Istituto Marangoni

I have some great news. On Wednesday, I'm going to my first fashion show in Milan! Isn't that exciting? Ok, so it's not quite the Mens Fashion Week shows that I keep hearing about (thanks Crystal and Janessa!) but as a beggar, I will not be choosy. Rita had told me last week that it was a possibility, but Susanna, our language instructor, confirmed it today in our first Italian class. We will be her guests at the Istituto Marangoni Fashion Show. According to Susanna, the school operates in Milan, Paris, and London, and is considered the #1 school for fashion and design. This show will feature designs by their graduates. I've never heard of them before, but I'm excited to be going to their fashion show, lol. I checked out their website, and you can actually see shots from last year's show here: http://www.marangonifashionshow.com/.
So, moving on, language class was great, although I get the feeling that learning Italian will be a full time project in and of itself. Susanna gave us this thick spiral binder of material that she usually uses for a 7 month course....umm, clearly I won't be getting through that in the next month. But it does have a lot of useful information in it including grammar, common phrases, and my favorite: foods. Flipping through the book, I felt like I was in pre-school again - there were lots of fill in the blanks, comic pictures, and matching exercises. Hey, I guess we are starting with the basics, so I appreciate it. I thought the class itself would be an hour (that's what we were told) but today's class lasted an hour and 45 minutes. Susanna told us that after today there would be no more english in class. Uh oh. I guess I better study. Class was fun though. We reviewed basic grammar covering verbs and nouns. We also learned the alphabet (that was very confusing - it's like a mesh of the Greek, Spanish, and American alphabets), basic colors, articles of clothing, and common conversational phrases. At the end we did an exercise where I had to role play making a dinner reservation with her, and Rita had to role play making a hotel reservation. It was fun, and I felt like I learned a lot. I have a long way to go though. Rita, at least, has Rosetta Stone under her belt. I have....the Langenscheidt English-Italian dictionary that I swiped from my brother. I really want to learn the language though, so I will put forth a good effort. And I learn quick, so hopefully I will be a pro before you know it. At least now I have lots of materials to work with. At the end of our class we set our schedule through next week. Susanna said we can have three classes next week since we missed our class last week. Oh yeah, we figured out what the misunderstanding was about. Last week she said "Thursday" but because of her accent, it sounded like "Tuesday" (if you can imagine that - try saying the two in your head until they converge, lol). So she had been referring to Thursday the entire time - we just misunderstood. Oh well, lesson learned.
After Italian class, I went back to my study room and did some work on the project, and read through my emails. Rita came and got me a little after 5 to head back to the apartment, b/c Sergio - our landlord - was supposed to be coming b/w 6 and 7pm to pick up July's rent, and she wanted to stop at the supermarket first. We went to "sma" supermarket near the school, and were back in the apartment by 6. I laid on my bed and passed out, and woke up around 8:15pm. No Sergio. I asked Rita if she had heard from him and she said no. She called him but got no response. So we're not really sure what happened to him (hopefully nothing bad). When he wasn't here after I woke up, I decided to go back to the store, b/c I had forgotten to get water (I'm down to my last bottle, and with this heat, I can't manage to wait - fortunately, bottled water is one of the few things that are dirt cheap here). I walked to Esselunga, which is the closest supermarket, and apparently evenings are not a good time to go shopping here. The supermarket was packed (although not nearly as packed as it is on Sundays - we found out that this particular supermarket is one of the few that are open on Sundays, and as a result, it turns into a madhouse, with lines running the full length of the store). On top of it being packed, it was practically out of stock on water. The only waters they had left were carbonated. No thanks. So I left and went to Pam, which is a little further away and a little more expensive (on most things, but not everything). Pam, however, doesn't carry small bottles of water for most brands (I don't quite understand this), so I ended up getting two large bottles of San Benedetto water, b/c that was all I could carry back, given how long the walk was. Would you believe the cost for both bottles was .48 euro cents. This is one thing I will do the dollar translation for: 76 cents. Yeah. For two-2 liter sized bottles of water. Crazy.
When I got back to the apartment, Sergio was still a no-show. Rita is going to call him tomorrow morning. I'm thinking that he probably said Monday, thinking it was July 1st and is actually planning to come tomorrow. Except we have a client meeting tomorrow evening, so I don't know how that will work. Oh, so Ashley emailed me and told me she has an extra mobile phone that I can borrow while I am here in Milan, which I thought was very nice of her. At first I had told her I didn't need it b/c I've been getting by with my Blackberry, but then I changed my mind since everyone here seems to communicate by phone. Email is used but not quite as much. Sometimes it takes days to get a response. So hopefully I will get her phone tomorrow. She told me a friend borrowed it a few months back and didn't return the charger so she is trying to get that back so she can bring it to our meeting tomorrow. With the phone, supposedly, I will have to get prepaid cards (apparently, all the cell phones here are prepaid), but the cost to call internationally will be much cheaper than the $1.29 Verizon quoted me. So maybe I will get to hear your voices sooner than I thought...until then, buona notte! (goodnight - I learned that today, lol)