Good News!

I think I have gotten to an agreement on a place to stay, in the Bovisa area, as suggested by Marcello. It's a small apartment, but it will have an extra bed in it so those of you already in Europe could consider visiting me in my apartment!

I bought a flight. Shockingly, prices have dropped in the last few days, with lots of options available for $700 or less. So I saved about $200 on a flight, just by procrastinating! Wow! That's $200 I can spend visiting friends in Paris, London, the Frankfurt area, or elsewhere. I know there are a couple more of you out there! Easyjet has lots of affordable flights, so there are lots of places I can go for less than $200 round trip. I plan to take about two trips in my first short chunk in Milan. Where exactly is still up in the air!

Weather in Milan

It's unexpectedly cold here in Boston today! That is another thing I am looking forward to in Milan... The weather is a little bit nicer. Record lows in Milan are only 5 to 10 degrees F, compared with here in Boston where record lows are well below -10 F. The average cold weather temps are about 5 degrees higher, too. The average summer temperatures are about the same, but the record highs are lower. It rains a lot less, and it doesn't really snow at all. Heck, last time I was there in January I didn't have to wear a hat while wandering around outside, even in the evenings. It's not San Francisco weather, I will give you that, but it's an improvement over the real winter stuff in Boston!

Still Apartment Hunting

Apartment hunting has been tough! I don't think the Italians check their emails as often as we Americans do, so it's been tough taking a conversation through to its conclusion. In short, though, I still don't have an apartment. I have considered taking the room offered by Polimi, but Marcello actually said I shouldn't, since it's an incredibly long commute to the Bovisa campus where I will be working a lot of the time, 70-100 minutes, and that it's not in a nice neighborhood. The dorms are otherwise entirely filled! Wow! I was really hoping to live in the Galileo dorm, where one of Marcello's students live, since it is in a more centralized location.

I think this would be a lot easier in Milan! I would be on the same time schedule, and I could call people more easily. I should probably stop being a coward and add more funds to my Google voice account, so I can call from here... I'm sort of worried about calling people up because of the language barrier...

So, if you have a friend in Milan who could let me crash on their couch for a few days, now's the time to say so!

Pimsleur Italian 1 Lesson 21-23

Pimsleur is going well. The latest few lessons have been in a slightly different format. The instruction has moved to being mostly into Italian. It's phrased less like conversations, and more individual questions and answers. Often the narrator will tell you to say something or ask a direct question that you respond to. Again, things are coming together with a lot of the same vocabulary as Rosetta Stone, with talk about families and cars. I like the direction this is taking, I feel like I am learning and pronouncing more words in each lesson now, even listening to the narrator in Italian is adding a little something.

Trusted Traveler Program

At the suggestion of Mark and Mary, I filled out the application for the trusted traveler program Global Entry. It's basically a program that lets you go through special checkpoints on your entry to the US. It's a pretty new program, I think they are expanding it now. In some places I may get out of taking off my shoes and unfurling my electronics in screening points by getting this membership. TSA's expedited screening program, I think it's called. The deal, though, is that it costs money to register, and you have to do an interview, in person, at a security location. Luckily for me, the closest one to me is Logan Airport here in Boston. (Unluckily for Mark and Mary, who live near Hartford, the closest one to them is Logan Airport...) I don't anticipate getting turned down, since I have a TWIC, so I have already had the background check and fingerprinting stuff done once.

If you travel internationally a lot, check out the program: Global Entry

Rocca Fellows Evening

On Monday I went to the Rocca fellows get together. There were about a dozen people, mostly Rocca fellows, but also some Italian friends. About 8 people gave brief presentations on their research. At 15 or so minutes each, they were all relatively interesting, especially since the topics really varied, from medical imaging technology to learning compilers. I learned a few more of people's names. All the presentations were in English, so I only heard a little Italian...

In the mean time, I am looking at places to stay in Milan online, and sending out a zillion emails about it. The best website so far has been easystanza.it. Most of the other sites I've used including idealista.it haven't gotten any responses or very few. It's stressful to try to find a place with no recommendations and no way to check them out in person! Wish me luck!

