Just Cavalli

Since I stayed up late last night doing research and then trying to fall asleep in this heat, I decided to sleep in today. We had no appointments (or so I thought). When I woke up around 11 something, I had an email from Rita saying she was on campus because she couldn't get internet access in the apartment (she's been having computer issues lately). I decided to use the rare opportunity alone, to do some tae-bo and blast the sound extra loud. I showered, and spent a good two hours doing solid research for the project. I received an email around 2pm from Simone stating that there was confusion about our Italian language lessons. Apparently, Susanna expected us today at 2pm, but Rita and I both thought our lesson was on Tuesday at 2pm. I clearly remember us having a conversation about Tuesday and Susanna wanted us to meet at 5pm but I looked up our meeting schedule and told her we should do it earlier because we have a client meeting around 6pm. That's when she suggested 2pm. Somewhere in that conversation, she must have started talking about a different day and we didn't realize it. It didn't seem to be a big deal, we just made plans to meet on Monday instead. I got another email from Rita later on that said some of the girls on our team were planning to go to Just Cavalli cafe tonight, and she wanted to know if I'd like to go. Um, let me see, uh....is that really a question? Of course I wanted to go (I told y'all I'd be back). I asked what time and Rita said she'd find out. She told me later that they were planning to meet there at 10:30pm. Cool. I decided around 4:30pm to go up to the MBA building so that I could print out the articles and studies that I had found. Of course, setting up my printer was not an easy task. I ended up taking my computer back to tech support and letting them do it for me.
I stayed at Bocconi until a little after 8pm and the walk back was pretty boring. Most of the stores were closed so there was nothing to look at. That's usually how I spend my walks to and from school - looking in all the store windows to see what's new. I pass McDonalds every day on the walk back and had a sudden urge today for some french fries (maybe because my diet for the past two weeks has been pasta and sandwiches). To my surprise, they had hot wings on the menu (well not really hot, but chicken wings nonetheless). I didn't think I could consume another sandwich, so I decided to add some variety into my diet and get the wings with some fries (patatine). Total cost: 3.5 euros, although it took a good 10 minutes on line before placing my order. Almost like trying to order at a McDonalds uptown in New York. I will say though, those wings had to be the best tasting wings I've had in a long time. I don't know if it was the fact that I haven't had chicken since I left the states or if the chicken was really that good, but it was gone in a matter of minutes. You would've thought I hadn't eaten in ages. The fries were good too - nice and salty. If they were any different from the fries in the states, I couldn't tell. This marked my second time at McDonalds since I got here. We went to McDonalds our very first day in Milan, because neither one of us knew Italian, and we hadn't quite mustered up the confidence to attempt to order food here. McDonalds was pretty easy - Big Mac and Filet o' Fish are pretty universal.
After scarfing down my food at the apartment, I hopped in the shower, and got dressed since it was 9:20 and I thought we were supposed to be meeting the girls at 10:30. I rushed to get dressed, curl my hair (or attempt to curl it - it wouldn't hold a curl for nothing so I eventually gave up), put makeup on and everything. Then, I walk into the kitchen and there's Rita....sitting in front of her laptop....in a t-shirt and sweatpants! I don't think she wanted to go out. She seemed tired (actually, she did say she was tired but I was already dressed, and no one likes to be dressed up with no place to go). She emailed the girl who told her about the event to clarify the time, then went to get dressed herself. By 10:20 or so, the girl hadn't emailed her back. We were under the impression that we needed reservations to get in this time around, but the other students said it wasn't necessary so we just decided to go anyway and figured we would see the other students there.
