This past week was our last week of intensive Italian and, no kidding, IES upped the intensity. Instead of 2.5 hours of Italian every morning, we had three hours to make up for the time we missed not having class Friday morning. Tomorrow the rest of our classes start and we have Italian for one hour twice a week and three hours once a week. The big bummer, though, is that on Mondays I will not only have Italian from 9-10 in the morning, I will then have two art history classes and my history of Italian theater straight from 1:30 until 7:30. I'm not sure how its going to go tomorrow.
Last week I got to go to a soccer game. Milan actually has two soccer teams kind of like how my beloved Chicago has two baseball teams with vicious rivalries. The two teams are InterMilan and ACMilan. We saw InterMilan vs. Bari (another city in the south of Italy) and InterMilan won 4-0!!! Two of those goals were penalty shots. We actually left before the last goal was scored because we wanted to leave before the crowds since we had a test the next morning. It was so much fun, though. They had people selling soda, ice cream, bottles of whiskey, and other snacks in the aisles like they do in the states. There is also a 10 euro price difference between a man's ticket and woman's ticket. Strange. It was so loud and there was so much cheering and people wearing the color of their team. At one point in the stands across from us, some people started some sort of bonfire or something. That was a little scary. I loved watching the game. It made me miss playing soooo much. I kept trying to figure out/track their formations and patterns. I hope I can go to another game again soon.
Friday morning we left for our trip to the Aosta Valley that IES planned. First we stopped at this fort with a really strange museum full of all sorts of things that didn't really seem relevant. It was a history/crystal/natural science/all sorts of randomness that we basically weaved through trying to find our way out. Then we climbed down the fort and took lots of beautiful pictures. We were surrounded by beautiful mountains and the air was so much easier to breathe, despite its thinness, than the air here in Milan (the pacing/atmosphere of Milan is akin to Chicago or NYC). After that we went to a ridiculously priced lunch that offered deer meat for the meat-eaters and cheese and french fries for me and my fellow vegetarians. Then we continued on to Aosta where we checked into our hotel and wandered around. Aosta is a very, very small town that was built before Christ by the Romans because it was one of the few spots that wasn't a mountain. So its a very, very old town with Roman ruins and awesome spots like this. Now, however, it has many shops which I was not expecting and I am convinced that Italy is just all about shopping. Oh my. The weather on Friday was rainy, gray, and misty. Think Tacoma in November. And then there was a torrential downpour where we huddled under a huge building with covering until it calmed down enough for us to book back to the hotel. That night, after another suspicious meal at the hotel, we went to this restraunt that sometimes has live jazz. We were there on the wrong night, however, and so we just chilled there to pick up what Aosta at night is like.
The next day, Saturday, we got up too early for another disappointing tour where I learned about the Romans and Aosta. The tour was twice as long as usual because our tour guide spoke italian and one of the RAs translated it into English. So everything was said twice. And it was chilly. And was not fully caffeinenated. Finally we peaced out and found some falafel. After a three hour nap that afternoon, we wandered through the town again, searching for something we hadn't seen the previous day, but mainly just going on a gelato+pastry sugar binge, balanced out with some espresso. The mountains were beautiful, the day was much less gray and it had warmed up. The air was so clean, so easy to breathe. The streets and sidewalk are one and the same so you never really know if you're standing in the middle of street or not. We walked by roman ruins, ancient arches, crucifixes and post card stands. We didn't even buy any clothes. After dinner on Saturday night there was a free concert with a small photography gallery that we went to. It was cool to see what the locals do on the weekend, the ski bums of Aosta. We didn't stay too long, however, because the music wasn't totally our thing and we had an early morning. It was still really fun, nevertheless.
Sunday was by far the most amazing day of the trip. We got up early, checked out of the hotel, and were bussed up to Monte Blanche. This is a mountain advertised as the 8th wonder of the world. Its in the alps, obviously, and we took a gondola up to the top of it. Its on the French/Italian border so we country hopped with no passport. It was so great. I can officially say I've been to France during this trip, even if it was only the French part of a snowy, snowy mountain. So after nearly freezing my toes off (I thought they were going to break off into ice pieces, they were so cold) we got some coffee and hiked down the last third of the mountain. It was so beautiful, so amazing, so fresh. I could go on and on and on. I definetly fell on my bum quite a few times seeing as it was incredibly steep going downhill. I know I will be feeling it in my legs tomorrow morning. But come on. I hiked in the Alps! My life is so amazing.
After the mountain and the hike, we got a huge lunch in the neighboring town called Couremayour (sp?) that had wine glasses the size of my head. No joke. We were all starving and we stuffed our faces like there was no tomorrow. Followed up with gelato, which I eat almost everyday here. Good thing I'm walking as much as I am! After lunch we drove by Fenis Castle which was a leisurely castle back in the day. Then we drove back to Milan. Such a wonderful weekend, a once in a lifetime experience. Pictures to come and full day of classes tomorrow!
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