Awkward moments

April 29, 2010
I spent the day at school again. I got up pretty early and made the long bus trek to school. The past few times I've been gone to school, somehow I've missed the stop and had to get off at the next one. I usually catch that we're at the stop and when I try to get off the doors shut in my face. But luckily today I was paying attention, probably because the really hot guy got off at the same stop as me.
Had the most amazing pizza! The sweet pizza guy even made it into a heart for me! The weather is too hot right now. I see that it is raining and almost snowing in Utah. Could you send me some rain? I'll send some sunshine!
For class we just had a lecture about the Nazi, again. We could talk about that topic all day and I would never get bored. Then we wandered around the city for a bit and then we went to happy hour. We always order virgin pina colada's and they come in small whiskey glasses. Well tonight they came in these huge goblets and I kinda freaked out that I ordered alcohol. We didn't, it was alcohol free!
After happy hour we got our nightly dose of gelato and headed home. After 4 weeks of walking up 3 flights of stairs my butt is getting pretty firm and so I need a rest. It's elevator time. So we waited for the elevator and when it got there I started to walk in but there was this couple in the elevator doing something that should not be done in that dirty elevator and the lady was quickly pushing all the buttons and told me she would send me the elevator!!!! It was pretty awkward!

The countdown begins

April 28, 2010
14 days left. It is crunch time my friends. Finals are in a week and home is not to far away. Everyone is trying to get everything done, including me.
No matter how hard we try it is virtually impossible to go to bed before 12 am. So every day that we have class at 9 am is a struggle. A struggle to get up and to stay awake in class. In culture and civilization of Italy we learned all about the Italian life. Their health insurance, education and how many people die due to car accidents every day. The number is insane. We also watched the funniest movie ever! I don't even know what it's called but it was HILARIOUS!
In advanced commercial it's a nightmare. We presented our sketches of the spaces we have and got a ton of good feedback. Maybe a little too much feedback. Then we sat in class and once again 100,000 degrees. I don't know how we function normally. Plus on top of that I forgot to eat and didn't have time to go get food so it made for a really long day....
Italy is playing Barcelona in soccer tonight; the last time they played was here in Milan women were not allowed because it's too dangerous. Tonight they are playing in Barcelona so everyone went to the bar to watch it. I got a ton of feedback for my project and am starting to feel very overwhelmed so I wanted a night to eat and do homework. Or not. I left my flash drive plugged into the computer at school. Aggh!

Cooking Class

April 27, 2010

Today started out pretty ordinary and boring then got more and more awesome as the day wore on!
After I recovered from a false alarm of the cleaning lady coming in at 8:30 AM(still not sure who rang the bell and woke me up out of a DEEP sleep.....Nizhoon.....). Got up and went about my day as usual. Actually I haven't gone grocery shopping in awhile and just rain out of breakfast food so I had to make eggs. Which is really hard to do when you don't have a frying pan.
I had my WWII Europe class today, we spent almost the entire time talking about the Nazi. It was probably the best class I have ever been in. In America we get the American perspective on WWII here we got the Italian, and since my teacher is part German, perspective on the Nazi. We learned why and how it was possible that Hitler was able to take power and be so successful in bringing Nazism to Germany. He gave us a lot of books to read and then we all brainstormed and got a list of movies to watch on WWII.

We usually have short lectures and long tours of the city but since today we have a cooking class, we stayed in class most of the time and then went to the most awesome bookstore!! It was some store that housed a bunch of communism and fascism books. The coolest part was that our teacher took us through a door in this wall COVERED with art graffiti. then we walked through an alley way and it opened up into what seemed to me like an underground artist group. Everyone was working on crazy art stuff of building things and when we walked in they all started staring at us!
For cooking class we learned how to make pasta(from scratch) and different types of sauces. We washed our hands, strapped on our aprons and got to work. Well everyone else did, I sat back and watched. We all know what happens when I try to cook. ( I'm sorry Becky about your microwave. I still feel bad.) I took pictures and then I ate a lot. We have 2 more classes while we're here. One is strictly desserts....That's the one I'm looking forward to!