Google Voice/Talk

So, I am just getting into the whole calling-with-the-internet thing. I think when I first go to Italy, I am just going to forgo the cell phone thing and use internet calling. I have a Google Voice number. Yesterday I spent some time getting things working on my laptop. At first, I was trying to call a number in Italy through my laptop, and I just wasn't getting it to work. I instead did the thing where they call your phone (in this case my cell phone) and connect you through there. After some fudging around, I figured out that I wasn't getting the call to work through Google chat because I didn't have the plug-in set up. I've got that patched up now, I did a test calling my cell phone from there.

Calling Italy landlines is 2 cents a minute, but to call a cell phone is 15 cents and up. So, this may not be a good option for calling within Italy. But, calling the US is free from that number, so if I have good internet, that's how I will talk to my family. And I can set up Google Voice to be a phone that rings my computer and takes texts and voicemail. At least the rates are lower than Skype!

Anyone have opinions in the Skype/Google voice debate?

Rocca Fellowship!

Good news, I got the Rocca Fellowship for the next couple of months. So I will be going to Italy! Now comes the hard part... Finding a place to live! I have been trying to find a room in one of the grad dorms just to start, but it sounds like everything is full... Nati suggested calling one of the housing representatives that she knows, which I did. She said she will look around for me, but that the one place she thinks might have an opening is probably too far to commute to the section of campus I want to go to. I looked it up on google maps, it said an hour and ten minutes of commute, including a fair amount of walking. Not that I mind walking, it's just that a train, a bus, and a good chunk of walking is a lot of different stuff to go wrong. Reality is that the commute could be an hour and a half. So... that's kind of sub-par, even if the rent is not bad and the university apartments are not bad.

Next, I looked for studio apartments monolocale and rooms stanze on idealista.it, the major newspaper of Milan's website. My office neighbor Andrea suggested it, and so far, it has had the most listings of any rental site I have looked at. I am learning so many new Italian words! Arredato furnished, affita for rent, piano floor, ascensore elevator. I've sent out emails through the listing site for about a dozen places. Hopefully people will be getting home from work and looking at their emails soon...

So, how about it? Does anyone here know some folks in Milan who are looking for a flat-mate soon? VERY soon?

And, do you think I should buy the plane tickets before I have a room arranged? I am not sure, since the only person I know well enough to impose on in Milan is Marcello, and I am sure it would be a big burden for his family to have me at their place...

Rosetta Stone Italian 1 Unit 2 Lesson 4

So this whole unit is supposed to be on Greetings and Introductions, and while we have been building up to it, this is the lesson where we put everything together into an introduction. Like Questa e mia sorella. Lei la chiama Violetta. Lei e in piedi nella cucina. "This is my sister. Her name is Violetta. She's standing in the kitchen." Etc. I practiced giving an introduction in Italian with my officemates on Friday!

Rosetta Stone Writing Activity

The "Writing" activity is on the whole pretty good. It has one of the same slide types as the "Reading" activity, where you hear syllables read out loud, and then match them up to the written syllable. (By the way, I hate hate that they move the options around between choices on the slides. Like, if a slide has four syllables arranged as cards in a square, after you match the first one to the spoken part, all the choices switch around in that square before you get to match up the second. I've clicked on the wrong one several times because they've moved...) The rest of the slides are either build up to the writing, or slides where you actually type the words and phrases you hear. I guess for me the more accurate title of this segment would be "Spelling", since there are lots of words I understand and can pronounce that are hard to spell. Like poliziotto "police officer". I find this exercise pretty helpful on the whole.

