A month in bullet points

I can’t believe it has already been a month that I’ve been living here. Time flies by that's for sure! It’s surprising how much has happened; the people I’ve met, the places I’ve visited and well the “studying” I’ve done. Rather than bore you with the ins and outs of what has been going on I thought it would be easier for me to condense what has gone on into bullet points. So here we go:

• Have been lost in the city everyday for the past 4 weeks!
• Cried when I eventually stepped through the Ikea doors, I mean I love Ikea but this was more a relief of actually finding the store after 4 hours of being lost in the pouring rain.
• Officially started NABA Milano, as a fully enrolled Graphic Design student.
• Have had many awkward occasions involving sign language in order to be understood.
• Had a really flattering photo of myself done in a train station in order to get my transport card - embarrassing doesn’t even begin to cover it!
• Stumbled across Duomo, it’s kind of hard to miss.
• Have bought way too many clothes and shoes already.
• Eaten way too much pizza and pasta, but I guess this is to be expected.

I think this pretty much sums up my first month in Milan. Home sweet home!

Lago di Como

As soon as I found out I was definitely coming to Milan I was super excited at the prospect of having so many places to visit. I’ve never been to Italy before and the first thing on my shopping list was of course a travel guide. I don't think you can beat a travel guide, unless you have a native friend, then I’ll let you off. I usually go with the pocket size ones, but that would mean I would need about 15 different ones, so I went with the BIG one. When I say big one, I mean you have to study it before you go, or tear the pages out because there is no way that you can carry around this bad boy all day. At 974 pages exactly it’s one hell of a travel guide. 

The first place on my list was Lake Como or as they say in Italian Lago di Como. My roommate came with me and we were all organised; trains had been booked, my travel guide had been read and our bags had been packed. We arrived in good time, half asleep I might add but we were ready and raring to go! Little did I know that in Italy they leave it 5 minutes before you are due to depart, before announcing which platform the train will arrive on. It’s really very generous of them really. Needless to say we were definitely not prepared for that!

A quick sprint later and after eventually finding the train platform, we successfully made it on the train, and an hour and a half later we were in Como. First stop - the tourist information point of course! If there is one thing that we have learnt since being here, is that we have absolutely no sense of direction whatsoever! The lady, thankfully spoke English and gave us a map, but a map really never helps, we still always manage to go in the wrong direction. However, this time, we cleverly followed the crowd of people that similarly got off the same train and thankfully this time we didn't get lost. 

The town of Como I discovered is only one of the most picturesque places ever! It's a sea of terracotta roofs and brightly painted houses and despite the lack of sunshine, it was still one of the most beautiful places I've visited. The medieval town is a complete mixture of quirky Italian stores and touristic restaurants and bars. The town was covered in shops selling Como silk in everything from ties, to scarves, to garments that literally cost an arm and leg. Of course not considering the fact that shops shut on a Sunday, they looked beautiful from what I could see through the shop windows. Despite some of the shops being closed, it was probably the perfect time to visit such a touristic place. 

Since we had made it this far, we had to do something touristy. So we decided to cable car Como-Brunate. It was well worth it, the views were amazing, and when we saw how steep the hill was we were glad to have taken the cable car, thats for sure! There was a bit of fog which was a shame, but the views were outstanding nonetheless. I was actually surprised at how big Como is. All you could see were row upon row of terracotta roof tiles, it looked exactly how I’d imagined it. 

Lake Como was our first stop, I wonder where we will go next…….

Major Lazer

When you buy tickets to a concert, you always expect it to be amazing, but sometimes it disappoints you. The Major Lazer concert in Milan at Fabrique was insane! There are no other words to describe it. It was the last date of their European Tour - didn't know that until they told us, and their set was damn good! 

Kicking off the show was Elliphant. Not going to lie, I didn't know who she was either, but she is one badass singer. Even if you didn't know the words, somehow you were still screaming something. Needless to say my voice was a little croaky the morning after. And then after her came the real deal. I mean I’m a fan of major lazer, I wouldn't have gone as far as to say they were my absolute favourite. Until after their concert, now its safe to say I’m a Major Lazer super fan. Poor guys! Their show was crazy, there were; plastic balls, money, confetti, amongst other things thrown into the crowd, I mean at one point one of the members got into a zorbe ball and was running around on top of the crowd. I mean seriously? Who thinks of this stuff! Thank god their concert was only 2 hours long, because I nearly twisted my ankle at least 3 times and the sweat was practically dripping off my face. I’m sure I’m really selling this too you. 

Next time though it would be nice if I didn't have University at 9am the following morning, but hey a girls gotta do what a girls gotta do! Basically the concert was incredible, and if you get the chance to see them do it, you will definitely not regret it!

Music & Arts

Opportunities don’t come with rules!

Benvenuto and welcome to Milan! Finally, after months of planning, I’ve made the move from Cornwall, to the fashion capital that is Milan. Despite it only being for 6 months, I’ve still managed to justify bringing with me 99% of everything I own, which trust me was difficult to manoeuvre. This summer I found out that I would get the opportunity to study abroad at the Graphic Design University that is known as NABA Milano, and without hesitation, or budgeting, I said yes. There was absolutely no way I was going to turn an opportunity like this down, you’d have to be crazy. It’s been just over a month now, so I though it was about time that I updated my blog and actually wrote some content. 

What better place to do it than in Milan? So here it goes… a new chapter!