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Непутевые заметки о Италии or Live from Pizza - Pasta land:)

Soo it has been already 5 weeks since I’m in Italy. I even can’t believe such a long time passed.
Today during the lunch I noticed the fact that I got used to being in Italy (and actually few people told me that I’m becoming Italian), to some typical behaviors, so I felt like sharing my observations here.

Italy. Italians. Italian way of life

People. Most probably the most difficult part to describe – they are so different and so far I haven’t seen any common qualities or values of Italians. They are definitely not like we think about them in Ukraine – not soo emotional, not sooo loud (apart from some cases). I almost got used to hear people (men) outside saying “Ciao, Bella” (hello, beauty) and they continuing with discussion of different parts of my body. It’s definitely not something what I don’t enjoy. Some of them are really helpful, even though a lot of people don’t speak Italian (when I’m usually trying to find my way after being lost somewhere), they try to help you:), sometimes by giving the wrong direction, but it’s fun anyways:)
Food. Italian food (or at least what I understand by now as Italian food = what we usually it in MC) is not so tasty as I expected. In fact food ingredients are more or less the same as in Ukraine, but the way they mix it is really strange. So the favorite dish is of course pasta – pasta with tomatoes, with tuna, with vegetables, with cheese, cold pasta…. Sometimes I think this is kind of obsession – to eat pasta each day for lunch:) And they think that putting ketchup into pasta is something like violation:) Salads are quite perverted here (those who know my addiction to salads with mayonnaise will understand:)). Pizza and ice cream are the only things that I really love here! Pizza is delicious and is quite different from what we eat in Eastern Europe! Here you can never find pizza with chicken meat! Ice cream is perfect also, very expensive I’d say – at least 1,5 euro, even 2,5 in city center. But it’s worth each cent you spend for it! The rest of the food I can eat:) aaaa, forgot my another addiction apart from pizza and ice cream – mozzarella and tomatos:)
Cars. Well, obviously you can see Ferrari on the street, but not so often, or at least not at places where I usually walk:) But biggest observation and surprise is that Italy is country of hatchback cars, I barely can see few sedans on the streets. Only hatchback (mainly hatchbacks:)) and family cars.
Milan. I broke quite a lot of my stereotypes here, especially about life in Western Europe;) So the city itself is very nice in center – I’m totally in love with Duomo, every time I pass by it I have a strange emotions - can’t believe that I live in city with such a beautiful building that is representation of history itself.

Every time I pass by, I have an amazing feeling of touching history! There are also few very beautiful places like Castello, Galleria Vittorio Emanuele and others which names I don’t remember ;) In the area where we live, Milan isn’t much different from other cities I’ve seen, maybe it’s a bit cleaner. Milan is the city of foreigners - it’s something that is very unusual for me here. When you go to city centre, to shops during sales, in metro, you see more foreigners that Italians. They are everywhere – outside, on streets Africans are selling you D&G, Fendi, Gucci etc:), Arabs are cooking and serving in cafes, usually a lot of Asian people I see in metro, but I never noticed places where they work, a lot of Russians and rich Arabs in shops:) It’s something what makes you feel being citizen of the world and it in fact makes me personally feel not so alone, even tough I don’t know any of these people:)
Way of life. Italian way of life is quite an interesting storyJ Firsly, what was quite strange for me is their meals – they tend almost not to have breakfasts, then have pasta for lunch and then have late, very late (starting usually at 9 – 9.30 pm!!!!!!) and very heavy dinners! During the lunch time a lot of shops are closed, even markets are closed. Sunday is generally a “dead” day everywhere apart from city center, you can’t even to trade center or supermarket – it’s closed, it’s Sunday. Bars, caffess and restarautns work only during lunch time and then after 7. In between they usually are closed! Ordering pizza is quite the same – you can’t eat pizza when you want :) You have to want to eat pizza only when it’s the time for eating pizza:)
This is the end of “Live from Pasta land” report! Wait for more updates about “Life in Via Andora or Italian way of living AIESEC”
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Gardaland - my dream came true