Venice!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

April 26, 2010
Since we stayed up so late Saturday night we pretty much slept the day away on Sunday. Not a good idea since Monday we had to be up at 5 am to catch the train to Venice. Which we did on less than 3 hours of sleep. One of the great things about getting up that early was that the fresh pastries the hotel offers for breakfast were warm, almost fresh out of the oven. The second I sat down on the train I


starting dozing in and out of consciousness. The sun came up and every once in a while there were fields and fields of flowers. It was amazing. I don't know if I was super tired, but I almost started crying multiple times on the train. I'm just so amazed and awed at how beautiful it is here! At one of the stops on the train these two old people got on and stopped right where I was sitting and made some hand gesture. I was so out of it I just got up and moved and they sat down. Had I been thinking more clearly I would have yelled at them in Russian, but needless to say I spent the rest of the train ride cramped up next to Ashley and across from some awkward Italians. Venice is an Island and you have to cross part of the Mediterranean Sea to get there. A little bit crazy taking a train across the sea, but cool. There were a couple of cruise ships docked so people could run around Venice. Then we got off the train stumbled around for a bit to figure out what we were doing. Right as you walk out of the train station there is the Grand Canal with boats just floating by. There was a sign that said "taxi" and the canal right behind it! Oh MY GOSH!!!! I'm in Venice!



We bought a pretty cool map and then set off to see the cool things there. We hit up a couple of churches with the most amazing ceilings! The way they manipulate 3D and perspective drawings is incredible. In one you actually felt like the building went all the way to heaven! Amazing!
As we walked there were so many little places to wander, every bridge was picturesque and almost every alley way led you straight to a canal. Since we were there so early there were not very many people there and the hottness of the sun had not set in yet.
At one point we were walking and we came across and old man who drove a gondola, where his gondola was I'm not sure. But he asked if we wanted a gondola ride and we said no, then he kissed our hands and turned to me and kissed my hand and in the process I almost dropped my camera and then he said something and then he just started kissing me!!!! He even sang to me! Boyfriend #1. Oh my gosh it was awesome!

We kept wandering and finding new places to see. It was so clean and so different from Milan. No one has cars here, they walk or have a boat. In one of the town squares we sat down at some huge monument and watched some cute Italian boys sketch us, well really it was the monument we were sitting on. Around the corner we found a concert hall that had once been a church. Inside the paintings on the wall were all done in monochromes. It was a blue monochrome and all the windows were made with glass bottles so when the sun came in it enhanced the coloring of the paintings. One of the most beautiful monochromatic paintings I have ever seen.
At this point the sun is scorching hot, I'm assuming it was 100 degrees and we just happen to be in jeans, and dark colors thinking that it would be cold. So so so hot. Finally we hit the end of the canal that leads you straight out to the Mediterranean Sea( I can't believe that I just said that) and sat down to get our

bearings straight and take a break. A couple of waves got pretty high and splashed me so I got pretty wet, but it felt so good. It was all I could not to try skinny dipping for the first time. We found a beautiful cafe right on the pier and decided now was a great time for lunch. Despite the fact that there was water all around us we were seriously dehydrated and just wanted to drink water. I ordered some pasta with brie, zucchini, and a creamy walnut sauce. Ashley ordered pasta with bacon, eggplant and some sharp cheese. After we got our food and started eating, neither of us liked our food so we swapped! Greatest lunch I ever had.
Now all the places are open and the tourists have taken over Venice. Walking around is started to get annoying because of all the people. Since all the shops are open shopping is starting to take precedence over the cool things to see. I could have stayed in Venice forever. Maybe I can find a cute Gondola boy to be my husband....
Nope. But I did find 3 very cute police men. I tried really hard not to commit a crime so they could arrest me, instead I took a picture of them. I should have the gotten the front of them, but the backside we just as pretty. Boyfriends #2,3 and 4. I think they saw me taking a picture because they followed us for a bit. Man oh man, they were so hot. I would have married them no questions asked. I considered grabbing one of their butts because it was SO HOT!

