As not to offend them, I do my best to explain that I'm a big-city girl, but that the people are very nice. Simpatici. Gentili.
Because I haven't posted in a while, I thought I would do the past few weeks in a couple of installments: This is Milan.
I had an amazing opportunity to go to Milano for almost a week, celebrating Purim with the Rabbi and Rebbetzin's family as my main motivation. (There are NO Jews in Bergamo.)
I'm hardly religious, but there is something about being Jewish, or perhaps just having a passion or belief shared by others, that creates a common thread that makes it so easy to communicate with people.
I met an Australian girl at the Purim service who was studying at university in Milan - we became obsessed with each other considering that she was one of the few English speaking people I could relate to in Italy, and the fact that she understood all my South African idiosyncrasies because half the Aussie population is made up of South African Jews.
Besides being super excited about my new NBF, when we did the whole Facebook-friend-request thing, one of our mutual friends was a Sir Josh Benjamin, one of my good friends from back home: they had done a SAUJS project together at some point. Get what I mean? Conneckies. A random South African Jew and random Australian Jew meet at a random shul in Milan.
After Purim, I met up with the other exchangers in Parko Sempione with our boxes of... grape juice...and we had a little picnic :) After which, I did the whole Shabbos vibe - I lit candles, said Kiddish, we drank Shabbos wine (that's TOTALLY allowed) and ate challah. It was great.
Hmm. Abercrombie and Fitch. The store in Milan has topless male (sorry, Aluf) models walking around selling their products. Wow, I just realised how inappropriate that sounded. Their Abercrombie and Fitch items of clothing. The store for which they work. They take polaroid pictures of you at the front as a momento. Honestly, the girls could have spend hours in there... picking up hideous (in taste and in price) items of clothing, feigning interest, just to stay longer. The manorexics utter an Americanised "Whatsup". ITALIAN IS THE SEXIEST LANGUAGE IN THE WORLD. WTF do you think you're doing saying "whatsup" to me!? Say "Ciao, bella" or something that is reminiscent of hotness and your washboard abs. 'Whatsup'. Pff. What is this?
Saturday night was FINALLY time for my first discoteca!! Proper the most exciting moment of my life. We ended up going to Magazini Generali - no Vardi, not General Magazine. General Warehouse. And... it was gay night. Don't misunderstand me - this is not a prejudice issue... its just that... I miss men.
Turns out not all guys at gay clubs are gay. Want to know how I know this? (Going to be very censored because my parents read this. PG.)
I was walking around with my friend Mel (see above, right), when an EXTREMELY good looking guy, with what we assumed was his partner, wearing a supertightwhiteTshirt (that's how tight), approached us and asked, in Italian, if we were lesbian. Definitively shaking our heads, I realised neither of us knew how to ask "Are you gay?". I went with "We like men." Because of the loud music or language barrier, something was lost in translation, and the guy just proper kissed me. When he pulled out, just one word: "Capito?" (Understood?)
No, buddy, I don't flipping understand. If you wear a T-shirt that tight, and hang out with a guy the whole night at a gay club, and have perfectly groomed hair, then HOW. WHY. I just... I just don't understand.
Overall, an amazing week with some amazing people. Can't wait to go back to Milan :)
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