Film Festivals and City Hikes

Whew I'm getting bad about posting! I'm sorry! I got into a great habit in Lecce because every day felt like a vacation, but here it's a little harder to write posts because there's no way I can bundle up my life in Bologna in a couple paragraphs and half a hundred photos. I promise you I will do better though! To kick off my comeback here is a post about Bol-oh wait. Here's a post about Milan!

Our third weekend in Bologna my friend's friend from Vassar came down to Italy from his study abroad post in England, and a couple of us went to Milan for a film festival. Whew that's a long intro. Anyway, with the satisfaction of being the first of our program to leave Bologna, Friday after class we all hopped on a bullet train and got to the fashion capital within an hour! Their train station was gorgeous and it made me miss Grand Central, and the hostel seemed ominous but ended up being perfect. As we walked in I really thought it was going to be a lone man in a parking garage who had figured out a way to hack the hostel website. After checking in and realizing it was actually hotel-quality, we took a walk around the city in the afternoon sun and I fell in love.

After wandering the streets for about 5 minutes we came upon a castle. Yeah. It was gigantic, and inspired a discussion with Domina about her life's dream: to have a mansion big enough that she and her thousand cats can move to a different part of it every few months and it will feel like a vacation. If there was any doubt as to the reason we're friends that certainly erased it. Francesco Sforza, Duke of Milan, built Sforza Castle in the 15th century. After a few centuries of renovation, today it is home to many of the city’s museums and art collections.    

After the castle we were hungry so we wandered around some more looking for somewhere to eat. I saw a light-up crêpe sign and was drawn to it like a moth. Wow... One of the greatest meals ever. We got aperitivi and I had a crepe with fontina cheese, wild boar prosciutto, and truffle cream sauce. The others got some delicious stuff too but I don't remember what it was because I think I blacked out from pleasure. For desert we shared a Nutella crepe with gelato, and a crepe with cream, Kahlua, coffee beans, coffee gelato, and whipped cream.

After sitting in a daze for a few minutes, we rallied with espresso and headed over to the theater for the movie. We saw Licks, a film made in Oakland, CA about the gangs there and the story of a young man who gets involved in a corner-store robbery, called a "lick" in slang. He is shot and captured and the film begins two years later after his release from jail, as he tries to avoid getting pulled back in to his previous life of crime. It's a really beautiful film, and very impressive given the fact that is the first by a young director who decided with his friends to make a movie about their hometown. They came up with the screenplay based on their stories or those of their friends, and they recruited many amateur actors or friends of friends to participate in a project that was by nature pretty dangerous to shoot. After the show we got to meet the director, because Evie's friend went to the same high school! He was so friendly and excited. Can't recommend this movie enough. Here's the trailer. 

It was really cool to watch the film with Italian subtitles, and pretty funny that some of the slang was so intense I understood the Italian better. Also the question and answer afterwards was a fantastic, translated, bilingual mess. The director, Jonathan, invited us to the after party and we got so excited only to walk outside and find out that the after party was on the terrace in front of the theater and everyone was invited... We left for a bit to walk around nighttime Milan and stumbled upon the famous Galleria and Duomo!

We came back and chilled until the after party closed down around 1am then we walked through the city looking for something to do and found another Milan Film Festival after party that went until 2! We danced to some fantastic oldies and when that shut down we went clubbing at a famous invitation-only outdoor discoteca called The Old-Fashioned. It was so glamorous- I met three models in the bathroom and I think they were doing cocaine, also we met five relatively short British guys and I thought they were One Direction. The less fun part was finding out at 4am that all the buses and subways were closed and walking 5 miles back to the hostel. At least Evie and Daniel looked cute doing it.

In the morning we grumbled out of bed around noon to take Daniel to the train station and had a lovely brunch of cappuccinos and paninis. I was still on my truffle roll and chose prosciutto, brie, arugula, tomato, and truffle oil. Yum.

After brunch and goodbyes us girls headed back into the centro for a mini Milan tour- we went back to the duomo and Galleria, saw the Teatro alla Scala and attached museum and were lucky enough to be able to watch a live rehearsal for about 20 minutes in a shaded box. The duomo was incredible- so massive and dark but filled with the most beautiful stained-glass windows and sculptures. The facade alone could fill a book or two with explanations of the intricate history and meaning of the stories covering it. I'm sorry there were no cameras allowed in the Teatro!

After our tour we had a few hours to kill before our train back. Domina had been talking about cutting all her hair off for a while and she decided what better place to do it than the fashion and style capitol of Italy? After quite a search for a parrucchiere (hair salon) and a gelato break (mango and dark chocolate), we found a place and she did it! Doesn't it look amazing?

It was a great little two-day trip! I definitely want to go back, maybe for an Inter game at San Siro or an opera at the Teatro... It's a truly gorgeous city.