sono arrivato!

I finally got to Italy! After 3 exciting flights (Boise to Minneapolis to New York to Milan), my plane finally rolled into the Malpensa Italy Airport, at 8:00 am this morning. Then it was another 3 hours of travel in a train, the metro, 3 buses, until I finally found my apartment, on the southeast side of the big dirty city of Milano!

There were two memorable things about the trip here. First, my luggage. I recently got brand new bright orange suitcases, and they are amazing. You should have seen the people staring at me as I dragged them all over the place. (I was mistaken in thinking my mission was probably the last time the italian people would think I was weird...) The other exciting thing was the italian couple I sat next to on the plane ride. They were form Lecco, a small town just north of Milan, and courteously answered my 10,000 questions (in italian) about Italy and other things, as we sat next to each other. It felt really good to have almost 8 hours of conversation in italian, before I even got here.

So after I got to my apartment, I met my roommate and my landlady. Both seem nice. My roommate is a Japanese kid named Taka, who is in Milano to study industrial design. He said he was glad I moved in because I seem "simpatico"... but I think it will only be a matter of time before he changes his mind. hehe. The landlady, Signora Zilli, is short and very italian. She kept forgetting that I spoke her language, and kept using broken italian and lots of hand signals as she was showing me around the place. Once she was able to trust the fact that I really did speak her language, she was able to explain things much easier.

I spent the afternoon moving in to my small closet/apartment. (I'll be posting pics of that later). And then I went out on the town. First an unsuccessful trip to the phone store to try to find a charger for my old italian cell phone, and then to the grocery store to buy my first groceries. If it weren't for the fact that everything there costs 50% more than America, I would have run around buying everything in sight. Walking through that little grocery store, I realized just how much I miss italian food, and how much I absolutely LOVE IT.

This evening I went to downtown Milan and took pictures of the beautiful christmas lights. I always make fun of kitschy american christmas decorations... but I can't do the same of italian ones. I like them.




Tomorrow, I'm going to go to the Milano 1st ward, where I served for a major portion of my mission. I'm excited to see old friends.