We were able to take a single tram directly to the cafe, but we waited too long to ring the bell so we ended up getting off at Corso Sempione - the area we were at the other day when we went to visit La Triennale museum - which meant, we would have to walk through the park to get to the cafe. When we got off the tram, the area looked completely different. There were TONS of people everywhere. But they weren't confined to the restaurants and bars, they were all out in the street, on the sidewalks, on the motorbikes - basically there was no place off limits. Clearly, this was one of the happening parts of town. I attempted to take pictures, but my camera doesn't do well with active night shots - they almost always come out blurry. We walked through the park to the cafe, and when we arrived, there was a crowd of people standing out front by the entrance. There were no clear lines - just two signs, which of course were in Italian so we couldn't understand them. One of the signs had the word "lista" or something like that on it, so we figured that was for people with reservations or who were on some list, but then there was a woman on the other side checking names off of a list too so I'm not really sure. We didn't see any familiar Bocconi faces in the crowd, so we decided to watch for a minute and see what was going on. That only lasted about 2 minutes because then my patience started wearing thin. Very few people were going in and the few that were seemed to be on a list. I was not trying to be standing out there all night, so I walked up to a woman at the entrance and asked if she spoke English. Thankfully, she did. I asked if we needed reservations to get in and she said no. Then I asked her if they were still letting people in tonight and she said the place was "closed" (I think she meant that it was full) but that if I hung around for about 5 minutes we should be able to get in. She called another woman over, who asked me if I was on a list, and I said no, so she directed me to the other side of the entrance. When I got over there, I saw two women go in right before me, and they had tickets. So I asked one of the bouncers if we needed tickets and he said only on weekends (good to know). He walked away, so then I asked the black guy bouncer if there was a cover charge. He looked at me like I had two heads, then finally told me he didn't speak English. I took him for French (at least that was what his speaking sounded like). We decided to wait a few minutes, and lo and behold, a couple of minutes later, a large group of people left and we were the first ones in. The bouncer gave us a Just Cavalli ticket (of course, we had no idea what to do with it) then we walked in. There was no metal detector, no frisking, no bag search...nothing (hey, I'm from NYC - there's a proper process you have to go through before entering a club, lol). We just walked up a few steps and there was Just Cavalli cafe. It actually wasn't anything fancy, considering it's a designer's spot, but it was cute. There were several bars spread around, and a few VIP areas with black lounge furniture. People were mostly standing around drinking and socializing. There was this "jazz techno" music playing in the background (that's what I called it b/c it sounded like techno, but had a jazz sound to it). After checking the space out, we still didn't see any Bocconi faces we recognized, so we decided to get drinks from the bar. Now, in theory, ordering a drink should be pretty simple but of course nothing here is. First, it occurred to us that we don't know how to order drinks in Italian. I was trying to look up the word "pineapple" for Rita on my blackberry but it was taking too long. She noticed a bottle of Malibu behind the bar, so I decided to order a Malibu and Coke - that's pretty universal, I guess. The sign at the bar said something about 15 euros. Great. This would quite likely be the most expensive drink I have ever had in my life, but I preferred not to think about the dollar translation. It might possibly depress me. The bartender asked for our tickets then told us we had to take it to the cash register at the end of the bar. Apparently, there was an elaborate process for ordering drinks. We go to the cash register and had to pay 15 euros and turn in our ticket. In exchange, we received a new ticket (which was a different color) and a receipt. So, I'm thinking I get to keep the receipt, so I put it in my purse. When I go back to the bartender, he asks me for my receipt (great). So I dig through the purse and find my receipt. He takes the receipt and tells me I can keep the ticket (shouldn't it be the other way around?). After we got our drinks, we went over to the VIP area so Rita could check out the bottle service menu. Rita contemplated stealing the menu (y'all didn't hear that from me, lol) but only because she didn't know enough Italian to ask for a manager to see if they would give her permission to take it. I told her I would have no parts of it...not exactly trying to get arrested for being a thief in Milan. Then I'd have to call y'all at $1.29 per minute (thanks Verizon) and ask you to spend $1400 on a ticket to come bail me out of jail...and I don't think y'all would appreciate that (although on the bright side you'd get to visit Milan too!). In the end, being the honest person that she is, she decided to write down the bottle prices (and leave the menu) so she could reference them when she opens her own venue. While we were hanging out in the VIP area (standing, not sitting - we're not balling like that yet), this Italian guy approached us and started a random conversation - asking if we were American, where we're from, what we're doing in Milan. He was nice enough (he told us his name but I really don't remember...told y'all, bad with names). Apparently, he was there with about four females and they started getting jealous and trying to pull him away (I'm not exaggerating - one of them literally came over and tried to act like she was his girlfriend - the funny part was he denied her immediately, lol). He told them he was trying to work on his English. Yeah, ok. After they kept interrupting the conversation, he finally said "I guess my friends are getting jealous - they won't leave me alone." I just laughed and we said goodbye to the entire group. A little after midnight, we decided to leave since the trams stop running around 1am. There is an after hours bus that runs but the process to catch it sounds quite elaborate so we decided to make sure we left in time to catch the tram. On the way out, the guy at the gate asked us for our tickets, and we had to give them back in order to exit. So I have not so much as a souvenir from my visit. Boo! I did take a photo inside but that's about it. When we got back to the apartment, the Bocconi girl had emailed us back saying they had all taken naps and were going to meet at the cafe around midnight. Which means we probably just missed them. They may have even been standing outside when we were leaving...I didn't notice. Oh well, I enjoyed the visit. And something tells me there will be many more outings with the Bocconi students. Here are some photos of our night, and some pictures of our apartment in Milan: http://picasaweb.google.com/keeshaun/TheApartmentAndJustCavalli
Ciao!