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Sabato 14.02.09
Tired after our trip to Firenze, Hilary and I slept in and then celebrated Valentine's Day by exploring the weekly San Agostino Market. It's set up in the shape of a cross with the top section devoted to food and flowers with the rest focused on clothes and miscellaneous items. The food was so fresh: there were carts dedicated solely to cheeses and then others to meats and a variety of fruit (actually one kind that I had never seen before) that all was huge and vibrant. We arrived as they were starting to tear down for the day but the commotion of vendors calling to each other and passing customers just added to the charm.
The other sections were at least 4 blocks long on each of the three remaining sides of the cross. They were selling shoes, shirts, cashmere sweaters, jeans, socks, adapters, kitchen and cleaning supplies, baby clothes, pretty much anything you could imagine. Some of the vendors were from shops and others were just in the flea market business. They all seemed to have large white vans that they kept all the their wares in when they traveled from market to market. Surprisingly, it was easy to resist purchasing anything, I think we were just taking it all in this time. One thing's for sure though, you can definitely tell what the trends in Milano are from the street markets: Purple, Purple, Purple. In fact, some of the vendors were ONLY selling purpe things. Just today I saw a girl wearing purple high heels - it's big for spring, guaranteed.
After we had purused all the items, we decded to head on down to Chinatown. Even with assistance from a police officer and my travel guide, we kind of just stumbled upon it. It's not so much a town as a block, but we were still able to find a Chinese restaurant to indulge our cravings. Went back to Arco to eat with Joey who told us all the crazy stories from their trip to Barcelona: bunkbeds were broken, firey shots were taken, and Will got lost for about four hours and was almost accosted by a prostitute. Yea, we're glad we went to Firenze...
Domenica 15.02.09
Half of the group rested, the other half took a day trip to Verona, and I stayed in Milano to do some exploring on my own. It was truly enjoyable to spend some time with just myself and my own thoughts. I slept in and had a leisurely lunch and then went out to a museum.
The Tirennale Museum is dedicated to fasion, design, and pop culture. I saw the exhibit titled °Opening Soon° which showcased the architectural design competition that Benneton has for each of its stores. Instead of having one chief designer, therby giving their brand a cohesive feel, they accept bids from numerous ones for each new store location. The intention is to challenge designers to push the innovative envelope and create spaces that make shopping feel more like a social experience rather than a purchasing one. It was really neat to see how they reflected the personality of the city and its inhabitants in each design. I can't wait to go back to see the other new exhibits once they're open!
The Triennale is adjascent to Parco Sempione, the largest park in Milano by my estimate. I took a walk through it after I left the museum and enjoyed watching little kids feed ducks in the pond and old couples holding hands as they walked. You find a sampling of everything there: teenagers making out on the bridge (PDA is very big here and totally accepted), homeless people arguing with eachother, students walking in big groups, and families walking their dogs (EVERYONE has a dog here and it's usually little and wearing a sweater).
Another thing that I've noticed just from people watching: every woman over the age of 50 wears a fur coat all the time, not just for special occaisions. My guess is that it's because they're warm, not necessarily because they want to make a statement of wealth. Also, people don't really have a concept of personal space. If they bump into you on the street or in a hallway, they don't say excuse me or the Italian equivalent, °scusi°, something I will never get used to. They squeeze in on the metro and the tram and have no quams about their legs or shoulders resting on yours nor about their grocery bags being in your face for the entire ride.
Just after sunset, I stopped by an outdoor book festival and challenged my Italian skills by reading the inside covers. I wanted to buy so many but figured it was maybe a little too ambitious of me since I haven't even started the book about Bruce Springsteen I bought to practice with. I was doing pretty well comprehension-wise though. I was able to test it by reading the inside covers of books that I've read before in English like °A Thousand Splendid Suns° (Mille Splendidi Soli)and °Pride and Prejudice° (Orgoglio e Pregiudizio). Contemplated buying childrens books since they're more on my level.
Lunedi 16.02.09
I started my first day of real business classes at noon with International Economics. I'm used to being surrounded only by other exchange students so I was surprised when over half the class was Italian (stupid, I know). The other half were from other EU countries. The teacher had us raise of hands to learn the makeup of the class and the five Americans all raised their hands from the center row, a little sheepishly since we looked funny all huddling together on the first day. The class was interesting though and the fact that my teacher looks like Richard Gere doesn't hurt my attention span either.
Moved on to Management of International and Supranational Organizations. When you read that you probably think the subject matter will cover internal management of multi-national corporations in the age of globalization or something of the sort. Right? Wrong. International organizations are collections of many member countries with the aim of keeping order and encouraging cooperation in the world i.e. the United Nations. Supranational organizations are regional groups that promote political and economic integration via the sharing of sovereignty i.e. the European Union or NAFTA. See that? Learned something already.
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