O bei, o bei

That's the name of the famous market in the center of Milan that occurs in the beginning December. I started at Castello Sforzesco ('bout halfway into the market) and took a right turn. And walked for two whole hours..! On top of that, after about 1 hour into my walking tour of it all, the market actually ramified and continued in opposite directions. Crazy!

But the thing is, it's not a flea market as we Americans know this sort of thing to be-- this sort of "mercato" (market) is definitely not cheap. It's more of an artisan market (but that's not to say there's not total junk too, because there is plenty of it!) So after 2 hours and having just bought some black roasted olives (common in Sicily, not so common in northern Italy), I decided that was enough for me. Anyway, here are some photos from this all-out, complete assault on the senses. So many sights, sounds, and smells... the touch factor, of course, is also included gratuitously, since market-goers like to play bumper cars, just without the cars:










What the hell indeed.




Henna-decorated lamps.




Spices.


Gosh, they just make them so good you just can't tell if it's real or fake anymore!










Marzipan. *gag*


Chestnuts on a string.




I got yelled at for taking a pic of these. Hehe!





And just when I thought I had seen the markets of all markets....wait 'til you see what's coming in the next post! [south park] Jaaaaaaazusss Kwiiiissst!!!!! [/south park]

christkindlmärkte

Woot for Christmas Markets!!!

Ok, one thing that's awesome about northern Italy is that you get all the goods on what Italy has to offer (the food, the people, the art, the culture, the coffee, etc) but also some really cool traditions that are otherwise native to Germany, Switzerland, and Austria. Such as the Christkindlmarkt. So exciting! This park is right across the street from me, and on the other side of the park is the school I work at. So everyday I saw it grow/develop a little bit more, and now it's all set up and open! Yay, my first Christmas Market! ...yea, I know, I'm going to be the only person above the age of 18 on that rink, woot! In fact, this afternoon, a bunch of my students were ice skating while I was walking towards school and asked me to come skate with them. How cute!! (Unfortunately, I had to jet to do some very important errands!)

Here's what it looked like while getting set up:





Men at work.


Making ice.




Yes, the houses really are that small-- like little sheds.



All set and ready to go:






Got yelled at for taking this picture. Haha. Weirdos.






"How good hot chocolate is" (rough translation)
with or without whipped cream (or apparently, with a side of cotton candy.)









A cool lamp that made me think of my sister-in-law.


East meets West.


The teenee Olona River that cuts Legnano.




Lots of annoyingly cute Christmas stuff to buy...


And yummy stuff to stuff your face with...


This was just super cute.


Claw my eyes out, please: cute overload.



P.S. One of my students just told me that one of the Dolce & Gabbana guys is from Legnano. They have a manufacturing facility in the city. Just sayin'. Sure puts this town on the map now, dunnit?

Legnano by night...

San Magno Church in the center:















Oh, by the way, remember that old pharmacy I was talking about with the skulls and antique medicine bottles? Here are some pics I snapped before getting kicked out (I guess they really are making poison back there!)

Oh, hey!

:D

The reason why I had to take a pic of something with my name on it, spelled the correct way, is because as a lil kid, I would always want a license plate or tag or scroll or something pretty cheesy that had my name on it... But I was never able to find my name. And if I did, it was spelled "Daniella," which is absolutely incorrect and unheard of in Italy. (Oh, by the way, believe it or not, when I worked in Florida, I met people who had never even heard of my name before.
Them: "Oh, nice to meet you, Danielle."
Me: "Uh. DanielUh." Aside: Damnit.]
Them: "Oh my my, well I've never heard that one before! How interesting now!"
Me: smiles sarcastingly)

My store was across the street from some big ole church...yea, this one:





And what would an Italy blog be without the obligatory kitschy photo of a cappuccino with a heart made out of a foam?

Now my life is complete.

*rolls eyes*

bruises and battlewounds, broken heels, and badass hangovers...

That is a very short list of Thursday night's aftermath. Pure awesomeness.

Now, those of you who know me know how passionate (and picky) I am about electronic music, especially house, progressive, minimal, techno, and some other genres that are otherwise indescribable (honestly) in words, such as the rock-pop-house fusion that I danced to the other night. It had been 2 full months since I last went proper clubbing. I was fiending for a dark space, loud 4/4 music, a crazy crowd and an amazing DJ or two. The reason why I didn't just go solo are mainly threefold: I live outside Milan and all regional trains stop completely between the hours of 1am and 6am; Italian men can be quite bothersome and pesky, especially when their veins have more alcohol than blood flowing in them (which, if you didn't know, gravity pull increases proportionately with the increase in alcohol consumption. Therefore, the blood and alcohol current in the brain decreases but increases in the manly nether regions); most public transportation comes to halt within Milan as well after 12:30am and picks up again around 6am while clubs typically close at 4-4:30am. Sigh. Great logistics for a metropolis, eh? (Yes, I am so spoiled with our 24-7 system in NYC.)

