Winter Wonderland

Winter wonderland shots from this weekend. I don't know what it is, but it really seems like precipitation is a weekend thing in Milan. This weekend we got about six inches of snow, and next weekend is supposed to add more to that total. These pictures are just around my neighborhood.

Cute Planter

I noticed this new-looking planter on my walk home one night this week. I do think its new, maybe not brand-new, but I don't think it's always been there.



The little succulent planter is just out of my reach zip-tied onto a lamp post. It's a cute thing, I hope it can make it through the winter!

Christmas Appearing

I came home this week to find the Christmas decorations set up in the lobby of my apartment building. Yay!



Same ones as last year, but I am still excited.

Explain This One To Me...

So I was hanging out with one of my friends in her office on campus. Because of the difficulty in locating stairs, you always have to take the elevator in her building. I noticed these buttons in the elevator.



One set of doors, two "door open" buttons? She pushed the door closed button when we got in, and it stayed lit until the doors closed, but I didn't have the nerve to press the rest of the buttons just to see what the difference was between them. Huh.

First Big Christmas Decorations

Last night I saw this first big public Christmas decoration in my neighborhood. It wasn't turned on yet... but they must have put it in yesterday because it wasn't up the night before! The stores have their Christmas displays up in Piazza Bausan...



I am excited to go downtown and see the big Christmas stuff down there, and for these lights to get turned on! (For those who don't speak Italian, the sign says auguri, which is basically "best wishes" in Italian. It's a phrase you use for people's birthdays, too, not just for Christmas.)

Purses

I stopped by the purse outlet store in Piazza Bausan this week. There's one brand of purses that always makes me laugh, Braccialini. These are actually pretty expensive purses, though with all the appliques these look pretty goofy for an adult woman to carry around. (That said, Italian women can go for some whimsical stuff. It seems out of character.)



Some of them are actually quite cute, like this one of Romeo and Juliet, but I am still not sure I could carry one as a bag on the regular. If it were a throw pillow, I could go for it.



Of course, I probably shouldn't go into the purse store, because it's just temptation to buy stuff. I did work very hard over the last couple weeks, so a cheap cute purse was not an outrageous treat. I had been admiring this pattern of Coccinelle since the summer, when they had big beach totes with the flower pattern, both in this same plastic and printed on denim. I love this pattern, but nothing had struck me quite enough to get me to buy one.



However, this little pochette with the flower cut-out sides was perfect for me. It was tough to pick a color, between the purple and the teal, but I went with my old standby!

Rain Rain... Here to stay...

Tonight I will be heading home from Turkey, and I have lots to share with you. But the internet here is a little tricky, so I haven't had the chance to upload photos yet... I am having a fun time in Istanbul, it's a cool city, and even with a few showers, the weather is otherwise nice. Unlike in Milano. Summer is officially over for us. We had our first nighttime dips below freezing, and the rain is here. Heading to work while I was preparing to leave for Istanbul, I came across a lot of small snails out in the rain. I guess they were wandering out from the grassy patch near my office. I spotted this guy at the beginning of the path, and thought he was cute.



After taking a few photos, I continued down the sidewalk and noticed that the snails were everywhere. All of them were tiny, about a centimeter in length from head to tail. I worked quite hard to avoid stepping on them!

More Street Sign People

I found the street sign for my street with the info on the guy! Turns out Antonio was a patriot.



My cross street guy was a pathologist.



And it turns out that my office street guy was a Garibaldi and unification supporter.



Maybe I will find some more cool guys on the street signs...

Hey Hey Hey, Aperitivo Every Day

On Thursday, Christoper stopped by my office for surprise aperitivo with him, Praskovia, Alessandro, and Elena. Supposedly it was to celebrate one of his labmate's thesis submission, but that guy didn't even come. As usual, I think it was just a standard Christopher excuse to go to aperitivo at Ciu's.



A good time as usual. I branched out and tried a new drink, the Papa Hemingway: ginger ale, golden rum, Angostura bitters, maybe something else? I will have to check next time I go. Served with pineapple. Very easy to drink, with some decent taste from the ginger ale and bitters.

