Ti Amo Italia

Sunday Night: Our Italian friend’s bf picked us up from the central station of Milan and we went straight ahead to a local Italian restaurant. Therewe have pizza, pasta, red wine, creme lemonchielli. The food was so amazing, finally I have tasted authentic Italian pasta the one I chose was thicker and whiter than spaghetti, it was served together with mushrooms and chestnuts.Our waitress tell us that she works for Dolce and Gabbana by via Montenapoleone and she wanted us to come and visit her. Her english wasn’t perfect so I thought she told us that Stefano and the other guy was actually supposed to be there (wrong of me). I become soooo extremely excited. After the huge dinner we went back to the apartment and had a wonderful sleep, although I had screamt in the middle of the night because I dreamt of being Nancy Drew.

Monday:   First day exploring Milan, first we went to this cute coffee shop and I had my first authentic Italian coffee (latte) and another pasta dish (penne with some white sauce) after the breakfast/brunch we decided to check out the Castello Sforzesco, it was so huge and so powerful. The weather was also perfect, almost near 18 celsius degrees. It couldn’t get better than this! We finally walked to the Dome and the piazza. It is so beautiful by there. The Domo is amazing, a white gothic church in marble.

After visiting the Duomo we decided to check out the designer shops along via Montenapoleone. The street is not fancy at all but it’s only filled with designer shops like Prada and Emilio Pucci. After lots of walking we become so tired and decide to eat gelato. I love Italian icecream!!!

In the evening we were going to visit our Italian friend’s parents. They live an hour away from Milan in this town called Licco (?) (George Clooney has a house there). Their house was this typical beautiful big house in Italian design. I absolutely loved it. The dinner was amazing, I couldn’t breathe afterwards. They served salami, parma, cheese, 

sparkled white wine, bread as appetizer. Then the pasta came out and it was soooo delicious. After the pasta we tried Italian pies filled with onion, spinach and meat. I have no words to describe the dinner. Nothing beats to eat in a local Italian family’s house. The mother had made three different desserts for us, ad it’s not only the food that was good but also knowing how much effort the family had put into this dinner for us. I’m forever thankful for this experience. 

Tuesday: On Tuesday we went to Venice for the whole day, we passed Verona (Romeo and Juliet) and finally reached Venice after 3 hours. The first word that came into my mind when I stepped out of the train was WOW! The Grand Canal, all those renaissance buildings. Everything really looked like in the movies. The gondolas, the small shops, the bridges, san marco square, everything made a big impression on me. We also went to this island outside Venice called Murano, there we met real people who lived there, and it felt like a dream. It’s hard to imagine that all these real people like us live in this peaceful city. I have never visited a city alike Murano. WOW! WOW! WOW!

The funniest/saddest moment of the day: My friend got some pigeon-shit in her hair. The pigeons in Venice freaks me out. We returned to Milan close to midnight and yet again we ate at some Italian joint called Panino Augusto. I had the best panini in the world!! I also had the best icecream in the world!! YUMMY! After the dinner we walked to a small red cozy bar, that was fun to see how the local Italians party. I was so tired that night so I didn’t really enjoy the feeling when we walked back home and saw the canals that Leonardo da Vinci had built (Naviglio Grande) or the feeling to sit in a tram from the 1920’s.

Wednesday: Last day in Milan we just went back to the Piazza

and shopped. I only bought a black cardigan from Benetton. I was a bit disappointed of the shopping there, it’s Milan for god’s sake but I thought the shopping there was almost worse than Stockholm’s. Maybe I didn’t find the good places. After the shopping we went to this local Italian restaurant close to my friend’s university. WOW! Again, the food was amazing and so cheap. 12 € for risotto, roastbeef, bread, sparkled water and dessert. I think I had the world’s best tiramisu and chocolate salami there! WOW! I really had a hard time to leave Italy, it was such a wonderful experience. And I haven’t laughed this much for a very long time. Italy was needed to cheer me up. Another thing that cheered me up was that I got the job I applied for at a Swedish Financial Consultancy company in the heart of Stockholm.