Merry Christmas! Buon Natale!

Ciao tutti!

It's a beautiful time in Milano, and not just because I'm on a three week break from school. For those of you who started to hate me when you read that last sentence, don't. I may be on holidays, but we had one week of our new term before our Christmas break which is just enough time for them to pile on the homework. Due the first week back.

Anyway, none of that matters because it's Christmas in Milano! And that's serious business. There are lights everywhere. Even better, right outside my school, and along some of the other streets like Via Montenapoleone, they play Christmas music outside. Seriously. After we finished our final presentation earlier this month, we walked/skipped outside, where the sun was out and the Christmas music was playing. My heart grew three sizes. Right then and there. Then we celebrated with rooftop cocktails.

I don't have much else to say on the topic of Christmas in Milano, other than it's awesome. Music, lights, trees, Christmas markets, Pandoro, truffled everything. So I'll just share some photos! Oh and if you're lucky, I MIGHT blog about how I learned to cut Pandoro hearts. So cute!

Christmas Market at the Duomo - mostly just cheeses, meats, and desserts!

Christmas lights at home <3

Beautiful, even in the rain.

I'm going to Tenerife on Monday morning for 9 days, so my next post might be Spanish, but it definitely won't be until the new year. So, to cover all of my bases, Merry Christmas, Buon Natale, Happy Holidays, Tanti Auguri, and Happy New Year!

xoxo

That's What She Said.

As much as I love Milano, and just Italy in general, there are some things that I will always miss about home.

The other day in class, someone asked me to help plug in her laptop charger, and with the big adapter it was hard to tell if I had done it properly, so I asked her, "Is it charging? I can't tell if it's in all the way."

THAT'S WHAT SHE SAID.

I know you thought it. You probably even said it out loud.

The problem is that I looked around the room for anyone to enjoy this moment with me and there was no one. Just total silence.

If I was in Vancouver there would have been at least half a dozen people to say it first, and then burst in to laughter with me.

Something Like a Phenomenon

You're singing the song now, aren't you? You're welcome.

But in all seriousness, there's something happening in this country that I don't understand. It's an obsession with Abercrombie & Fitch. On any given weekend you can find this outside of the store:

There are no signs, so I'll forgive you if you don't understand the photo at first. This is a photo of the line up outside of A&F. EVERY WEEKEND. There are no signs, so the first couple of times we saw the line up we couldn't figure out why, until our teacher mentioned that the A&F store was so close to school, and we realized that was where the A&F smell was coming from and we put it all together.

One day I'll have to go in, just so that I can say I have. Also, our teachers seem obsessed with using it as an example in lectures, so I can probably get better grades on my finals if I use it as example somehow. Luckily I walk past daily on my way to and from school. I know, I feel like I just became the envy of EVERY Italian teenager.

One day a group of Italian teenagers stopped us in Piazza San Babila and asked us if we knew where Abercrombie was. I replied, "Of course. Just keep walking down that street there and you'll smell it before you see it. Look for the line up."