Oh, and on Friday, I saw the Google street view bike cart! Sorry the picture's not great, it took me a second to notice it passing my building and realize what it was. It's a tricycle cart, technically. Besides the guy peddling, there was also a campus security guard walking along side. So not going very fast, really...

Fruit from the Trees

While my neighborhood has a pretty urban feel, I keep finding opportunities to pick fruit off of trees. Last week I found a small fig tree on my walk back to my office. Clearly, other people have noticed it, because at a casual glance I only found one fig that was ripe enough to pick. I sliced it and put it into my salad... Pretty good, actually.



Every day, I walk past two pomegranate trees in the courtyard of my apartment. They've had fruit on them for... months, I think. My landlord told me that I would have to wait for November for them to be ripe... The fruits on one of the trees have turned pink, and I am tempted to pick one just to see, but I am going to be patient for another month.



Of course, there was the loquat tree earlier this summer. There was always plenty of ripe fruit on there!

Groceries from Today and Monday

Vacation photograph interruption today...

Today I went to the street market. It was a good day, everything I bought was a Euro or less a piece, including the hair-clips! The only thing I lost in Germany was my largest hair-clip. I bought two different large sizes to try. None of them are ever big enough anyway... I should look online for giant hair-clips! I got zucchinis, fagiolini (green beans), red onions, two of those "cone" cabbages and two melons, both in the tiny size. Usually those melons are 1 kg a piece, this pair was 1 kg total... This way I can eat a whole one for breakfast!



Monday was my regular grocery run. That pineapple is also a tiny one. Also, I caved and bought ketchup. It's spicy ketchup, at least. I have just wanted it for sandwiches. In the back are some bread rolls that you have to oven bake a bit and oranges for juicing. There's also a single can of Coke in there. The off brand just wasn't cutting it for my weekend afternoon indulgence.



Food!

Too Darn Hot

OK, it's not as hot as my thermometer is pretending it is. It's just complaining about being in direct sunlight! But it has been pretty terribly hot this week. For the first time this summer, I have been having a little trouble sleeping at night because of the heat!



I get why everyone leaves in August, it's pretty unbearable! My landlord tells me that when he was young, truly everyone left in August, and that for the middle two weeks of the month, Milan was like a ghost town. Now, it's just noticeably less crowded, with reduced store hours and the like.

So Many Groceries

On Wednesday I hit the street market, and yesterday, the grocery store. At the market, I resisted buying clothes, shoes, and purses, and stuck to more necessary things. There's one regular stall at the market that sells cleaning products. My apartment came well stocked with most supplies, including doubles of a few, but I was almost out of floor cleaner. I did actually use this cleaner already! I mopped my whole apartment this week...



I couldn't resist the onion rope. The pineapples were only a Euro, so I figured why not. The guy selling the pineapples asks when you want to eat it, and gives you one of appropriate ripeness. He was a pretty good judge, I asked to have mine for the weekend and it's looking just about right for tomorrow... The melons are getting there too. It will be a fruity weekend.

I bought toothpaste! "Whitedent" brand. I am not sure if it is an Italian brand or what, but it was a lot cheaper than the Colgate, so I thought I'd give it a shot. I put those gnocchi in the freezer, as I think it improves the texture of the filled ones. I think they're too soft usually, though the flavor is lovely!

Bellagio

On Sunday, Anteneh invited me up to Como, and we headed out to Bellagio and Faggeto Lario with his friend Kal. On my way up I ran into this Boy Scout troup (OK, they're the Italian equivalent, but I don't know the name of the organization) at the Bovisa train station.



We walked up to the fountain in Como to take a coffee before heading out on the bus.



Bellagio also is a pretty major ferry stop for tourists.



We walked out on the seawall of the harbor at the tip of the peninsula, where you can see all around the lake.



We had a kind tourist take a group photo! See I am wearing my six Euro shoes... they are working out!



The harbor is quite charming, and there is a beach there so you can swim in Bellagio too. It's a sad little beach, though.



