Apparently, our free wireless becomes inaccessible after a certain time, and I must have gotten home after that time last night because I couldn't get internet access to save my life. So, this update is a little off schedule...but I had a great day yesterday! Since it was Saturday, it was market day. I woke up in the morning and did a load of laundry. We have a washing machine in our apartment, and everyone here seems to line dry their clothing. The landlord left written instructions for how to operate the machine because it's a bit complex, but it worked like a charm. Since the weather is hot here, my clothes dried very quickly - some of my cotton tops were dry in about 30 minutes. The only thing I don't like about the system is there's no way to soften your clothes, because there's no way to add fabric softener. So, my denims and some of my tops were pretty rough - I had to iron them out so I wouldn't feel like they were scraping my skin when I wear them.
After I hung out my clothes to dry, I decided to tackle the market. This time I walked to the very beginning of the market so I could see everything. It turns out that the vendors are different every week, although there are still a lot of the same types of items: clothing, beauty products, shoes, bedding, jewelry, and toiletries. I bought some black scrungies for my hair (since it's getting about that time...you know, when the hair starts looking a hot mess, and all I can do is pull it back in a ponytail). I also made an impulse purchase of a long sleeve, white blazer type jacket to wear during my meetings this week. I have a short sleeve one, but I think I will wear this one for the more formal meeting.
After the clothes market, I hit up the fresh foods market, which I had much less patience for this week. My Italian hasn't gotten that much better (maybe we shouldn't have missed that Italian session last week), although I was still able to get around that and order what I needed. One guy that I bought peaches from seemed frustrated with my lack of Italian, and insisted on speaking to me in very fast Italian even though it was obvious that I don't speak the language. I couldn't understand what he was telling me the total cost was so he just printed out the receipt and gave it to me. All I bought this week were watermelon, bananas, and peaches (just a handful - I opted not to buy the big bunch of about 15 where half of them go bad within 2 days). While walking around, I ran into Sook, one of the girls from Bocconi who is working on my team (she is the one from South Korea). We started talking about places to visit while in Italy and she recommended Vienna, although she said she hadn't been to Florence so she couldn't compare the two. I took note to look into it. Sook lives just a few blocks from us, and apparently doesn't like the fruit market at all because some of the fruits go bad too quickly (ie. peaches) so she was headed to the supermarket to buy her fruit.
When I got back to the apartment, I ate (tuna sandwich and fruit), then started ironing some of my rough clothes. Rita had wanted to go back to the via Montenapoleone area to find the Burberry store (it's on a side street, so we never found it last time) so we decided to go in the afternoon. Apparently, Burberry is not very big in Milan. We rarely see anyone wearing Burberry. Louis Vuitton, on the other hand, is everywhere. It seems like everyone and their mama has a LV bag, although supposedly it's like New York, where most of it is counterfeit (our Italian friends at Bocconi confirmed this).
The Burberry store is actually on via Verri, so we hopped on a tram that should have taken us directly there. However, when we got close to the Duomo area, the tram stopped and the driver started looking around like something was wrong. He eventually got off the tram and walked down the block to talk to the driver of the tram that was behind us. We decided to get off and walk since we knew we were in the right vicinity. When we got to Duomo, the plaza was set up with red and black tents and blow up areas. There weren't a lot of people there yet, so we could tell they were setting up for something to begin soon, but there weren't very many signs indicating what the event was. We finally saw a sign on the side of a vehicle that indicated it was the A.C. Milan tour. Now, I didn't know who A.C. Milan was before I came here, so I'm not going to assume you do. Apparently, they are the Italian soccer team, and soccer is a huge here (as evidenced by our waitress experience in Como). The event looked like it was supposed to be for kids to come out and do drills with the players. We took a few pictures and kept going in search of Burberry. After taking a very roundabout path, we found via Verri. The first store we noticed was Tom Ford, and I immediately thought of Ashley. The Tom Ford window display was gorgeous (I tried to get it on camera but don't think I did it justice). He used this blue lighting to showcase a pair of sunglasses in one window and a pair of shoes in the other window. It was very eye-catching. As we were standing there taking a picture we saw a hand inside the store waving at us, so we waved back (that's all we could see was the hand). I crossed the street to try to get a closer picture of the sunglasses display and when I got right up on the display, the hand had moved in my direction and turned into a face. There was this black guy smiling at us and gesturing for us to come into the store. I laughed and gestured back a "no, thanks." I think he may have been the first American looking black guy I've seen in Italy (although it's unlikely that he's American). And he was noticeably attractive. Hey, I'm just saying...a girl has eyes. :-)
We kept walking a few more steps and ran right into Burberry, Alexander McQueen and Gucci (same Gucci store, just a different entrance). We went into Burberry for Rita's sake, and spent a good 20 minutes in the store. I own one pair of Burberry sandals and a matching purse (the blue nova check) but the classic print usually doesn't move me, so I was surprised at how many things I actually liked in the store. The store was three levels and included accessories and mens/womens/children apparel. There were a few bags that I liked (I'm in search of a really big handbag, by the way) and a couple of wool trench coats that were very "me." Unfortunately, none of those things are in my budget. The trench coats alone ranged from 2800-4000 euros...yeah, euros, not dollars. That's about the $4500-7000 range. Maybe when this Wharton education pays off, I will be able to splurge on a trench coat without flinching. I guess in the meantime, I will have to aspire to these things.
