Lost in Milano pt. 2

Commencing physical activity.... so Linds and I decided to go for a run today and break the 3 and a half week streak of walking being the only form of physical activity we've done.  As soon as we started running, the sun decided it was time to head out for the day and the wind and fog decided to take it's place.  Not a pleasant situation when you're running in capri spandex and a t-shirt.  We ran to our school which is about 2 and a half miles from our apartment, stopped inside to warm up, and then made our way back.  When we started running back I told Linds I'd have to sprint home just to warm up because I was so cold!  So I went ahead and proceeded to get lost again except this time I was by myself, cold, and running haha perfect.  I didn't panic though which was tempting because I started to not recognize annnything and right before I was going to ask someone for directions, I saw a sign for Garibaldi, the metro station close to our apartment.  After 20 minutes of fumbling around the Garibaldi area (you'd think getting on a bridge over the station would be easy, but you'd be wrong... trying to find the stairs to the bridge was actually impossible) and after an hour and a half of running all together, I was finally safe and warm in my apartment :)  I'd like to think it was an hour and a half well spent?  I'm so sore already and will probably need to get a taxi to and from school tomorrow but it's okay, I needed the exercise for sure.  We looked at a map after and realized that I had the route right for the most part, I just decided to make a right turn when I should have kept going straight.  I think I inherited my mom's sense of direction haha I should just bring my blackberry with me everywhere I go, the googlemaps app saves lives.  Well at least I got a nice little tour of the city, right?  As fun as making a habit out of getting lost is, I will gladly welcome the time when I do not get lost and know my way around the city.

Today, class was a bit different.  We met at the Piazza della Scalla, which you get to by getting off at the Duomo metro stop and walking through the Galleria (the place with a bunch of really high end shops).  Our teacher took us out to a nice bar there (here, "il bar" means a place where you have coffee, not a bar in the sense we think of it as) which was so cute of her!  Then we had a 2 hour tour in Italian of the Palazzo Marino, which is like Milan's city hall.  It was a long 2 hours, our tour guide was very good but it's so hard to translate for that long and then take notes.  I also tend to zone out during tours that are in English so naturally I did that a few times but it's much harder to recover from that when the tour is in a different language.  I forgot to bring my camera today, unfortunately, so no pictures for this post but you can take my word for it that it was beautiful inside :)  Also, here's a picture Linds took on her camera from Bergamo!  She didn't mean to take it, she was just testing the light but it ended up coming out really good.

These "field studies" are definitely a nice break from the usual and it's cool how our teachers integrate them into class.  It's also nice to learn about Milan; my roommates and I have said a few times how we feel like we don't know much about our city and that we want to know more!  This was a great way to do so.  When we have some more free time and it gets warmer outside, we want to climb the Duomo, see The Last Supper, take a tour of the castle, and do all of the touristy stuff most people do!  

This week is "American week" for International Week, which is a program, I guess you could call it, that Milan has where a different club/bar sponsors each night of the week and if you go there on those nights, cover is less expensive.  "American week" definitely gives us an excuse to go out tonight, right?  Man, life is tough....I need to take a nap and finish my Italian paper on the tour we had today and then I'm good to go.  

Praying for a snow day for all my friends at Penn State!!! THON in 17<3  And a shout out to my business frat, PGN, and our new pledge class the Alpha Phi's!!  Congrats Annie, Jess, Pete, and Jimmy on a successful rush week and good luck to Lauren and Steph as pledge ed's this semester!!