Rosetta Stone Speaking Activity

This is probably my favorite activity in Rosetta Stone. There are a few slide variations, but in all of them, you are asked to speak. Some slides show you several squares of dialog, and each one is read to you, and you read it back. In some cases, they show you the written words as well as have you listen, in some cases you just hear it read. There are also slides with, say, four lines of dialog, where most will be read to you, but you will have to fill in one from scratch, based on the other squares. You do not use the mouse at all in this activity, just speak to the screen. Overall, I find this activity very useful. Actually saying the words out loud really cements the pronunciation and the construction of the sentence. The parts where you have to come up with what to say are very useful, and as close to a real conversation as Rosetta Stone gets. Yes, you have seen these slides before in other activities by the time Speaking comes around, but you get put on the spot to know stuff during the activity. I would actually like "Speaking" to come earlier in the sequence, perhaps have it come around twice. Maybe even replace the "Pronunciation" activity...

Pimsleur Italian 1 Lesson 20

So, in this Pimsleur lesson, the conversation is focused on talking with an acquaintance about where they live and if they have children, if they are grown (grande is used for "grown up" as well as "big"), if they are here qui or there lì. This is relatively redundant to what I have been covering in Rosetta Stone, but I really think Pimsleur is closer to how people really talk. The inclusion of idioms and common phrases also is a Pimsleur advantage. This lesson included non è vero?, which the equivalent of adding "right?" to the end of a sentence in English. I think the translation is roughly "isn't it true?"

Rosetta Stone Reading Activity

As I mentioned before, Rosetta Stone breaks down each lesson into multiple activities. Each lesson has one activity of each type, with a selection of different activities from previous lessons added in. So, you may be doing "Lesson 3 Reading" and "Lesson 2 Reading" in Lesson 3.

The Reading activity is alright. It's focused on sets of slides distinguishing between two similar syllable sounds. In some cases, this makes more sense, for example "ale" vs "alle". In others, "Noi" vs "Voi", they are pretty distinguishable already. I like the part where you get to speak phrases that include these syllables. I think the part where you hear the syllable and select which printed syllable matches the sound makes sense, but includes too many repetitions of the syllables. The parts where you hear a sentence and select the correct written syllable to fill in the blanks is also alright. The part where they read all the syllables and you have to match to the written syllable is excessive to me. Overall, I think "Reading" is a decent activity. Slightly less repetition within the slides themselves would be good.

Triumphant Return?

I am back from my trip to Florida... I ignored my Italian lessons entirely while I was gone. This week I should hear about the Rocca fellowship options. I'm getting excited. I'm trying to schedule a call with my Polimi host for tomorrow. We're both into Skype, it seems like the best way to do international calling if both parties have good internet. I don't have a headset, I think I will have to get one!

And... more Duomo

Duomo at night... What can I say, I enjoyed taking pictures of the Duomo.

Signature Pose

See, it really is her signature pose!

Polimi Photos

Here's some photos of my last visit to Polimi!

Nati does in her signature pose at the Bovisa campus.



They have a fresh OJ machine, which I was pretty fascinated by!



Bovisa station is covered in graffiti, I liked this penguin.

Pimsleur Italian 1 Lesson 19

Whoa, Pimsleur and Rosetta Stone are really coming together. We're working on introducing ourselves and talking about where we live. In Pimsleur, we are doing the introduction as "I am..." Io sono..., but in Rosetta Stone, we are doing "My name is..." Io mi chiamo... Both give piacere "pleased to meet you" as the correct response to an introduction. Both are also doing the verb abitare for "to live (somewhere)". I guess introductions are an incredibly standard topic, it's just interesting to have these fall together all of a sudden!

Rocca Fellows Lunch

The current Rocca fellows at MIT have get-togethers every week at lunch. It's pretty casual. I went to this week's on Tuesday. It was pretty cool. I met five of the current Rocca fellows, including one who is a good friend of Nati's. I remember several of their names, which is pretty good for me. I have to work on Italian names. Flavia and Giovanni are pretty normal Italian names, so I remember them. I got some impressions of Politecnico and the like, and we played some foosball. (Which I am told is actually popular in Italy!)

Away, Again

Yes, I am away again, so you will have to enjoy some old but good photos! I took tons in Milan.

The Duomo is completely full of details. The roof and spires are awfully detailed considering how few people would get to peep them. Notice in this photo that the lowest layer of the railing has several different designs of support.