The town itself is quite charming, with lots of shaded streets that aren't totally packed with tourists. You just have to get above the lake line a bit!

Neighborhood

In Italy they have these signs all over that tell you the direction to the closest freeway entrances. This one is in a pretty small square in my neighborhood, I didn't realize it got enough traffic to justify such a complete sign. Yes, it is near-ish to a freeway... but not all these freeways!



These are slices from that strange Italian zucchini from the other day. The seed area was not present along a good chunk of its length and almost lacy in other parts.



Groceries! The little jellies are rose gummies, the ice cream is plain cream flavor with coffee ribbons, and those onions are like overgrown green onions. The tops work as chives, and the bulbs have some serious onion volume. The crackers are sort of like Ritz, but a little thinner and crispier. I had some with cheese today for lunch :D

A few from around the house...

I've started freezing my water jug at night, and the coolest ice patters form on the outside of the jug from just the condensate from the air. (It also sometimes ices itself to the place-mats.)



And these are groceries, of course. I am sort of hooked on the ricotta salata, I've been eating it for breakfast with a touch of honey. The arribiata sauce was on sale so I bought a bunch.



So my friends are telling me that some of the grocery stores here will be closed for parts of August... I might get lucky with my Penny since it's a German-run chain. I am not sure if I should stock up on foods or just hunt for the deals that the few open stores will be running. One of my friends spent a whole August in Milan, and got great deals at Esselunga, so it might also be a chance for me to enjoy some really high quality food on the cheap.

Ladybugs!

My apartment doesn't have air conditioning. It's a little hot at night sometimes, so I just open the windows and that usually does the trick. The issue is that even on the fifth floor, I sometimes get bugs. Not many, but I try not to leave the lights on in my bedroom when the windows are open, to avoid attracting them. In the kitchen, though, I usually don't bother with these measures. I thought it had backfired a couple of nights ago, as there was some huge looking kind of loud insect buzzing around. I went and grabbed my zapper racket (rechargeable!) and looked around for the thing, but it had settled down... and I couldn't see it... Turns out it was a ladybug! I didn't really comprehed how much their wings unfurl when they fly.



What a cute little guy! I love the ladybug faces. Once I saw it was a ladybug, I was quite relieved. I got him on a piece of paper and shooed him out the window, hopefully to find greener pastures.



Later in the evening I had another vistor, a this time a red one...

Market Day!

Yesterday I headed to the street market in the morning. Wow, there were actually more stalls than ever before, I guess because it's peak summer time, right before everyone goes on vacation... Here's some of the stuff I bought! (This is all the stuff for me, I got some gifts too, so they will not be appearing!)

Squash, melon, zucchini, and shoes. It's the time of year that all these things are pretty darn cheap. Including the shoes. They are super cheap-o, 6 euros! OK, they are made out of terrible materials, the soles are foam I think, but I am wearing them today and they were very comfortable on the walk to school. They certainly won't last forever, but for a fun summer shoe... Part of the reason I went for them is the color, you know me I like that sort of turquoise blue for everything. The other part is that the sole is pretty think. You can't really see in the pick but even in the toe the soles are just over an inch thick.



I actually am not a fan of the sandals with really flat leather soles, and around here, your feet would get filthy fast. But, that's the style that the Italian ladies are wearing...

This is a zucca squash, as far as I know. I think the term means pretty much any winter squash, including pumpkins, but this one is like a turban or buttercup squash. This is what the picture of the zucca on my last box of ravioli di zucca looked like...

Station Graffiti

This is graffiti at the Bovisa train station.



The bird is my favorite. "Piou Piou!"

This Week's Groceries

I had to get groceries this week, of course. I went with lots of salad stuff. I really like those pre-cooked beets. That San Pellegrino is the bitter orange version, it turned out to be more bitter than I really like. The orange jelly cookies are a little too sweet. The rest of the stuff is going well. I haven't had any of those tiny pears yet, but I think tonight, or maybe tomorrow, they will be ready!