Last time I said welcome to Milan, but this post would in fact have been more worthy of that title. How can you truly have been to Milan without having purchased some of the local fashion? And therefore I have now settled for this new pair of shoes; made of kangaroo skin - no less. The salesman, who spoke English surprisingly well, was just that: A salesman; I therefore got shown several pairs and got told that I wouldn’t find anything of remotely similar quality at that price anywhere in Milan. I was satisfied with getting out alive with only one pair of shoes.

On Sunday I had dinner with one of my buddy’s friends, Andrea, who happens to be living in the building next door. While I may be able to purchase better groceries here, my cooking skills really don’t compare to the local experience: we had a really nice three course dinner supplied by some ice cream. By the way, Danish shops such as Paradis are certainly nice, but they simply aren’t Italian.
That also means that you can probably figure when a Paradis is open; a feature that seems to escape many of the Italian restaurants, boutiques, or small supermarkets. I guess it makes it easier to close down for the afternoon/evening whenever you feel like if you don’t advertise with opening hours. It won’t matter much in the long run, but you need to get used to the majority of the smaller shops and restaurants being closed in early afternoon, while, the large supermarket, in turn, is open till 21 (I was told so anyway, they don’t display it either).

I finally got my student id at Bocconi, which means I can use the school’s computers. Unfortunately you’re not allowed to chat on those computers, so browsing and updating website only. And although I don’t have a need for it at the moment, I’m still not allowed to print because they haven’t made the passwords for the very same student ids yet… We should get them “soon”.
It doesn’t mean that I can use my laptop though, because that needs to be set up by some technicians. These technicians are 1) located in the “new building”, which is a very helpful piece of information when you don’t know which buildings are the old ones, 2) definitely not available until next week (or maybe the week after?), and 3) only available about 6 hours during the week. Fortunately, the latter seems to be in the afternoon, so I don’t have to get up early.

On the more positive side, getting my student id also meant that I can apply for my monthly card for public transportation. In other words, when I manage to complete this Italian form, I’ll have unlimited use of public transportation for €17 a month.

Overall I’m having a great time; it’s just a lot of fun complaining about the Italian bureaucracy.

I finally arrived. The setup went perfectly, and I got guided directly to the apartment through the metro and tram system. We even passed by Piazza Duomo so I got to see the main tourist attraction right away. I spent the first week getting to know the area, finding the local supermarket (which happens to be the size of a carrefour) which has more pasta that you can ever dream of in one aisle. The result of that, can be seen below.

The first couple of days had quite bad weather with heavy rain. Since then it’s been getting warmer and warmer and it’s supposed to reach 35 degrees celsius during the coming week. I spent most of my time walking to the centre of Milan, checking out the local fashion. However, saying that Milan is dead in august would be an understatement - Even some shops on the main shopping street are closed for vacation. The coming week will pass by getting set up at the university and finding some new shoes, as hopefully more stores open this week.

I have an italian cell number now, which, along with the rest of the contact infos, can be found in the menu.

I’ll be living at the green pointer, school’s 250m (north)west