Along the pier we found some pretty cool artists and came across one that was doing some water colors. We all stopped and looked at his paintings and chatted with him for a bit. He kissed me too. I'm not really sure why ,I bought a painting but it was way after that. Boyfriend #5. Geez I'm on a roll today!
I hit a lot of records today. Most number of kisses in one day and most number of deserts in one day. I had a tiramisu and then 2 gelatos. Amazing. I may never eat ice cream again in America. I'm forever ruined.
As we were walking to go back to our train I passed by the HOTTEST gondola driver. He was pretty darn cute and the fact that he drove a gondola.... HOT! So we turned around and asked if he would take a picture with me. As we were getting close he asked "can I touch?" Then he just grabbed me and held me close...... At least I got his name, it's Micheal. We're getting married next week.
We got home at 11 pm exhausted sunburned and happy. Venice is probably the most beautiful place on earth. I would live there. I could get a job as a gondola driver it would be awesome! This was the best day ever.

SHOPPING

April 24, 2010
I had decided to wait to do any and all shopping until the last 3 days that I was here. This way I can make sure I have enough money and will have seen everything to make an educated decision. Well today they had a HUGE open market and we went. Oh my gosh. It was like Russia all over again and we had TOO much fun. We left at 11 am and got done about 4 pm. I got some cool stuff and spent more than I wanted to but oh well. You're only young and stupid once right!
None of us had eaten all day so we tried to find a cafe that would feed us which proved harder than we thought. Why can't they just be open when we need them to?! Is it too hard to have NORMAL feeding times?! Seriously. Thankfully we found some place that would feed us tortilla's with tomatoes, cheese and lettuce. I wanted pasta but this was fun.
After last weeks' fiasco of techno train horn blaring and techno music we are going to give dancing in Italy another shot. So here we go off to the club at 12 AM. It was super loud and a ton of people! But we got VIP so we headed to the back where it wasn't so bad. And we partied away until 4 am when they kicked us out.

April 23, 2010
Somehow we have managed to piss off our cleaning lady. She thinks that we are dirty and very messy. We asked her to mop and she tried to mop with a scrub brush and a dirty rag draped over it. Whatever. So as a protest I've stopped doing the dishes and I don't care how long they sit there. And I'm not going to make my bed or pick up my stuff if she's gonna be cranky with me. I've been nice when she bangs on the door at 10 AM and I'm still sleeping. Not anymore. I cherish my beauty sleep.
I almost skipped class today simply because I was too tired and did not want to sit through any lectures. But I went and we learned all about Italy. This country is situated on 2 major tectonic plates and they have at least 3-4 Earthquakes a year. Milan doesn't have as many.
Everyone is getting ready to travel on down to Rome for the long weekend that we have. I decided not to go, it turned out to be pretty expensive, I need sleep and have a lot of homework to do. I'll come back to Italy with my special someone and go see the Vatican with him.
I had design block in class for almost 2 hours then right as class was getting out I snapped out of it and my designs started to flow! I am loving my project and will be excited for it to be over.
Since we are staying home this weekend we thought maybe we could take a day trip to Venice and looked at all the train times online. After we spent an hour trying to figure out the times and trains and everything we got it all booked and for dumb reason it denied ALL of our credit cards. We're just going to have to go to the train station.