There are lots of sculptural carvings, from larger than life saints to life size pigeons, each posed differently.



Of course, some places the detail is expected, like on the doors. My friend told me she thinks people rub this guy's knee for luck.



It's a pretty intense building, and like most of these cathedrals, took forever to build. The expression Fabbrica del Duomo is old-school slang for a task being difficult or impossible. I am going to have to use that.

Pimsleur Italian 1 Lesson 18

It's like Pimsleur and Rosetta Stone are coming together. In this Pimsleur lesson we just introduced the possessive pronouns mio and suo, and the words for husband and wife marito and moglie. I've also just sort of drawn the conclusion that the "gn" in Italian serves the same purpose as the n with a tilde in Spanish, and that the "gl" seems to be like the "ll". The second is more of an approximation, but the first... In Italian bagno, in Spanish baño for "bathroom". You can't tell me I'm crazy. I'm definitely having issues with my past Spanish experience, the pronunciation bleeds over, and every once in a while I throw in a Spanish word...

Rosetta Stone Pronunciation Activity

So Rosetta Stone has several activity types, one of which is "Pronunciation". To me, the pace of this activity always seems behind the rest. For example, the Pronunciation activity for Italian 1 Unit 2 Lesson 3 includes several words we had to use in Unit 1, including number pronunciation, and the pronoun "we" noi. These sections are on the shorter side. I would suggest increasing their length, but I can see how they wouldn't want to tire out or frustrate people with these sections. I think they should instead have two pronunciation sections for each lesson.

Also, it drives me a little crazy how they break down the syllables all the way for each word. That made sense in the beginning, or it would make sense if you have trouble, but reading each syllable individually for arrivederci before you read it in whole, when we have been using that word continually from the beginning, is really dragging the exercise out. I also don't like the syllable breakdown sometimes, particularly for double letters. After going to the trouble of illustrating the difference between "alle" and "ale", why break them down to "a" "lle" and "a" "le", respectively? They have you try to lengthen the double ll sound in "lle" but I think it misses the sound they emphasize in the pronunciation of "alle". Can't be perfect, I guess.

Rosetta Stone Italian 1 Unit 2 Lesson 2 and 3

Rosetta Stone continues to add vocab. This unit seems to include a lot about families, as mentioned before, and homes. The names of rooms, like sala de pranza, the dining room, things you find in a home, tavoli tables, lavandini sinks, that sort of thing. And generic "places", like "city" citta, "street" strada, etc. What is starting to sink in for me is that there are several word choice options for any of this vocabulary. "Street" could be strada, or via, or maybe even a special word like viale "avenue". Gotta look out for that, and not tie myself to a single Italian word!

Rocca App In!

Yesterday I handed in the final part of my Rocca fellowship application, and chatted with the program administrator about timelines and visa issues. Actually, I am going to be in Italy for a short enough time before the holidays, I won't even need a visa. (US students staying for 90 days or less do not need a visa!) I will have to get a visa when I am back over the holidays, though. This is complicated... Well, at least I have my application in place now! I am trying to convey to my Italian colleagues that it's important that things are in place for my arrival, we gotta organize stuff with Politecnico!

Pimsleur Italian 1 Lesson 16-17: Just when Rosetta Stone was catching up, now we are doing more numbers in Pimsleur. Up to sessanta "sixty". More work on figuring out prices, how much to give someone, change, that sort of stuff.

Oliviero Toscani and more Rosetta Stone

Last night I went to see a talk given by Oliviero Toscani. He told stories about individual photos, including the two I have included below, and expounded a bit on his thoughts on what it means to be an artist. While he certainly photographs a lot of different stuff, his focus is really on people and portraiture. Most of his best known work has been in ads. He does a lot of fashion and design work.

Some of his best known and most controversial work has been done for United Colors of Benetton. The photo below was apparently highly contested in some countries, but won a "Photo of the Year" award in another. This is far from his most controversial work for them. He did a lot of ads for Benetton that were direct commentaries on current events. His explanation of this was interesting. He pointed out that the ads in newspapers and magazines don't go with the articles, in terms of content or style. He wanted his ads to address real issues.

