Week 16- Cultural Development

Week 16- 10^th-17^th May 2012

From the Opera to the football stadium, we really did manage to see everything Milan had to offer! Even though we were only in Milan for four days, Ali and I managed to pack so much into our time.

Having never been to Italy before, I was really looking forward to this trip, not only for the sunshine and the food, but also because it would give me the opportunity to discover a bit more about the culture of another country, something I am really enjoying having the opportunity to be able to do while on ERASMUS. As we arrived at our hostel, we were immediately welcomed by the owner, who was so keen to tell us the best places to go, to eat and things to see. This immediately made me feel a lot more settled and we knew that if we had any problems or confusion we could always ask him.  He recommended that we go to Lake Como for a day as it was only an hour away by train, and this was something that we decided to do, to give ourselves a day away from the city and to totally relax and enjoy the sunshine. To get away to somewhere so calm after being in so many busy cities over the last few months was something I really appreciated, we were able to just lie by the lake and totally relax!

However I did feel that even in the city, Milan was very relaxed and had a lovely atmosphere. In Italy it seems that people enjoy just being able to sit in cafes and drink coffees and enjoy the Italian food and chilled out atmosphere, and again this was something that Ali and I took advantage of whenever we could. It surprised me how well the Italian people we had to communicate with spoke English, but after talking to one of our Italian friends here she explained that often to work in restaurants or shops in areas of Italy where there are high numbers of tourists you need to have a good level of English. We noticed and appreciated this especially after the language issues we experienced while in Spain the weekend before.

We managed to visit the Duomo, and took the elevator up to the roof, where not only could we see for miles around Milan but we were also able to appreciate the amazing architecture of the building. We were lucky enough to also manage to go the opera, as we were told that they release 140 tickets on the day of the show for only 12euro! Although our seats were as high up as they could possibly be, it was something totally different and I really enjoyed this experience even though it was at times hard to understand what was going on! After deciding we wanted to go and visit the famous Milan football ground, we arrived only to discover that there was a match on that day...so naturally we decided since we were already there we may as well get tickets and go! (We were the only ones who didn’t understand the rules, and were very obviously tourists as every time Milan scored and the whole crowd started singing and chanting whereas we were too busy trying to take photos!)

At the football match!

Spinning on the bull to make a wish!

Milan was a great trip, and we have definitely improved our map reading skills, and I feel I have learnt to be a lot more independent when travelling and having to organise things, ERASMUS has taught me so much already, and I am excited to see what new surprises and challenges my final two weeks in Copenhagen will bring.