After leaving Burberry, Rita returned to Gucci for a quick minute, then we went to Dior so she could price some Dior aviator sunglasses that she wants to buy. She wanted to see if she could get the SKU so she could try to find them elsewhere for less. Surprisingly though, they had lowered the price about 30 euros since our last visit. From Dior, we decided to just walk around the side streets that we had missed before. We passed Versace's offices on Via Gesu, as well as two Chanel boutiques, and another Roberto Cavalli boutique. I tried to get a picture of Chanel's window - it had a mannequin styled to the tee looking fabulous. Exactly what one would expect of Chanel, but I'm not sure my photo did it any justice. We also passed Balenciaga, and Omega (I took photos for Crystal and Kevin since it made me think of them). Rita had been looking for the Armani cafe, which we never found, although we browsed the Armani store briefly (I wasn't impressed, especially since he is supposed to be such a king of Milan). We decided to check out Just Cavalli because Rita said the other Just Cavalli cafe was located in the store. That turned out not to be true (or at least, if so, we didn't see it) but after our visit, the Just Cavalli store officially became my favorite store in the area. The first floor looks like nothing special. There are a few racks of mens and womens clothing. We looked around and were about to leave, but then we noticed a winding staircase that went both upstairs and downstairs. The staircase had red steps and this metallic lighting effect going on. One of the workers told us there was menswear downstairs and womenswear upstairs. So we went upstairs. Upstairs, was a larger space with racks of clothing around the perimeter and a handful of mannequins in the center. I found quite a few things that I liked including a tangerine dress with one frilled shoulder and a slanted bottom effect. Very "me", lol. They had a lot of bold printed jeans that I would never wear in a lifetime, but I liked looking at them. When we got ready to go, we noticed an elevator in the middle of the room (somehow we had completely missed this on the first floor) so we decided to ride the elevator down. Let me tell y'all about this elevator: it had several seating areas which consisted of white, plush seat tops; there were several mirrors, a television showing a Just Cavalli fashion show, and glass doors. Very fabulous considering the entire stores was only 3 levels. Unfortunately, the ride was very quick so we didn't get to savor it all, but I did take pictures. Perhaps the elevator goes to some secret floor where the cafe is?
After hitting up the side streets, we looked at the map and saw there was a "public garden" nearby (turns out it was more like a big park - very few actual flowers or anything) so we walked through the park and just talked. The park itself was big (not Central Park big, but big for a city like Milan), and really nice - it had several kids' rides including bumper cars, and a carousel, and there were a lot of benches, and grassy areas to lay out (if you're the laying out in the sun type). We stopped at this cafe in the park and I bought a donut. Rita bought this drink called "Granita" which seems to be popular here. It basically looks like a slushy, in different flavors. Standing at the cafe, we looked up and noticed the Museum of Modern Art so we decided to walk over and see their hours. We never quite made it though, because somehow in the course of conversation, we started walking in the wrong direction and ended up instead at the Museum of Natural History. Unfortunately, they had just closed at 5pm (it was 5:06 according to my blackberry) so we didn't get to go in. Using Rita's handy little streetwise map, we walked around the area some more to explore some new streets, then found our way back to the Duomo to have coffee at Puro Gusto - this cafe in the square. I had my usual (cappuccino) and it was yummy (after I bombarded it with sugar).
Rita couldn't get that lounge on Corso Sempione out of her head (the cute, trendy looking one I told y'all about) so we decided to go there for an aperitivo since it was around 6pm. It would be our first aperitivo in Italy! The name of the lounge is Deseo and when we got there, we chose to be different and sit inside (mainly b/c Rita wanted to scope out the decor and setup for her business). The inside had white, leather furniture, with some lounge areas, and other table areas. We were the only ones inside when we arrived - everyone else was seated outside. The aperitivo is similar to what we consider "happy hour" in the states but not quite. The drink menu will list an aperitivo price in addition to a higher price after a certain time (at Deseo, the drink prices increase at 9:30pm). You pay for your drink, and there is a buffet of appetizers and light foods that you can eat "free" (technically, I'm guessing the price is built into the cost of your drink, but no additional charge). Most of the drinks at Deseo were 7 euros for aperitivo. We ordered drinks then checked out the buffet, which grew as the evening went on. Over the course of the evening it had fried potato balls, mini cheese pizzas, grilled vegetables, pasta salad with tomatoes and mozzarella, breadcrumb covered mussels, rissoti (rice, with olives and vegetables) and more...those were the things I tried but there were some other foods up there too. The music they were playing was tripping me out. From about 7pm on, they were playing almost entirely U.S. hip hop and R&B music: I'm talking 50 cent, Sean Paul (they played "Punkie" and I almost fainted, lol), Tupac, Fabolous & Little Mo (some song, I had never even heard before)....they even played Little Wayne "Lollipop." Crazy. We stayed there eating, drinking and talking until almost midnight (I don't know where the time went because it didn't even seem that long). The place started filling up around 7 or 8, I guess, and was really crowded by the time we left, with people flooding the streets, much like the other night when we were in the area. Rita felt the price increase too, when she ordered a ginger ale after 9:30. It cost her 8 euros - she actually paid more for her ginger ale, than for her bar drinks earlier. We were able to take the tram across the street right back to our apartment, which was nice, and surprisingly there were a lot of people on the tram - mostly young folks hanging out on a Saturday night. I really enjoyed the lounge - it made me feel like I was back in NY for a hot second. More to come...
Here are the pictures from the day: http://picasaweb.google.com/keeshaun/MoreMontenapoleoneNYCInMilan02
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