Adventure in the Alps

Ciao amici,

What an amazing and crazy week!

The highlight of the school week was making pizza from scratch with Sadie! As you can see below- we rolled out dough, made our own sauce, piled on the mozzarella and spinach, and man oh man was it delicious! One of the best pizzas I've had!

On Thursday, I had a skype interview for a possible internship for this summer. I still really don't know what I am doing this summer :-/... but these interviews are at least good practice for me!

Zoe came into Milan later that Thursday night and I picked her up at the train station. Unfortunately I had class early Friday morning, so she explored all the touristy sites while I was in class. I took her to Luini for a delicious panzerotti for lunch that day! Yes, even the girl who gets access to Gusta Pizza for a whole semester thought Luini was amazing!!

Friday was quite an adventure. I booked hair cut appointments for Zoe and I at the Toni and Guy Hair Cut Teaching Academy. We weren't quite sure exactly what we were getting ourselves into, but a free haircut is a pretty sweet deal. Here are a few of the 1,000s of reasons why we were nervous:
1. What if they don't speak english??
2. These people are new hair cutters- what if they totally mess up??
3. There are two options for the hair cut- the classic haircut or the advanced avante-garde haircut... these people are training to be amazing hairstylists for like Fashion week- so people were saying that they could try to convince us into getting an avante-garde haircut.
So what did happen?
Strangest experience. We had no idea what to expect. What ended up happening was the teacher (this amazing visionary professional hair designer) went around with the students to each "model" (us- those who voluntarily gave our heads to these newbies) to determine the best haircut for the person and then the teacher instructed the student what to do. Everyone was talking in Italian and we started to freak out. He finally got to us, and luckily spoke English. He gets to me and says that I should have an advanced haircut- and in my head I am freaking out thinking that he wants to shave off half my head of hair or something. He gave me a look book to pick from and we agreed upon a style. There were 8 models and only 6 students so two people had to wait for the other 6 to be done. Of course Zoe was one of the models who didn't get their hair cut right away. I got stuck with the most new student there was. He was afraid to cut a single strand of hair. He was incredibly nice but it took him 2 full hours to give me the most basic hair cut. By the end, I got a little frustrated because everyone else was on the hair drying stage when he was still cutting the first layer of my hair. Anyway, he gave me the basic haircut and then the professional teacher came over and fixed it and added the bangs and the pizazz that we agreed upon. It was one of my best haircuts! I loved it. It had body and curls and it was great. I wish I could have my hair like that every day!
Zoe's haircut did not even start until mine was over (which took 2.5 hours!). The teacher professional had a little thing for Zoe and agreed to cut her hair! She was getting the premium experience. Everyone stared in awe as he cut and shaped her hair. He was like in a trance envisioning the end result. It was amazing. Zoe's hair cut was great and despite being at Toni and Guy for 3 hours more than we expected, it was an extremely successful day.

We met up with Sadie, Chris, and Hugh for aperitivo at Forestawood Bar that night. After dinner we got lost on our way to go to AJ and Arturo's apartment. We got there as everyone was walking out the door. We decided to go with them to Alcatraz. It was a fun night there and it was especially great because we not only got in for free but figured out the bus system home so the travel home was free too! That's a sign of a successful night!

On Saturday, Zoe and I went to a Asian restaurant for lunch. I actually live a minute from Milan's Chinatown and had yet to explore it. Afterwards, we took an adventure and explored around the Navigli area. We got lost trying to find the Bagel Factory and wound up in a flea market. Our adventure eventually landed us at the Bagel Factory (WOO!) and I stocked up on bagels for the next month! Hugh, Sadie, and Chris came over for dinner- we cooked an epic feast with amazing normal lasagna, pesto lasagna, garlic bread, two chocolate cakes! YUMM, we ate ourselves silly! I have mastered making lasagna at this point. I LOVE IT!

Zoe left early the next morning to go to Lake Como with her friends, and I was off to the Alps to go skiing!

IES planned a fabulous ski trip for us! The bus left early Sunday morning and we got there around midday. We had a hotel right on edge of the ski mountain. The ski town we were in was called La Thuile in the Aosta Valley region, which is in the Italian alps, northwest of Milan. THE ALPS ARE AMAZING AND BEAUTIFUL! It looks like a scene out of a movie. It was not real. We had the most amazing weather; it was sunny and beautiful and was not cold at all.

