Saturday 14 February 2015

From Milan With Love

Hey Guys,

Sorry for such a late post! I have been meaning to blog, but I have been incredibly busy! Anyway! Milan is beautiful. In fact I am pretty convinced that anywhere in Italy is beautiful. I fell in love with Rome a couple of summers ago, and I most certainly have fallen in love with the beauty of Milan. 
( I am having great difficulty writing this blog, as it keeps deleting my words or changing it! I think it is because I am in Italy and the website keeps trying to change it to Italian or something! Really starting to bug me, it is taking me twice as long to write a sentence.) 

Let's start with the day I arrived here in Milan. I woke at an ungodly hour (I woke at 3:15? We were out the house by 4am. I couldn't sleep, partly because I am an over-thinker and the fact there was a helicopter flying really low around 11 / 12ish that night. So basically got about 3 hours sleep. I am not a morning person so I was definitely pissed and tired. Hell hath no fury! I was in no mood to talk to anyone. 
After getting to the airport and flying to Milan Malpensa Airport it was about 11 Milan time. I got the coach to the city centre and met my host family. (Mary, a teacher at my school). We went back to her apartment and she showed me my room and then we headed out into the city centre as she needed to do some shopping and it gave me the chance to see the city. 



(Castello Sforzesco) 




(Parco Sempione)




(Duomo) 

After walking around the centre we headed for an ice cream shop by the Duomo. ( Still haven't been inside! I have been here for over two weeks!)
It was called Cioccolati Italiani, basically Italian Chocolate in English. It was amazing, I got a cone and it had melted chocolate at the bottom of your choice. I went with white chocolate. That was a mistake because it was stupidly sweet haha, but still good at the same time. (I did feel sick afterwards though haha) 


(Pistachio & Coconut Ice Cream) 

The next few days was training day. I met my fellow tutors and  they are all so lovely and really supportive. We had a few drinks to celebrate the end of training.


 (Selfie at the Duomo! Photo taken by James)



(Just part of the gang, photo taken by the lovely Amy)

At the beginning of the month (02/02/15) we all started at our schools. I was surprisingly not nervous, I am passionate about teaching and I enjoy working with children, I knew it was something I could do. I pretty much winged my first two lessons. As I didn't have the time to look through my plans. They went well, my last lesson of the (first) day didn't go as well as I had hoped. But I haven't let it knock me down, after all I don't know the children or their abilities and they were just super excited to be in my class. 
I feel proud of myself for not letting this lesson bring me down, I am normally a very pessimistic person and if anything bad happens I tend to dwell on it for a very long time. I knew what to do and what not to do for my next grade 2 lessons and improve on my teaching. Overall it has been a great first week of teaching. 

I have eaten so much food, already I know I will be getting fat! My host is an amazing cook, I love Italian food! I has had the chance to learn to make Italian coffee. It is amazing, no other coffee will ever be the same.

(My laptop or rather this website really should stop editing what I write, it is really getting on my last nerves. Stupid Google translate.) 















(Pistachio & Milk) 


(Coconut & Strawberry Cheesecake) 


(Amazing Chocolate) 

To end our first week of training we headed out for drinks. Friday night to an English pub which was called 'The English Pub' how original. We went there to 'watch' the rugby haha. Then Saturday night a few of us headed out for happy hour. Happy hour here in Milan is different to happy hour back home. Here you get one drink: cocktail, wine, beer (whatever) and a buffet! Pretty decent deal. The drinks here are definitely stronger. I had an Apple Martini and it took me ages to finish it. 





As week two of teaching began, we started to get familiar with our classes and their levels, but towards the end of it all I was desperate to go out and see my friends. I needed a break! And hanging with my friends enjoying happy hour was just what I needed! I have been spending way too much money on food, at the supermarket...damn chocolates! And I have been finding that they lack in fruit well at my host family's home (well fruit I like anyway) So I have been paying for my own fruit ha. 

9/2/15 - Food!


Take out pizza! Cost just 6 euros! You can't get a pizza at that price in England! It also taste so much better than it does in England. I also had Gelato...I have made it a weekly thing ha. This gelato place is on my walk home from school. Dangerous territory especially with ice cream being my favourite type of food ha. The flavours were Hazelnut (which is amazing), strawberry and some weird chocolate thing, I didn't like it. 






(I went for sushi! Yes here in Italy I am eating sushi, and it tastes a lot better than it does in England. It was also all you can eat. I made the mistake of having that gelato pictured above before going for sushi haha.)



Anyway, probably bored you with this post...or made you extremely hungry (sorry!) So lets end it here! I shall try to blog again soon! 


(Midnight gelato selfie! I finally found mango!)


Let's end it here, Happy Valentine's Day guys! Sending my love from the beautiful (but rainy) Milan!

Love,


Sam x