I have officially lived in Milan for two weeks now... it's crazy because it feels like so much longer... school drags on the same but weekends are fun :). This week in school... I went to school... I can't really describe what I did because it feels like nothing (probably because it is nothing, oh well haha). However, on Thursday there was a sort of AFS meeting/lecture thing in la Duomo, so I got to skip school! YES! When I got there I saw Emma, Iris, Mollie, and a bunch of the other kids that were staying in Milan that I hadn't seen since orientation so that was lots of fun. The lecture was all in italian and it was just a bunch of people (a lot of people weren't in AFS and I have no clue why they were there or where they were from, but then again I didn't even have a clue what the lecture was about either). Anyway, the lecture was actually just like school except for we got up and got snacks from a wicked confusing vending machine in the middle, haha. It was also hilarious because all the AFS kids had to stand up and introduce them selves (Ciao, Mi chiamo katie, sonno americana) and when the mircophone got the american kids and they said sonno americana, everybody started shouting and clapping. That was pretty cool.... until they got to the two kids from Brazil; then everyone went freaking crazy!! Haha. After that Emma and I went to the Duomo to go shopping, of course... I think we went in the same shops about 20 times, they just had different names (at least that's what it felt like after a while). Cool cool cool. On Friday, we had our first italian lesson! All the kids from Milan and close to came, so there's about 13-15 or so kids in the class. That day we just went over basic stuff like time, the alphabet, ect, and it was all explained in english. We have italian lessons three times a week until the middle of November, and then we have them two times a week until January. I really hope that these will be effective.. hahaha. After Italian, we all went out to get gelato (because the lessons are at the duomo). Yum. I really think that the whole ice cream everywhere you go could end up being a problem, but whatever. Not gonna complain. Saturday was school.. what fun.. I don't think I'll ever get used to waking up early but oh well. After school me and my family drove to an outlet mall that was about an hour away from Milan.. and I discovered that I just really don't like outlet malls. It's kind of like you were wishing that they had everything that the real stores had, but for cheaper; it's not. It is just a big place full of clothing that not a lot of people like, haha. I did get a cute pair of shoes, though. They are slightly less high than the other heels I bought and almost started crying after wearing for a half hour. :P Anyway... saturday night me and my mom and Enrico's family and an American teacher person (whoooo go america!) went out to dinner and after Enrico, Marco and I went to a party. Saturday nights are fun fun funnn :) However I was sooo tired when I woke up this morning! Today was AWESOME because I got to go see the Last Supper by Leonardo Da Vinci! I do not have any pictures unfortunatly because I am not skilled in the sneaky picture taking department, and my camera is SO loud!! So I got yelled at. The painting was really cool though, it was in a dark room that was pretty big, and it was painted on a whole wall. HUGE. I really liked that. After we saw the painting we all went to get gelato... YUM (yea I told you its EVERYWHERE). Then, Enrico's parents from America were here visiting for two weeks so an entire group of us went to the Castello again. I've been there three weekends in a row, haha. We went inside the castle this time, where we got to see bunches of artifacts and other old things, and Michaelangelo's final sculpture. He worked on this sculpture till about 4 days before he died, so it is unfinished. Very pretty though. After that I fell asleep while watching soccer... Thennnn the sunday night parties began! So usually there wouldn't be this much activity on a sunday, but my cousin Enrica decided to have her birthday tonight and so did my friend from school named Ale. I went to Enrica's first, which was fun and I got to see another AFS'er that is living near me.. and I felt kind of bad because I had to leave like 20 minutes after I got there... oops! I walked down the street to Ale's house and then we drove to this place called Old Fashion Cafe, it's a BIG happy hour (happy hour is where you pay 10 euros for a drink and get as much food as you want) place with lots of food and drinks and then dancing.. so almost everybody from our class came, which was super cool... and wow when they say casual nice in Italy it kind of means really nice. Dress up for EVERYTHING. This is gonna take some getting used to. So everybody got food from this big huge buffet where everyone was pushing and shoving, cool huh. We also had tickets so we all got delicious sugary drinks. After a while we started dancing... now that was funnnn. I really just kind of adore dancing, and Italy is a great place to be for that. Then it was cake time! It was sososo cool, the staff brought over the cake to our table with two bottles of champagne (yea, that is so the right way to celebrate a birthday). And we even did the shakey thing with the champagne and popped the cork which was AWESOME because never have I ever seen that done in real life, cool stuff :P Her cake was sooo good it was like halfway made of cream puffs which I happen to love, yea, and then the rest was yellow cake. So nice work who ever whipped that up, I agree with your cooking skillz. The rest of the night we danced danced danceeeed it was so fun until like 11:10 because I had to be home at 11:30 so then we left. On the way back we had to stop because we thought we had a flat tire... so I got home about 11:45 from a WICKED FUN Sunday night :P and now I have scuola again! YayyyY! :D
Ciao Ciao
Katie

Pictures from top to bottom -
1) My awesome class! 4G
2) The Church right next to where the Last Supper is held
3) Michaelangleo's last statue
4) Frederica, Christina and Me at Ale's birthday
5) Me and a Beautiful Birthday girl!!!
6) My lovely apartment building :)
7) Castello!