As soon as we got there, a lot of us immediately put on ski clothes and went to hit the slopes. I started the day skiing with Ale (the RA- a local Italian), Paula (who basically lives on a ski resort is a skiing and snowboarding master), Nini (from Skidmore too!), and AJ. They were all fantastic skiers and I got myself a bit over my head.

The first run went fine until someone crashed into me, which kind of made my lose my confidence. We took a chair lift up the mountain and ended up on a red slope. :-/... The leveling here in the Alps is different than in America. The lowest is blue, the middle is red, and black is the hardest; but, each level is one level higher than in the states. So the lowest in the Alps (Blue) would be equivalent to a blue in the states (which is the second after green, the easiest). Red in the Alps would be like an American Black! So we ended up on a red slope and boy was I out of my league. I ended up just sliding down the mountain on the side as I had a minor panic attack that I was going to die on the top of the mountain. Meanwhile, the others causally skied on down the mountain. That was the end of me skiing with these amazing skiers. I spent the rest of the day on the easy blue slopes with another girl Sarah. The blues were a bit to easy but for my first day it was a good warm up for the next day!

The buffet dinner provided by the hotel was amazing! Of course most of the food was like "too fancy" for me; if you know me well enough, I am a picky eater and do not eat fancy food. They served like rabbit and fish and pork, etc. Not for me. But I feasted on the delicious pasta! Later that night, a large pack of IES people went to the local pub, King's Pub. We were expecting a really cool bar or discoteca like we have in Milan. Nope... we were the only ones there! It was a cute pub, with a pool table and foosball table. I lost miserably in pool with Anna against Nini and AJ. I actually like pool, but I was uber miserable- like missed hitting the ball every time. Doesn't matter how you play as long as you enjoy it!

Monday we woke up early to be on the slopes when they opened. Little did I know that I was going to wake up with incredible pain around my ankles from skiing the day before. I was in such a rush the day before to get onto the slopes that I was not very careful about socks and pants layers; it ended up bruising my ankles pretty badly. I could barely make it down blue slopes that morning, but I did my best and skiied a little with Erin, Cassie, and Kala.

I took it easy that morning because I scheduled a 2-hour lesson with an instructor so that he could take me down the red slopes. This was the best two hours ever! The lesson started out shaky because he spoke very little English and we struggled to communicate. After a while we figured out how to communicate- mainly me just mimicking what he did. He took me down some amazing slopes and took me to other sides of the mountain I hadn't gotten to get to yet. What's cool about the La Thuile mountain is that you can ski into France! I am not sure entirely because the teacher kept saying French...French... so I think that means I skied into France! We went down all reds for the entire 2 hours! We even went down one black at the end of the lesson! I WAS SO PROUD OF MYSELF. AND I NEVER FELL ONCE! It was an amazing day and the mountain was just so beautiful. Another note about what was cool... It was possible to see Mont Blanc- the tallest mountain in the Alps- from the slopes that we were on! Honestly the tops of the mountains all look similar, but people pointed it out to me!

Same thing as the night before, we feasted at the hotel buffet. My roommates on the trip, Anna, Paula, and Nini bought a bottle of the local wine. It ended up costing double (like 5 euros more) than we expected; we expected some amazing local wine...nope.. it ended up tasting like a lumberjack or a log cabin. oy. lol We went that night again to King's Pub because its the only bar in town. I played pool with Arturo and actually improved! I hit a few balls in! WOO

View from the Gondola up the mountain 

On Tuesday, most of us took a bus to Courmayeur, a neighboring town. It was described to us as an ritzy ski town where many Milanese locals vacation. The town was really cute, but like everywhere else, shops and stores close down in the middle of the day. So a half hour after we got there all the stores were closed. We ended up getting pizza/focaccia at a really cute local place and then sitting and eating gelato until the IES bus picked us up to go home. It was a really long and exhausting weekend but it was so amazing! I SKIED IN THE ALPS! Look at these photos- aren't these mountains incredible??

Photos of Courmayeur:

Courmayeur

Well what an amazing weekend and just a few days later I was in Copenhagen to visit Kayla K. What an amazing few weeks. More stories of my Italian adventures to come! 

Snow angels and butterflies,

~E