah headed out to eat in that pizza shop that called to us with its smell as soon as we stepped outside the hotel. An entire pie and a drink here costs less than a bottle of water in Paris. Paris fail. The pizza was DELICIOUSSSSZZFISODUFOSDIF and I we’ll get some more soon.
We took a cultural tour of Milan after that, which was a kind of lame tour because the guide was slow and spent an hour standing outside of the church, which we stayed at for an additional half an hour waiting for some of our group that was allowed to go inside to come back out… the fortunate ones whos shoulders were covered and whos shorts were below their knees. That excluded most of us, who were nonetheless dying of heat stroke outside. Our entire group got lemonade frosty drinks, and I think the 15 minutes it took me to finish mine and half of Sarahs were the most refreshing minutes of my life.
Finally they got out of the church, and we walked through the open air mall, which oxymoronically is both the largest and smallest mall I have ever seen. It seems like somebody got bored in the middle of making it, because it is extravagant and detailed and beautiful and tall and elegant, and appears to be enormous, but you can walk from one side of to the other in under a minute. See picture J.
The next day we went exploring and shopping and found some really interesting structures and stores, including the vegetable shop I took a picture of. Now I have been taking a lot of pictures in stores, so I am used to people yelling at me “No pictures!” in whatever foreign language they speak. But there were only a man and a woman in this store, watching us and talking to us, so I wanted to ask permission. So I asked, “Can I take a picture?” and the man said of course! And walked toward me and got behind a barrel that was in the middle of the store, so I thought that he thought I wanted him to be in the picture. So I said, “Can I just take a picture of this?” and he said, “Oh you want a picture! I thought you wanted a peach-a!” Apparently he was going to pick out a peach for me. Italians and their funny accents.
Wait I forgot… after the cultural tour the day before, we stayed up late studying, because the next day was midterms! Which everyone else was getting all worked up about and as usual I was chillaxed and not even remotely worried. Most of the class was angry also that we had to memorize the map of Europe and when each country joined the EU, but I was pretty happy with that assignment because I’ve been wanting to brush up on my geography and now I know the name and location of all 20 to 30ish countries in Europe. Win! And of course, as I expected, the tests were quite easy. Not everybody thought so, but they are just being stupid.
So about class again. The day generally goes like this. I set the alarm for half an hour after we have to wake up, because the time on my cell phone is wrong and I don’t know how to fix it. Sarah and I get ready for 20 minutes than go to breakfast for 20 minutes, where we are usually the first ones there besides our German teacher… but of course as we have learned so many times here, that is because Germans are inherently punctual and responsible. Then everyone else shows up, most bubbly and happy, with a few still groggy from staying out late drinking the night before. One of the boys, John, is particularly fun to say hi to because he responds in a very predictable way every time… for example “Morning, John.” “Morning.” “How are you today?” “Ehh. Shit. Stayed up till 4, we got stuck at a bar all night.” “That’s too bad.” Then he nods and smiles really widely. Its funny.
Anyway, next we wait for the rest of the group to finish eating, Hervitz or somebody distributes 2 subway tickets to us, and we go off to school. At this point, the betting begins. Me and Sarah began these bets about a week ago, and they are becoming a popular past time among the rest of our group too. One of our teachers, Georges, pronounced George, is a fat and badly groomed human history encyclopedia. Bet number one is: what percent of his back will be covered in sweat by the time we get to class? One day when the bets were kind of low, we arrived and it was 0 percent! Until we realized that it was just an illusion… the entire back of his shirt was the same color not because it was sweat free, but because it was all soaked. So we all lost on that day. Bet number 2 is how many times will Hugo Hervitz lead us down a wrong turn? Its generally around 2. I don’t think we should follow him to class anymore.
So we arrive to class and everybody is together for class number one, in which we learn about the European Union and the history of the countries we are in. This is usually taught by a guest speaker or Georges, who rambles on and on and on and stutters and cuts himself off when he talks, which I didn’t even know was possible. After we sit through that, the actually good classes begin, starting with marketing taught by Peter, and then cross cultural communications, also with him. He is far more interesting than Georges or the rest of the teachers, so it’s a good thing I got his classes. Sometimes Hugo or Georges will come in and distract us, and he’ll say what the rest of us are thinking, which gets to be entertaining. Georges, who loves to hear himself talk, will come in and say something like, “Can I make an observation,” and Peter will just say, “No.” It’s very funny. And the same with crazy lunatic Hugo, who came in the other day with his regular busy, crazy expression, and Peter just said sarcastically when he started distracting us, “Do you need to make an announcement?” and Hugo said no and left. So I enjoy these classes. And the material is interesting. The other teacher is Brain Butler, and he is super weird so I am glad I don’t have him either.
After class we are free to go whenever and wherever we want. Which is usually back to the hotel to drop stuff off and get lunch. Then we do whatever we want for the rest of the day and begin the cycle again tomorrow.
More about Milan! Now, when I was in Paris, I though the French people were nice, and they were, but I guess I didn’t notice until I got here that there was something amiss… they weren’t friendly and outgoing. I have never seen such a friendly society in my life. Every waiter you get will ask you where you are from and how you like Milan and what you are doing here, with a huge smile on their face. They all speak excellent English but it is still fun to bust out the little Italian that I know and start and end sentences with Grazi!, and Prego!, and Chao! If you are walking around or just sitting and talking, especially at night, tons of people will just come over and start talking to you and being very friendly and asking about America and how you like Europe and telling you about their own adventures. We are going to make a country score chart, and Italy will get big points for being the friendliest and for having the greatest feeling of safety. Milan feels so safe! Paris did not even remotely feel safe, parts of it were very weird. But I feel like I could walk around here at 4 in the morning and people would be as normal and kind as they would be at 4 in the afternoon. ( I will not do that, but I’m just saying…) And of course the food is excellent, with cheap pasta and paninis and pizza on every corner. It is fun to order food here, because we already know all the Italian words we need… Could I please have gnocchi al dente with pesto? (I ordered that off the menu yesterday, yessiree. It was good.)
And today we have a free day, and me and Sarah were going to go to Tuscany or Switzerland, but by the time we found internet, or rather paid for it in the hotel, all we wanted to do was sleep. So we did. And today we are just going to chill. So here I am now, in a beautiful and brightly lit hotel room with the windows wide open, letting in a warm breeze, while I listen to relaxing foreign music that my computer is picking up from another macbook in a room next to mine. Live from Milan, its Saturday night!
