Buongiorno Milano!

Hello Milan!

I'm finally here! It's been a long time coming, and now I can't believe that I'm now living in Milan (even though I'm sure I look like a tourist). So far its been an adventure! It doesn't really feel like a vacation, but it doesn't feel like home yet either. It sorta feels like I'm in limbo right now. In addition, I've realized that I have an addiction to the internet... The past three days I haven't had a connection and I'm dying to see what everyone is up to on facebook, update my blog, etc. Hello internet! It's great to see you again!

So, I'm glad I flew out when I did. The day after my flight, Minneapolis got 16 inches of snow!! Talk about great timing. When I got to the airport though, things weren't looking so good. When my flight was purchased, they also scheduled me for a return flight home for December 11th, 2011. This is great, except the fact that its technically a one way ticket since I didn't have a return flight within the three month window that you can be in Italy without residency. Since we don't have the work visa with Italian residency yet, they wouldn't allow me to get checked in and board the plane without a return flight. After standing at the counter for thirty minutes, a supervisor came over and changed my flight to April 1st and checked all of my luggage. With a payment of $455 for the change fee and my luggage, I was on my way! Argh... that was a lot more than I expected it to be! Good thing I got to the airport early...

After that, things went really well. My flight was actually a couple minutes early leaving Minneapolis, and I was an unpresidented 10 minutes early to Amsterdam! Usually I'm running through that aiport to catch my connection. This time I was able to walk to my gate and sit for about 10 minutes before boarding. That was nice!! When I arrived in Milan my trunk was waiting for me at baggage claim, but the three other checked bags were not. This was a little bit of a downfall... but at least they were on the next flight arriving from Amsterdam. So I would just have to go back to the airport later that day to pick them up.

In the meantime, Josh picked me up and we drove up to Como. Talk about a beautiful drive and a beautiful city! Too bad it was overcast and kind of rainy. I can't wait to get up there in the summer when the weather is better. The homes are unbelievable! We also drove north on Lake Como to a town called Cernobbio- another place I can't wait to visit when the weather is better! We stopped and had a few espressos since I was running on about four hours of sleep and then went home. It was a great day! I have a feeling that will be our go to place in the summertime.

Oh... another fun thing that happened that day... The GPS system with the rental car wasn't working. So we stopped by the airport in the afternoon to get a new one. Well, the new one didn't work either... so they ended up giving Josh a new rental car! After that, the new GPS still didn't work... After about three tries, a new car, and an hour, we were on our way again! This time we had a working GPS. With all of that excitement we just decided to go back to the apartment. The day ended with some amazing pizza from a pizza place down the road from our new home, and crashing. I haven't slept that hard in years.

So, a new adventure begins with some bumps in the road, but what else should I expect? The people here have been very friendly, even though I don't speak the language, and the sights and smells are amazing! Walking down the Corso Buenos Aires yesterday was fun- the people, the shopping, the construction, the dogs everywhere... this has to be similar to being in New York. The people watiching is great- I saw an older woman walking with platform tennis shoes that were metallic gold! You'll see a little bit of everything here. I've never been to NY, but this is how I would imagine it (only with people speaking English instead of Italian).

Ok, thats it for now. Hopefully I'll have more adventures soon!

Ciao!