Anyway, it was an interesting talk, and I am glad I went!

Rosetta Stone Italian 1 Unit 2 Lesson 2: So far so good. I should really time myself to see how long these Rosetta Stone lessons take. They feel like an eternity. More work with pronouns in this lesson, and then, prepositions! To me, prepositions are a core vocab thing. There aren't that many that people use commonly, but they are used a lot. Things are "on" or "in" a lot. With the pronouns, they are using family relationships as the nouns. As in Questi sono i miei fratelli "these are my brothers." I quite importantly learned the word for sister, sorella.

Rosetta Stone Italian 1 Unit 2

Unit 2 is "Greetings and Introductions" at least in theory. I just started the first lesson within the unit, and so far it seems to be about possessive pronouns and the informal second person. Starting to catch up to Pimsleur in the numbers, up to 12 here, diciannove in Pimsleur.

I'm liking getting into the informal second person, and I am also liking getting to hear words read aloud clearly and slowly. Something that I didn't pick up in Pimsleur is that double consonants are given more emphasis in pronunciation. Basically, you include the consonant in both the preceding and following syllables. For example, sette is pronounced "seht-teh", not "seh-teh". It seems like if it's a single consonant, it will be pronounced as leading the second syllable. So I'd give that as a point in Rosetta Stone's favor.

Missoni Disappointment

Oh, and Target sucks. Apparently they oversold the Missoni products on their website, so I am not getting the hoodie I ordered. They are "making it up to me" with a gift card that won't cover the price difference of buying it on eBay, let me say that. So boo to you Target.

As mentioned before, I think I am only keeping the two dark sweater dress tunics, the shoes and the tights. I am for sure returning the pink and green sweater dress. Didn't fit quite right, and there were a few manufacturing defects. A few spots on the dress had thread breaks in the knit. Reparable if I really wanted the garment, but one was right in front under the neckline. While I think that is pretty common in cut and sewn knitwear, I was not so pleased with it. The multicolor swimsuit was odd to put on and looked like a sack on. The black and white one had some of the same problems in fit, but the larger weave had more stretch. The downside is an oddly placed elastic band in the middle. It's too far down to be supporting the swim bra. I think it's just there to prevent bagging in the middle. I'm not sure on that, going to try it on again. The long blue knit dress is cute, but I am just not sure when I would wear it. I know maxi's are in, but I think I would be better off with maxi skirts. More versatile!

Pismleur Italian 1 Lesson 15

I returned from California last night! I was incredibly busy, I only had time to go through one of my Pimsleur lessons. On the plus side I listened to it while walking along the beach at Crissy Field. This was another one about having things, counting and money. The instructor explained that in Italian, you use the pronouns for "some" or "any" more than you do in English. When you actually use it to modify nouns, you use delle or dei. In this lesson they introduced the standalone form, ne. As in Non ne ho. "I don't have any."

Today I have lots of things to set up and arrange for later this week and next week. Including a meeting with the head of the exchange program with Polimi at MIT. Hopefully I can nail some of the details of visa stuff and travel down. I am also supposed to be having a conference call with Marcello and his boss/mentor Professor Tolio. The dates we are considering for me heading out are coming up soon! Hopefully I will be able to squeeze in some Rosetta Stone today, too.

Milan Street Atmosphere

Today will have to settle for some street atmosphere in Milan.

One evening on our last trip we visited a cool holiday market.



I bought hazelnut brittle. It was great. There was basically just enough sugar to keep the nuts stuck together in a layer almost an inch deep.



And another night we went to Brera for appetizers!

Castello Sforzesco

The Castello Sforzesco is from the 14th-15th century. For the holidays, they had a lovely light show with music.



(Still in California!)

Christmas Art

As I mentioned in my last post, a lot of holiday decorations were still up when we were in Milan. This weird but cool spinning LED Christmas tree was new the palace. It actually spins quite fast. When I saw it from a distance I thought it was likely a carnival ride, but it actually spins faster than that!







(Still away in California!)