I think British

April 22, 2010
Most of you know that people mistake me for being British. Apparently I look and act British. Today we were headed to get some Gelato and I was walking ahead of everyone, not really paying attention. Then I heard the girls behind me laughing really hard so I turned around to see what the deal was and they asked if I had heard what the man said. Nope. When I walked by him he pointed at me and said in English " I think British." I am seriously considering coming home with a British accent.
Today was also my WWII class where we had our midterms. We each had to gather pictures of our families from the 1920's and 30's, then talk about them a little bit. I was so excited for this project! So excited that I forgot my flash drive at home. So in the middle of class I scrambled to put together my project. Then we talked about Fascism in Italy, how it started a lot of the symbols of Fascism and other interesting facts. We never have 4 hour lectures(thankfully) so our teacher takes us around the city and tells us some pretty cool stuff about Milan. Our first stop was Vogue magazine. Now what does that have to do with WWII? Nothing except for the fact that our teacher wrote an article in the Italian Vogue and he wrote a book about furniture for Vogue and he needed to pick some stuff up. I have the coolest teacher in the world! Then we took a tour of a design studio of Corian. SO COOL! Afterward we headed to the stock market exchange area where all of the buildings were built during Fascism time and have lots of naked people on them. I can't remember what they have to do with Fascism but they do.
The exact building where Fascism started is still alive and in use today. We went down a very small obscure street and bam there we were. Of course we all started taking pictures of it! Then some official looking guy came out and told us NO PHOTOS! Fascism is not dead, my friends. Apparently this building is FBI and City Police headquarters...... There were lots of policemen standing outside kicking it. Man I love a man in uniform.....
After class we hit up some place thinking it would be time for happy hour and turns out we missed it so we had to just order food. Everyone else ordered a tortilla with cheese, tomatoes, ham and lettuce. I ordered a tortilla with nutella. On top of that we ordered virgin pina coladas. Needless to say I was a little sick after all that sugar.

Food

April 21, 2010
Today is my long class day where we have class for 8 hours with only a 45 minute period for lunch. It's pretty hard, but we survive. We usually leave at 8:15 to make it to class at 9, especially since the last few times we've been late and the morning traffic is pretty bad. About half way there the bus stopped and we didn't move for quite some time. In the middle of the highway the bus opened its doors and told us to get off! We thought there was just a traffic jam and could catch the bus further up. Ummm no. The bus in front of us HIT A MOTORCYCLE DRIVER!!! The ambulance was there and by the time we saw him they had the poor guy on a gurney and were making sure he was ok. I didn't see any blood and he was moving his arms so I'm assuming he's ok. He was without pants so I'm pretty sure he hurt his leg pretty bad. It's one of those times when you prayed that you listened to your mom when she said always make sure you have on clean underwear you never know what's going to happen!
In our Culture and Civilization class we read about Italians and their food. Dude, I was so HUNGRY! Then we started watching Il Dolce Vita. It was interesting, but I was so tired I could barely keep my eyes open to read the translation and I decided that then was a great moment to put my translation skills to work and I just closed my eyes and listened to the Italian. No idea what that movie is about. I feel asleep for a few minutes and on our first break I downed a thing of coke and prayed the caffeine would set in!

For lunch we decided to try some new place and ordered (each of us) an entire pizza. It was HUGE!!!! Four cheeses! How much greater can life get!? Every time we picked up a piece grease DRIPPED from the pizza. Awesome. About 2 minutes into our meal one of the girls with us FREAKED out and walked out of the restaurant. Apparently a cockroach was crawling up her leg. WTF! We didn't leave, but definitely picked up our feet and tried not to think about it.
We sit in the computer lab for our Advanced Commercial Design class. I don't think that there are any building codes here because it was 1000 degrees and NO WAY to open a freaking window! Plus I'm pretty sure there was no ventilation system in there. All the windows had another plate of class instead of screen. I think they're afraid some idiot will jump out the windows. Whatever it was the longest class of my life.

Death

April 20, 2010
Today was a pretty chill day, only one class at 3 so we spent the morning doing homework and catching up on sleep. In WWII we talked about Fascism in Italy why it started and all about Mussolini. Very interesting except that no amount of caffeine could keep me awake and lectures at 3 in the afternoon with really hot weather are not a good combination. Thankfully we had a fieldtrip day and went to a WWII cemetery. I'm not the biggest fans of cemeteries, they freak me out and I avoid them at all costs, but you can't really do that when it's your class assignment so off we went.

It was cool, really quiet and peaceful (obviously....). They had an entire building devoted to the architects, designers and artists during WWII that had passed away. All of the gravesites were elaborately carved statues. If we had had more time we could have wandered around more and gotten lost. Under the building were above the ground tombs. Some families were buried there with their loved ones

from the war. While we were standing next to one of them trying to translate what was written on the gravesite an old man on a bike came over and OPENED the door where are the people are buried! Of course I was standing right next to that door and got a nice view of what was inside. It was pretty dark and thankfully no dead bodies. Just shovels and wood. Still just a little bit freaky.

