Day 10 5/29/10 Milano

Sorry for the lack of update, since we arrived in Milan we have been busy every moment. I am trying to remember when we first arrived and can’t even remember. It’s all a blur. Everything moves so fast here. I guess to start the gypsies here are more obnoxious than Florence. Also Milan looks a lot more like a modern Italian city versus Florence that was the epitome of Italy. We have an apartment floor in Milan. In my room are Kari and Caleigh. I think we complement each other really well. I am a neat freak, Caleigh likes to cook and Kari just keeps us in check. So Caleigh cooks, I clean the dishes then Kari is in charge of music, cleans and cooks a little. So it’s the perfect balance.

So the day after we moved in we went to Statale, Milan University. A friend of the Milan team, Davide gave us a tour of the campus and showed us some cool sights. He was very patient with our group, we have the tendency to be late to everything and take forever looking at things. After our little tour he and Ryan went to go buy a guitar and the rest of us began our first day sharing the gospel with Italian students. Let me tell you, it was an experience. I was partnered with Sarah. We have a tendency to, screw around when we partner up so it was probably a bad decision but it was well worth it. We talked to a few people but didn’t see any results. Then we got incredibly lost and that’s when we met Chiara. She explained to us what she did for a living and what she does for fun as we continued a great conversation after she showed us where we should go. She was trying to explain to us that she taught 5^th graders creative writing using her hands with interesting hand motions. As she did this Sarah tried to guess what she was trying to say and goes, “Oh you teach sign language.” Chiara gave her a really weird look as I guessed correctly that it was creative writing. The rest of the day Sarah and I laughed hysterically that those hand motions could have possibly had an ounce of a chance at meaning sign language. [Maybe it’s another you had to be there or something I need to explain, but it really is funny and not just to me.] So we ended the conversation because she had to go work and I got her contact information. So we had another conversation with an Atheist that didn’t speak English very well. We couldn’t figure out why she kept answering the questions we asked her the exact same way, then later Sarah and I ended up laughing about how we realized we had asked her the exact same question 5 different ways… oops. We finished the day and met up with the rest of the group. We said we got lost and Davide said some of his friends saw “two American girls who looked lost.” We laughed at that too because where they saw us was in the court yard when we weren’t lost. We were just laughing about the dumb things we had done during the day.

The next day we didn’t have a tour guide and we went to Bacconne, the very prestigious private business school in Milan. I was partnered with Kat today. We decided to do a survey on the university to initiate conversation. We had two conversations the first wasn’t very productive but the second we talked to a girl named Giulia (Julia). She explained how she had no friends at the university and didn’t agree with the church because she thought they were hypocrites. She didn’t like how they would not practice what they preach. We ended up exchanging contact information as well. I hope to speak to her in the future. Back at the apartment that night Davide came over with his two friends, Elise and Salla. [two girls] They were so sweet and we played a game called snaps then sang to the beautiful stylings of Ryan on guitar. It was a new thing for me, worshipping with three non-Christians. It opened my eyes sort of that why should we act differently in front of people who don’t believe the same way? They ended up staying until 2am.. well I talked to them until 2am some of the others went to bed.. who knew I was such a talker? But the girls and I really hit it off and they decided they would meet up with us the next day to go shopping. Elise wanted boots. We surfed facebook for a while too and I joked with Davide that his profile picture looked sharp because he was wearing a suit. He goes, “Oh , you like men in suits?” I said I did and he goes, “Okay I wear suit tomorrow.” I thought it was funny.

SO finally it’s today. [Saturday 5/29/10] We met Davide at the Duomo in Milan and he gave us a tour. Sure enough when we walked up to him he was wearing a suit. “I Promised.” He said. Sarah could not stop giggling, apparently it was the funniest thing in the world that he actually wore a suit hah. So we saw the Milanese Duomo. It was breath taking once again. It took 400 years to build and was incredible. We took some great pictures in and on top of it. After that some of the group went back to the apartment and the rest of us went shopping. Elisa and Salla met up with us as we went to the shopping area. We quickly grew tired of shopping because it was so hot and everything was a little over our budgets. Elisa ended up finding boots she liked and then we decided to head back to the apartment. So the three of them and Cenia went to the bar [coffee bar, not bar bar] and Whitney, Pat, Kari, Caleigh, Sarah and I came back. Kari and I passed out as soon as we got back. When we woke up we ate dinner and received some sad news that Kat’s husbands best man had passed away that morning. We all tried to band together to help her but there’s always little we can do. I then got on skype and got to talk to Anna [my roommate for next year and one of my best friends] and my parents [shar shar and poopsie]. I miss them all so much and it was great to talk to them. I felt there was so much I wanted to say! Sarah talked to my parents with me for a bit, she thinks I look a lot like my mom J . Then two guys Kari and Whitney met came over, they’re actually still over but I needed to write some of this down. Ryan actually just came in to tell us tomorrows plans were changing. Elise said she wanted to go to church with us tomorrow, but…. As Ryan just told us we can’t find where the church we are supposed to go to tomorrow is……. So we are going to have our own worship service tomorrow. Caleigh and I laughed so hard. Ryan seemed so bummed that he couldn’t figure out where the church we were supposed to go is. I hope Elise still comes and hangs out in the morning. I think I covered the majority of some things. OH and I got to see my kitty on skype.. I got so excited and may have teared up a bit. Love my kitty. Sorry these thoughts are so unorganized I hope you get the gist. Night and continue the prayers!

-love always,

Britt