But luckily, through a mutual acquaintance, I was able to meet a fellow clubbing buddy with (obviously) the same musical interests as me...not an easy thing to find here in Italy. Anyway, so Thursday night we went to see Soulwax, 2ManyDJs, and Digitalism at a club/venue called Alcatraz. The prestige and innovation of Soulwax and 2ManyDjs is that they remix familiar pop and rock music, old and new, with modern house beats. Imagine Timbaland versus Wham versus Linkin Park. It sounds crazy and it is-- and it totally works! It's some of the most fun, well-produced, original dance music in the circuit today with through-the-roof energy. People who listen to their sets are ready to jump out of their skin just waiting to hear what insane mashup remix of theirs will come next. They played live, which is not an easy thing to do at all considering the type of music they play. Soulwax played with a full-on 5 piece band while 2ManyDjs with a 3 or 4 piece, just as stellar though. Simply fantastic. At one point, they did play some crazy house remix with the main sample and refrain from Human League - Don't You Want Me Baby. Dan and I were screaming out the words, and I do recall hearing unintelligible English lyrics being yelled out from the drunk Italians around us, which always provides me with a chuckle or two.

And as for the title of this post-- I did indeed tilt my shoe/ankle while slipping on the wet floor of Alcatraz at one point and consequently broke the heel off one of my favorite black Luichiny boots, after which (still on the main floor), Dan took my other boot and tried breaking off the heel to even out the situation, slamming it against the steps of the stage...but to no avail. But that's ok, because yesterday I escorted the broken boot to the Betty Shoe Clinic down the street, where it's receiving top-notch treatment-- albeit a bit reluctantly right now-- but I'm sure it'll thank me when its come out all clean and like new again.

Got back to Dan's place around 4:30 or 5 I suppose (who so kindly let me crash on his couch, seeing as I had no way of getting home at that time, thank you!) and woke up with black and blues on my hip and shoulder, an aching charlie horse in my calf from walking on one heel all night, and a not-so-friendly reminder of the previous night in the form of a pounding headache. Poor Dan woke up worse off than I was, although, minus the black and blues and the charlie horse for him, so I guess we were both pretty much equally out of commission haha.

Did you know Italy has two favorite pastimes? Playing soccer and going on strike.
So lucky for Dan, he was pretty much forced to play hookey and therefore avoided a bruising 8:30am commute without much consequence and I finally ventured home around 4pm on Friday. Why? Oh, nothing, just a nation-wide public transportation strike. Nationwide, people. Planes, trains, subways, trams, and buses. Now get this: In typical Italian fashion, the strike was on from 8:45am til 3pm, off from 3pm til 6pm (i.e., everything was working during these hours), then back on. My, how kind of the Italian transit system to give us car-less citizens a window of 3 hours of potential travel-- as if seemingly ridiculing us, since hundreds of thousands of people (including me) packed ourselves inside trams, buses, subways and trains during those 3 woeful hours to get on with our lives. After taking a tram, 2 subways and a regional train and a total of 2 hours to travel back to Legnano, I got that knot in my stomach. Something, just something, wasn't going to be right when I stepped out of the station. And I was right. My bike was gone! :( Perhaps it was partially my fault because even though the back tire was locked and I threw it in a bush somewhere, I didn't have a proper chain lock. (However, I've decided it was a blessing in disguise. My bike had no breaks.... Anyway, I'm going to pick up a used one in the city soon.)

So here are some pictures from the best weekend I've had in Italy yet: (why is it that I can never remember to take pictures before my 3rd drink?! Sigh..)



Dan + Dan. (Can you believe this gentleman is actually single and not gay? Yeow!)


Soulwax.



Who needs a comment for this one? (No clue who this guy was, but his face is priceless!!!)



Yes, we all had to try on Mr. Paris' awesome hat. :)


You know what would be awesome? If I could stop making stupid faces in most pictures. [But we all know that's just never gonna happen.]




Ah, sweet surrender. I can't wait to do it all over again!

Stupid Italian shit...

I now present to you....a package of freshly sliced coconut:





.....



Ok, I give up. C'mon, Italy, it's 2007. Wake the fuck up and for god sake, Use. The. Internet!!!

I mean, isn't one of the beauties of modern technology & globalization the fact that pretty much any information we yearn to know is readily available literally at our fingertits? Or are we supposed to believe that the people who came up with a brand name like this actually 1> don't use the internet 2> don't know any English whatsoever (this one is actually perfectly believable) and/or 3> don't know anyone who does speak a moderate amount of English; namely, enough to let them know that the word isn't Titbit but Tidbit???? Jesus H. Christ, you people. Pa. the. tit.

(...or maybe I'm being naive and this is a just a crude joke by some Italian marketer who wanted some tongue-in-cheek revenge at his company?? Disney's The Little Mermaid, anyone?)


Need I say that there will be tons of similar posts to come..?