Design Overload!!!

April 19, 2010
Yesterday we missed the bus and waited 30 minutes for the bus to take us to church so pretty much we sat in the hall with no translation and tried not to fall asleep. We were supposed to meet up with the rest of the group after church but since it was raining and we were all exhausted we decided to skip out on that. Apparently there was a volcano that erupted a while ago.....as a result many designers couldn't make it to the design fair due to the ash in the air and a lot of flights being grounded. So there were not as many designers as usual. I don't know how many are usually there, but there was a lot already.
Design Week is finishing up; today is the last day. As much as I've loved seeing all of the cool designs, it's been exhausting and every part of my body hurts. In fact I had a dream that I woke up crying and thrashing in bed because my back hurt. Then the next day my roommate asked how I slept and said that I woke up crying that my back hurt really bad. Guess it wasn't a dream. Plus these beds that they have at the hotel and not comfortable.
I'm still blown away and in awe at all the amazing designs that I saw. Today we had group presentations (which did not go over well) about all the different things that we saw. We are designing Prefab Retail Spaces for the 2015 World Expo which will be held in Milan in the same place as the Design Fair. It was nice to be able to see where our stores would be and how things would work within the building. We talked about the different things that caught our attention and drew us into the different exhibits. There were a lot of sustainable materials that were used. One company used cedar wood to make furniture. It smelled SO good, it was really hard to leave the exhibit. They also had a student exhibit that had some interesting things. One exhibit was a table and chairs but the table was just a long piece of metal with branch like pieces going to where all the chairs were and the chairs were not even a foot wide. We started talking about how you could eat at the table but you couldn't sit in the chairs and the head instructor of the project asked if we liked and he explained that it was for anorexic people because all they eat is lemonade! The design project was called "Design in a Crisis!" The school was from the Middle East somewhere......
Today was midterms. Yea already. Don't worry I did not study and spent the bus ride to school studying and then almost missed the stop! Thankfully all we had to do was write a one page essay paper about 2 different specific topics. I compared the Italian and American Constitution. Pretty sure I made no sense at all. For the other one I talked about the Design Fair. 9 AM is too early for writing papers. After that we had our Commercial Design class and a ton of stuff was due. I had a presentation that since I prepared everything on my PC and the presentation classroom only has a damn Mac it didn't work and I somehow pissed me teacher off, again. Then when she came around to each of us to see our projects and got to mine, despite the fact that I was one of the few students with everything done, she ripped mine apart and was not helpful in the least bit. So instead of sitting through 2 hours of ridiculous Italian Language class we went for Gelatto and I got as much freaking chocolate as I could. I'm gonna miss the gelatto. Maybe I can take some more home with me?

End of Design Week

April 17

We went dancing last night. Man oh man was I tired. Everyone told us that this particular club was the best and they were having an awesome DJ on Friday night so we went. Lame. Lame, lame, lame. Everyone was on some kind of drug and all they played was techno. And every 20 minutes they blew this annoying train horn and turned on the house lights! WTF! Us vampires like the dark, don't turn on the lights you idiot! It was rather annoying. Now it's funny but then it was NOT.
We got up earlier than I would have liked and wandered around the city to look at exhibitions and then hit the Design Show for ONE MORE DAY!!!! Then I went home and to eat and now I'm sitting on the couch watching a movie eating chocolate and a diet coke. (After 3 weeks of regular coke I was finally able to find a diet.) I'm supposed to be doing homework but I'm on design overload and I have no intention of doing anything today. I need a vacation.