Yestderday idiot's dream came true (сбылась мечта идиота, это именно так называется:))!!!!
I'll start with the begining - some time ago Matteo told us that we are going to have teambuilding day out of the office, even somewhere out of Milan. Buuut he was refusing to tell us where exactly. The day before yesterday we were even kind of betting on the places - we had so many different ideas - Florence, Venice, lake Como etc. We went out of MC house at 6.30 am, went to Cairoli (metro station in centre of city), had a breakfast there (cup of tea and croissant are called breakfast here!:)) and then we went to a our bus.. you can't even imagine how happy I was when I saw a final destination " Gardaland" (2nd big luna park in Europe after Disneyland). You know, a big child that lives in me:) I was jumping like 7 years old girl, I was even about to kiss everyone:)

Travel took almost 2 hours and finally we arrived! I can't even express all emotions that I had when I saw all those roller coasters, side shows etc.:) I continued being like 7 years old, but now taking pictures everywhere;) People from former USSR can definitely understand me - as our nice parks (парки культуры) have nice standard sets of attrations like Ромашка, Центрифуга и Цепи.. I was always sure that I'm not afraid of big roller coasters, but yesterday I found out that I can be. It's quite scary to fly 20m above ground being constantly turned upside down:))) But I was soooo happy to experience it! We spent amazing 6- 7 hours there, tried almost everying! Once we were travelling in kind of boat, of course we took first line, and of course we were competely wet after few minutes! I looked quite nice in wet white trousers which became completely transparent of course:) Food was very italian - painini and pizza:)

5 of us made dogtags with our names, positions and term dates in AIESEC Italia:) so now we are all connected in a way:)

We came back home in the evening completely exausted, but absolutely happy:)

P.S. if you want to see pictures from Gardaland go here. Aaa. one more thing, I didn't post anything about our museum visit on Saturday (it was Museum of Science and Technology of Milan, very nice and interesting place). and guess whom I met there? Yuriy Lutsenko (Ukranian ex-minister, now leader of a political party in Ukraine). Of course I took a picture with him:) That and all other pictures from museum you can also find it at Flickr.
P.P.S. Svetul'ka, I can imagine how "happy" you would be to get to one of those nice roller coasters:)))bu-ga-ga:)))

The end is where do we start from

I’m a bit late with this post, to be precise exactly one day! Yesterday was a new AIESEC year, it was my last day of being officially member of MC Ukraine, being member of AIESEC in Ukraine! It was my first day of being part of AIESEC in Italy. And most probably the first day of my last year as active AIESEC member, Exchange would be something different for me definitely!
With this New Year came to the end of the whole era in my life – era of being student, era of being in AIESEC in Ukraine. Unique 4,5 years of discoveries, successes and failures, unique years of self development and learning.
I’d lie if I say that I don’t regret anything what happened to me during this time. I do regret a lot, but in the same time I’m thankful for everything what have happened, I’m thankful to each person I’ve met, I’m thankful for each learning that I got.
Reading blogs of Ukrainian AIESECers I got a feeling that a lot of people share the same feelings, a lot of people became alumni these days– even if that sounds exaggerated this is the end of certain era of AIESEC in Ukraine. Era of people that I joined AIESEC with, people that were together during all these years, people that’ve passed trough so many things together. It’s sad to realize that things for sure will never be the same again – that is the way how everything happens in the world - life will send us to different places of the world, will create a lot of challenges on our ways, most probably we’ll not see each other for a long time! But what is important that these people will stay in my heart! Right now I regret just one thing – that there are some words that I didn’t say, the words of gratitude to all people that I value and love so much! I’m sure that all those people who became part of my life during last years will continue being in my life even if our AIESEC path together is over. Because the end is where do we start from… Good luck and "may the wind always be at your back and the sun shine warm upon your face"