Been a busy almost first week here in Milano! Sorry it has taken me a while to get this started.
Aside for the two small earthquakes (yes, who knew there were earthquakes in Milan!) this week has been mostly running around trying to organise stuff, as well as try get some sightseeing and exploring the area I have uni and will be living in.
Soon I will be moving from my lovely hotel room (see pictures- and yes dad, it does look the same as the website) to my apartment room (pictures to follow once I move in), but for the moment I cannot wait to finally unpack and find everything that I thought I had packed. If anyone can remember where I packed my canvas bag, thick black cardigan or khaki beanie please let me know!
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| Gotta love their parking! |
After getting settled in the hotel we decided that getting a sim-card was numero uno on the list of things to do, so Keeley, Ross and I headed off to the local TIM store (info from the other guys who arrived here the week before us told us they had the best deal) to get our numbers where we found that not only did our two years of Italian study get us squat, most of the people here can't speak English either- so we have been finding ourselves doing a lot of hand motions and I think that "umm" "ahh" and "ci/non" are currently the basis of my vocabulary. But the more I go out the better it gets- I have so far had a lovely chat with the taxi driver, the supermercato lady and I met my landlady today and we managed to talk all things rent-y without having to resort to English, so the success stories keep rolling in!
Today is the first day of really cold weather, apparently it might snow tonight/tomorrow, so I need to get in a buy myself a lovely coat and some gloves soon. All the sales are on right now, but every time we walk into a store we get accosted by the sales attendants and overwhelmed with all the Italian, it gets a bit crazy.
Enjoy some pictures added below- we visited and climbed the Duomo (massive church in the middle of Milano), walked along the canal by our hotel and ate gelato at 0 degrees- it had to be done. I will try upload some more soon, but in the mean time, baci baci xx
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| Duomo |
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| Galleria Vittorio Emanuele |
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| Almost at the top of the Duomo (165 stairs and counting) |
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| Australia Day pride! |
Yesterday was another touristy day- I went exploring the Navigli (canal) markets where there are a bunch of cute antiques to see. The only problem is that it was too cold to properly look at everything so I spent most of the time trying to keep warm as opposed to buying anything! The markets only happen on the last Sunday of each month so I was lucky to be able to see them now. I spent most of the day wondering around the city, after having quite a late night on Saturday night not many people were up for another day exploring. After the markets I went to the Castello Sforzesco, and then joined and ESN (Erasmus Student Network- like the student services for all the international students) walking tour of Milano. Was pretty interesting as they took us around most of the city and then we all headed out for drinks to heat up after! The weather is really cooling down here right now, and I am kind of hoping we get some snow soon :D 
Today was a really successful day in terms of stupid Italian bureaucracy- we managed to get a start on our permessio di soggiorno (we need sort of an identification permit to stay in Italy for more than 3 months if we are not an EU citizen, but it takes about 4 weeks to process and then another 8 or so months to actually receive), successfully submitting the forms at the post office, but only after we were given numbers and then told to return 3hours later as that will be when we are called- we proceeded to wait another hour after returning, but at least during the time we left were able to move me into my apartment! Keeley, Ross and I also managed to get our transport cards this morning, allowing us to no longer pay excessive fees for buses/trams/trains and the metro... CityRail should learn from the Agenzia Transport di Milano!
