The Marc Jacobs are back!!!

So, today turned out to be a great day for several reasons. First and foremost, I found a place that was able to fix my Marc Jacobs! To make it even better, it only cost me 2 euros (I was prepared to pay much more - there's nothing worse than walking around in the scorching sun with sun beaming in your face). The other reason today was a good day is because we finally met Simone and our Italian language instructor Susanna. And I like them both a lot! We met Simone at his office at noon, and he introduced us to Susanna, and another woman who shares his office (I told y'all I'm bad with names). Susanna was joining us for lunch, so the four of us took a quick tour of the MBA building. I found out there is a fresh orange juice machine in the basement....yeah I know, the things I get excited about, lol. We also got to check out the study rooms (the computers are quite dated compared to Wharton - no flat panel screens, and slow as molasses with ten million icons on the desktop). Then we left the building and walked through the nearby park, to tour the main Bocconi campus. I'm not even going to perpetrate like I remember all the buildings they showed us - most of them were undergrad buildings I will never use though. I do remember that there are several new buildings constructed within the last 4-5 years, and a couple others which are still under construction - they are trying to develop some type of campus. Right now the university is mostly a bunch of standalone buildings on different streets. After the tour, we met up with Daniela and the five of us went to the university's more upscale dining restaurant (again, don't remember the name but similar to the Inn at Penn or Faculty Dining at Wharton).
Lunch was very informal, and informational. We didn't have anything specific to discuss so we just chitchatted about the most random things. I got to see how Italians perceive their own designer brands (the consensus was that D&G is a waste of money - average quality at a premium price, and that Gucci and Prada were favored as the best in terms of quality and style). I also got their take on the must-see cities in Italy (again, there was consensus: Rome is a definite and Florence is second choice; we were told Venice is nice but overcrowded with tourists although still a must see). That pretty much confirmed our itinerary, since those are the three cities we intend to visit before I leave (Rita will be here an extra two weeks and has another insane itinerary of places she will visit on her own). The meal itself was interesting. Of course the menu was in Italian - no english translations. So I ordered the only thing I could understand: Spaghetti alla Caprese...basically, it was spaghetti with tomato sauce and fresh mozarella. Great. That is it was great until I had to figure out how to eat it without slurping strings of spaghetti at the table. It was quite interesting...and I succeeded...for the most part...I think. Lol. For dessert, I had something much more simple: fruit salad. I got to taste Italian coffee for the first time as well. Ok, for the record, I'm not a coffee drinker. I'm a Starbucks drinker (translation: I drink coffee beverages - you know, the ones you add a ton of milk and sugar to - but I'm not a big fan of pure coffee). And to make it worse, Italian coffee is VERY strong. So strong, it comes in a tiny cup with about three sips worth of coffee. When it came, I saw the Italians at the table getting sugar packets, and all I could think was "what are they doing? There isn't even enough coffee in this cup to add sugar to!" I ended up adding sugar - almost a whole packet (I didn't think a whole packet would get dissolved in that little bit of coffee), and guess what? It didn't make a difference, it still tasted a lot like muddy water to me (I told y'all I'm not a coffee drinker). I was grateful for the experience though.
After lunch, we returned to the MBA building and picked up our belongings (Simone gave us SDA Bocconi messenger bags), then went into a study room with Susanna to talk about one of my favorite subjects...shopping! See, this is why I adore Susanna: because she is officially our Italian language instructor, but she is so down to earth and personable, she told us she is also unofficially our guide to answer any questions we have about anything during our stay. We had many conversations today about shopping, and she recommended several outlet malls for us to shop at. So when we got together after lunch, the three of us basically surfed the internet for 45 minutes getting information on the outlet malls (there is one in the city, one outside Milan that we can take a shuttle to, and one in Switzerland). She also gave us ATM maps (not like bank machines - ATM is what they call their public transportation system). She pointed out some areas of the city that we should visit including Corso Como - a supposedly lively and trendy street, where the Neiman Marcus concept store is (at least that's what the head of the retailing initiative at Wharton told me). We set up our first language class with Susanna for Tuesday at 2pm, so that it doesn't conflict with our client meeting. We are allowed up to 3 hours per week with her at no cost, although since we are not yet sure of our project schedules, we're only planning to meet twice a week for now. She told us she will give us a crash course (ie. skipping theory and focusing on Italian that we will actually use while we're here). I'm looking forward to it.
After leaving Bocconi, we walked around the university area, which is where I found a place to fix my Marc Jacobs. The first place I went to told me they couldn't fix it but surprisingly there were about 3 eyeglass shops...all within a block and a half of one another. The second one came to my rescue, so now I have sunglasses again! On the walk from the eyeglass shop to the sma supermarket, we found an Italian dollar store. Or, I guess, an Italian euro store. I know, unbelieveable. Rita had been looking for a notebook, and was going to purchase one for 7 euros from this little shop near the school. Instead she found one at the euro store for 1.5 euros (ok, not exactly a euro store, but neither are the ones in the states either). I was surprised by how many items in the store were in English though. At least half the store consisted of items written in English. Maybe Italians don't actually shop the euro store...maybe it's just for us tourists.
The supermarket was somewhat disappointing - they had the asiago cheese, but it looked like a wet mop. Not appetizing at all. Which was a surprise because the nice firm block I got the last time was from the exact same supermarket. I'm not sure if the asiago I'm used to is just americanized (I think not since I was able to find it in Italy once) or if the version I keep finding is "more Italian". I opted to get provolone instead. Since we just went shopping yesterday all I bought was the cheese and some ice cream bars. Once again, we had planned to take the tram home, but ended up walking because the wait was 15 minutes. I'm not sure what's going on lately with these long tram waits. When I got back to the apartment, I did my tae-bo (oh, y'all thought I was playing) then got cleaned up and did some more research on some of the places Susanna recommended. Tomorrow I have to be up bright and early so I'm signing off for now...