All the News ... In Milano

Today was field trip Numero Due di tre questo semestre.

Last night Maria cooked dinner for everyone (pasta with pancetta) and had all fifteen of us over to her apartment (she's one of six girls in the biggest apartment). Dinner was excellent and it was a great alternative to going out since we all had to be up so early this morning.

I woke up bright and early at 5:20 this morning in order to get a shower, eat an omelet and make it to the train station to meet the rest of our class at 6:30 for a 7 a.m. train to Milan.

The train ride was uneventful since most of us slept and I listened to my iPod the whole time. We arrived in Milan just before 9 a.m. and walked in a giant CCI mob with Fabio and Francesca from the train station to a cafe large enough to seat us all. I ordered a scone and cappuccino for breakfast and sat pondering the fact that the walls were covered in hand-drawn pictures of naked people. An interesting thought during breakfast.

We had a 9:30 tour after breakfast at the offices of "Corriere della Sera," ("Evening Courrier") Italy's oldest and most respected newspaper. The tour began with a video explaining what a typical day is like at the paper. Unfortunately, the video was in Italian, so Marzio, the reporter who talked to our class Tuesday, had to summarize the video in English as we watched it.

After that, we took a tour of the whole office, which was pretty cool. The first floor is dedicated to the main offices and a meeting room for editors. We got to sit at the editors' table while our guide (who only spoke Italian) told us a little about the history of the newspaper and Marzio translated. Marzio and the guide showed us copies of some of the most historic editions of the "Corriere," which were all framed around the walls. The very first edition came out March 5, 1876 and had no illustrations or images. The whole thing was just solid text, much like American newspapers of that time.

Also framed, were the first illustrated edition, papers from both World Wars, Italy gaining freedom of press, historic moments in Italian sports, and a newspaper from September 11 chronicling the attack on America.

"Attacco all'America e alla civiltà"

After this meeting, we went upstairs to the offices of "La Gazzatta dello Sport," a publication of the "Corriere" and Italy's most popular sports magazine. Only a few reporters were there since it is an evening publication, but we got to see the offices and all of the trophies the paper has earned.

At the end of the tour, we got gift bags containing copies of both papers, a news magazine, pens, and a keychain. All of the papers are in Italian, so they won't do me any good, but at least now I have some nice, free Italian papers to bring home as souvenirs.

We had three hours of free time after the newspaper tour. I went to lunch with Lydia, Erika, Yelena, and Caitlin. All five of us ordered risotto milanese (risotto with saffron and parmesan), the official food of Milan. It was soo good! This has probably been my favorite local dish so far.

Lunch took a long time (it is Italy), so we didn't have much time left to sightsee. We looked for inexpensive clothes (Caitlin and I need dresses for dancing in Madrid next weekend), but of course couldn't find any since it's Milan. In one block, I saw Gucci, Versace, Salvatore Ferragamo, Fratelli Rossetti, Luis Vuitton, Prada, Valentino, Cartier, Chanel, Fendi, Armani, Hermés, and... McDonald's, among others.

Seriously. The main square in the city center has Prada on one corner, Swarovski on another, Chanel on another, and McDonald's on the fourth. And the McDonald's looked just as classy as the stores. Go figure.

Instead, we had just enough time to go see a fountain, then go back to the newspaper to meet Fabio and Francisca, who took us to La Feltrinelli bookstore for a lecture on book publishing. This lecture was really boring. I felt bad, but between the early morning, the dull speaker and the heat (that room was really hot and it was a warm day to begin), I could barely stay awake. She literally talked about sales figures at the store. It was like a company finance meeting. All I could think about the whole time was how this store is exactly like Borders. And look how well things turned out for those guys... Don't ask me why we learned any of that, because I have no clue.

That lecture concluded our tour of Milan. We went right back to the train station after that and arrived back in Firenze just after 7 p.m.

I wish we could have seen more in Milan since it is a very beautiful city. I would say it's comparable to New York, based on what I've seen on TV of NYC. It was definitely the most crowded place I've been so far in Italy, but part of that probably had to do with the weather being nicer than it's been since the beginning of the year.

Now it's time to pack for another big day tomorrow and get to bed. I'm exhausted! Tomorrow most of our group is going to Cinque Terre for the day. Bethany and I are the only ones staying overnight, so I still need to pack for that. I probably won't want to do it tomorrow morning at 7 when I wake up...

Buona notte, mi amici!