i met arina on march 7th. on may 11th she left me for holland. that's over 2 months of spending every single day together, doing almost every activity together (walking to and from class, sitting next to each other in class, traveling abroad for 2 weeks while only knowing each other for 3, cooking and eating every meal together, crossing roommate bathroom boundaries, "learning" each other english, dutch & italian, sleeping next to each other in beds/couches/ferry floors, laughing, gossiping, commiserating...) all these experiences together to 6 whole days in a row of being separated.
catherine and diana
cool chandelier.
so when diana, "the italian," invited me to milan for the weekend, i enthusiastically accepted such an offer. i was not only excited to get away for the weekend, but to experience milan with someone who used to live there, to meet her italian friends (it was one of their bday's), as well as embrace the opportunity to get to know diana and catherine better. we drove straight to the wine bar where we had some delicious prosecco and met her girl friends. the birthday party was packed and fun, but let's just say, a 5 minute nap might sound like a good idea when you are trying to assimilate into milanese night-life lifestyle where staying out till 5 in the morning is the norm, but our overextendedallnight nap led us to feel as though we had to redeem our coolness and possibly legitimatize our friendship with diana. the boys in the apartment, regardless of whether or not they knew who we were or remembered that we were at the party the night before, graced us with their italian hospitality and took us out to breakfast, where we saw THE MOST famous italian journalist and then gave us a walking tour around some of the milan neighborhoods. humor is hard to translate, but i couldn't help but laugh the entire morning.
Milan. Touristy.
wandering around and being toured by the italians.
later, we drove to Lake Garda to diana's friend's family's house. we parked along the street and had to walk up the car-less village of tiny cobblestone streets to where the house sat amongst her other family members houses. it seemed surreal and the pictures don't even capture it. the house was gorgeous and walking into the living room with the impressive panoramic view of the lake was jaw-dropping. even with the overcast misty weather. the house was old and preserved as though you stepped right into the past - the epitome of what you would think of an italian home in the 40's. we walked around the downtown of salo, had an aperol aperativo by the waterside, went to a local brewery and a cocktail lounge of absolutely obscure mixes of ingredients - mine was a blend of lavender vodka, lime, rosemary strawberry and blueberry - delicious, but i was ooooozing body wash. everyone had something different - good and bad, hot and cold, bitter and sweet. her friends were all incredibly gracious, hospitable, generous, incredibly funny, and tried their best to include us in their conversations. their english was fantastic and i could catch glimpses of conversations - more so when they talked slowly, but it was like chef mike counting to 100 in a second and they all understood completely. smile and nod, smile and nod.
salo.
despite all the looming, sudden homework we had ahead of us, it was really nice to get out of colorno for the weekend, to meet new people and see diana in her element, to have the opportunity to see new parts of italy, to have first/new experiences with catherine...the homework will be there regardless, it will get done eventually, but these experiences and opportunities (or lack there of if you want to include the sleeping-through-the-disco part) were definitely worth taking advantage of and i hope to have more of them.
the view from the house.
zoom out.
the patio. on the right. ha.
lounging in the sun.
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