Day 2

April 15, 2010
Got up super early and started our trek out to the fair. On the way one girl and I got seperated from the group and we got lost so we had to get off and go back a stop. Because the fair started this week there are SO many people out. All the buses and metros are super crowded. Of course we all dressed a little nicer today so we can look the part of designers. So we get on the crowded metro and this old guy jumps on right after us. And he's pressed up RIGHT behind me trying to grab my butt! I can't move anywhere so I just try to not be so close. Then people get off and we get switched around and now he's to the side of me. Oh it was awful!!!!!!!!!! Worse than being at the club! I put my elbow against his fat old stomach and leaned sideways as much as I could so he wouldn't touch me. After I bolted off the train I slathered myself with sanitizer. EWWW!
Once we got to the fair the excitement finally set it. There were hundreds of thousands of people there from ALL over the world! We got a map, there are 8 buildings all together and 2 of them have second floors. We got through 3 today in about 7 hours only sitting down for about 20 minutes every 2 hours. We still have Friday, Saturday and a little bit of Sunday to run around and look at things. I was very surprised to find Russians there! There weren't many Americans and when we asked for brouchures for America most of them said they didn't have anything in America and shipping it there was way expensive. But still it's awesome! I'm so excited to be here!

DisneyLand for Designers!!!!

April 14, 2010

I have nothing to say except that I'm in designer disneyland! This is awesome! I've posted some of the pictures of the stuff I saw. I can't wait for tomorrow when the real stuff begins!

Design Week Begins!

April 12, 2010
30 more days! it's gone by SO fast! Today was the start of design week, there is a design spirit in the air that just demands creativity. I had my WWII class all day yesterday and my teacher is a professor for the art school that is right by us and his students were getting ready for their exhibition for design week. So we tagged along so he could get some stuff and in the process he told every one there that we were journalists so we were able to take pictures and learn a lot about the stuff they were doing. It was pretty amazing!
After that we grabbed the most amazing lunch of pasta with a red meat sauce(Meat... oh how I've missed you). I'm in love with pasta. Then we visited a war cemetery and called it a day. It was a pretty long day of walking around again. I swear sometimes we walk 20 miles a day. My feet hurt SO bad and I have good supporting shoes I don't know how the pioneers did it. Props to them. All I know is that the first thing I do when I get home is just sit in my car. I'll hug her and kiss her and never abuse her again.

Again hit the happy hour and were trying to grab some munchy food and I saw these green bean looking things. They looked like they had some yummy seasoning on it. So when I got up to them I went to grab some and realized that they had EYES on them. No, not green beans. Some kind of gross fish. Holy crap what is wrong with these people!? You don't eat little fishies like that! Then I was eating a piece of pizza and of course got a mouthful of fish. Not great luck with food today.
The sunny nice weather went away so I'm back to freezing my little buns off

Sabbath Activites

April 11, 2010
Finally I slept in past 7:30 in time to wake up for church. Thankfully church was not too far away so we hoped on the bus with scriptures and address in hand. then I lost track of the number of stops so we got off and walked the rest of the way. Found the building the church was supposed to be in, but there was no sign that a church was there....or a way to get into the building. So we stood there of about 10 minutes.....and finally a nice old lady came by. She asked what we wanted and of course I spouted off in Russia, but she got what I was trying to say and let us in. As soon as we walked in she directed us to the senior couple missionaries who hugged us and welcomed us with open arms. They set us up with translators(mind you this was high tech translation, with head sets and everything!) and we set in for fast and testimony meeting. The ward was pretty big about 50 people, and they were happy and hearing their testimonies in English was very inspiring.



After church we went to the Duomo, which is one of the most famous Catholic churches in Milan. The night before I ordered 4 tickets for us to tour the top of the building, which despite the outrageous price I've heard is worth the price. So we book it over there and get set on a wild goose chase with every information person saying that we need to go somewhere else. When we finally found the right place they were pretty put out that I didn't have my stupid confirmation number and when I forcefully asked them to look it up by my name they threw a little tisy fit in the back room. Customer service is seriously lacking over here in Europe.

Finally we made it to the top. Oh wow. This building was built in Gothic times, about 1500's and the details and mass size of the building just really blew me away! When we were on the very top we met some cute Italians who wanted to hang with us, but we just took pictures of them and decided to go home because it was starting to rain. So we put our cameras away and as I was taking mine of my wrist I lost hold of it and the camera tumbled down the roof of the church. "F*&^!" Was pretty much the only word that came out of my mouth. Thankfully the church has a church around the top, so poor thing on tumbled to the bottom of the roof. Everything is ok. It had started to rain so we grabbed some desert food and headed home to sit and work on homework the rest of the night.