We have continued to have the Rock and Edge along with Edge bible studies. We have continued to go into the primary schools on Wednesdays for a half hour of teaching and time for questions. I am always amazed at the great questions we are asked. Caitlin and myself continue to go along to the 2020 group that meets during lunch on Thursdays. We had been leading it for the majority of the term but let one of the teachers lead it because we were tired of doing. He lead for a few weeks but just got a promotion while a teacher is on maternity leave and doesn’t have enough time to plan, so again we were asked to lead.
The every day has been going really well. If you remember back about how for the first week or so it was really easy to wake up in the morning and then the Super Bowl came around and knocked me off my regiment. Well, it is still real tough for me waking up in the mornings although the weather has been nice and the sun shining in the window to great me in the mornings has helped.
My over all energy level was attacked while taking a vacation to visit my friend Jay in Milan, Italy, well actually more so the journey there and back were the things that did me in. I will attempt to shed some light for you on my journey to and from Milan. I woke up at 6:00am on Friday February 15th, left the house at 6:30am to get into Aberdeen for my 7:15am Mega bus to be in Glasgow at 10:50am, then caught an hour bus to the airport making it there at 12:00 noon, the plane took off at 2:05pm, got to Milan (Bergamo) at 5:30pm, got on a hour long bus ride into Milan making it 6:30pm when I met Jay. As you can see from the time I left my house I did not stop traveling till twelve hours later. What an adventure!
Once there I had a blast. The first place we went to was a place called “Big Pizza.” As you could imagine the pizzas were large and my stomach was thankful for that. A great way to be introduced to Milan. We went back to Jay’s apartment and met his roommates and shortly there after my head hit the pillow.
We woke up and were off the see the sites because not much is open on Sundays and I was only there for Saturday and Sunday. We went around and saw the Santa Maria Delle Grazie (where the Last Supper painting is kept). I could see this Church from Jay’s living room in his apartment. We were in a prime location. After being in there we went to the Duomo, which was amazing! The shear size makes one shiver and the detail makes one stand in awe. The inside was amazing with the vaulted ceilings that seemed to go up a mile high and the decorative masterpieces that were sprawled across the walls and the beautifully designed stained glass windows all worthy of note. The inside was fantastic and free of charge. We left the building, went around the corner, paid five euros, walked through the turn stall, climbed who knows how many steps but upon concurring the final step the world was revealed to us, well maybe just Milan. We had climbed the steps that led to the top of the Duomo. Even how magnificently decorated the inside was, it did stand a chance in comparison to the exterior craftsmanship. The whole building was some sort of white stone that was so elegantly carved. I will attach one of the many pictures I took while up there. It was so peaceful and a site to be had while in Milan. Although the sun was not shining bright on Saturday we could still see the majority of Milan from the roof of the Duomo. We spent a good 45 minutes up there just hanging out and trying to take it all in. After that we walked to the Castle in Milan, which was cool in its own right.
We then returned to Jay’s apartment because he was not feeling so well. For dinner Jay and his friends usually go to a restaurant to have a “partivo” (I really have no idea how to spell it). Partivos are meant to be for people to buy a drink of choice and have some appetizers that they have set out, then to go to another restaurant and have a main course. This however is not how Jay and his friends handle partivos. They go and make it into a full out meal. They are set up in a way where any drink is a certain amount and then all the appetizers you desire are free. On Saturday night Jay slept while one of his roommates, a friend and myself went to this place to that had a partivo. This place was nice, I mean real nice. We walked in and the host looked at us a little funny and talked to a worker that was standing by him. We asked if we could have a table. He went away without saying anything and left us to stand in the entrance. We could see a number of open tables. The guy came back and showed us to where we were going to sit. The cool thing about this place was that instead of individual seats, they had sofas. However in our situation for whatever reasons us three grown men were shown to a “love seat.” It was a joke. We tried to get in but we would have needed a human sized shoehorn to get us all on that sofa. We asked if there were any other seats available. The guy looked at us and said. “You are lucky you have these seats.” We didn’t feel like valued customers but asked if there were any other possible places to sit. He took us outside, which sounds bad but was really not outside because we were under a big owning and had much more room. So we ordered our drinks, it was the first time I have paid 7 Euros for a Diet Coke but the food was great. We had a few other incidences with these people at this restaurant but I will not go into it for sake of length.
We made our way back to the apartment to see how Jay was feeling. He had perked up and was ready for the night. Jay’s roommate had an Italian friend who was loaded and was coming to over with some of his friends. Around 10:00pm 15 Italian guys showed up to join in the festivities. There were those 15 Italian guys, 8 Americans, two Austrians and a girl from England all in Jay’s apartment. It was bonkers. It was a lot of fun taking to the Italian guys, some of whom have been to America. It was fun getting their view on things and asking them about Italy. The rich Italian had gotten us onto a list to get into this club that was meant to be a really nice establishment. At Midnight while outside the club we found out that although we were on this list we still had to pay 15 Euros to get in. I am not against dancing…But the type of dancing I was anticipating going on and the 15 less euros I would have all pointed to not going in. Jay was fine with this and we purchases a panini each and got a taxi to the apartment. We got back to the apartment, stepped gingerly over the broken glass…oh yeah, I forgot to say that on the way out to the club one of Jay’s friends broke one of the glass doors they have in the apartment, that sucked. So after walking over the glass we both fell asleep.
Sunday was another day of adventures. Efforts to get tickets to the soccer match on Saturday failed but I still wanted and Jay wanted me to see the stadium. We took the bus to the stadium, which is an 85,000 seat massive stadium. It was cool because we walked around it and saw workers bringing in new sawd rolls of turf for the stadium. In the afternoon we went to play soccer with a guy we met at a bar after the partivo who said he and a friend played in a park every Sunday. So we showed up and played around. While we were playing a short-sided game a local guy came up to play with us. Although we were glad that this guy showed up to even the teams up we soon realized that something was a bit off about this guy. We spent two minutes explaining the teams to him and there after he took a shot at the goal no matter how far he was away or who was in the direct path towards the goal. He played no defense and yelled at his two teammates who luckily were not me whenever he felt they were doing something wrong. At one point he put on his jacket and hat he had earlier taken off and was standing in the corner of our made field and was screaming for the ball. We all felt like he was going to collect it and run. He was passed the ball and continued to play. Bazaar to say the least. After he was done playing he came over to each of us and shook out hands and said good game, he offered me a cigarette and left. When we were done playing we said bye to the guys we were playing with and went back to the apartment. We had a low key night with one of Jay’s roommates cooked us up some hamburgers. We watched some soccer on TV but that was basically it because we had to wake up and get me to the Metro to catch my bus out of Milan to get on the plain to go to Glasgow (Prestwich) to catch a bus into Glasgow, to get a bus to Aberdeen, to get picked up by Ian (my host dad) at the bus station to get back home. Was a good, tiring, experience filled and well worth trip.
