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Published: October 18th 2007
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reunited again!
after dinner at the rooftop restaurant in Bergamo Today is a very sad day… it’s the day my parents left to return to the US. But it’s okay because we had a wonderful week!
They arrived on Thursday morning, which was lucky because the only class I have on Thursdays is 9-11 am. So after class I came back home, cleaned up my apartment a little bit, and waited for my parents to call to say they got in. And waited. And waited. Finally, about an hour after they should have gotten in, I was starting to get worried, so I called my mom’s cell phone. She picked up and groggily answered that they had been in for a while, they were just sleeping in the hotel room. Feeling totally stood up by my own parents, I informed them - seventeen times actually, because they kept falling back asleep on the phone - that I would come meet them in a couple hours. Luckily, too many of my roommates had taken showers in the past few hours so I would not be able to take a warm shower until that evening, so I brought all my stuff over to my parents’ hotel room and said hiii! I’m here!
view of Bergamo's Citta Alta
from the rooftop restaurant It’s so good to see you! Can I use your shower?
Basically the week can be summed up as going to really nice meals, seeing the sights of Milan, shopping and walking a lot. I’ve never eaten so well since I’ve been here! I showed them the Duomo, the Galleria, La Scala, Basilica St. Ambrogio, and obviously my apartment and my school.
That weekend we went to Bergamo, a beautiful medieval town just a 45-minute train ride away. Bergamo has two cities, Cittá Alta (upper city) and Cittá Bassa (lower city). We stayed in the lower city, but spent Saturday seeing the sights in the upper city. We saw Bergamo’s Duomo and it’s other minor churches (which were fantastically not minor at all), and the main piazzas. Friday night we went to an amazing dinner on the rooftop of our restaurant, looking out over the entire upper city at night. So pretty! Then we went and had a few drinks at a local bar, which was very entertaining… please see the attached video of my mother “dancing" (in the upper left hand corner of this page). Saturday night we went to a great aperitivi in the lower city,
then got some gelato, then had some drinks at the hotel lounge while watching the UK-France rugby game. Then my dad and I smoked some Cuban cigars on the hotel balcony and chatted about life. Good times.
Sunday there was actually a festival in the lower city, so we went there and shopped and ate. For some reason there were a lot of German, Polish and Austrian shops, so we had some sausages and pretzels for lunch (and I was getting horrible flashback memories of Oktoberfest and starting to feel a little nauseated…). Then we took an afternoon train back to Milan.
The rest of the trip’s highlights included:
- my parents taking my friends out to an aperitivi at our favorite local aperitivi bar, Bartender (I think my parents are going to miss aperitivi back in the States…!)
- dinner at a restaurant called Teatro7 (theater 7) which features dinner-theater, as in an open kitchen and a webcam, so you can see how they prepare the food (some of the best food we’ve had so far)
- dinner at a restaurant on the eighth floor of Milan’s equivalent of Saks, overlooking the rooftop of the Duomo (lit
up at night!)
- Wednesday, while I had a full day of classes, my parents spent a romantic day visiting Verona (home of Romeo & Juliet), including Juliet’s house and the famous balcony.
- and of course no visit to see me would be complete without a visit to Carlo, my favorite market man (who made us some appetizers and gave us some chardonnay). He also shrink-wrapped more than 2 lbs. of mortadella for my mom to bring home.
Also, my mom hemmed my jeans (because finding a tailor here has been impossible), brought me some requested peanut butter, hand sanitizer, hair elastics and Splenda (clearly the necessities I’ve been missing from America) and made me an apple pie (because I missed autumn/Thanksgiving)! That was definitely an accomplishment, because I didn’t have any baking stuff and it took about an hour to figure out my messed-up Italian oven. But it was so worth it to smell the pie baking, much less actually taste it… although I think it made me miss home even more!
Saying goodbye last night was definitely difficult, because I have a long way to go before I’ll see them again, but it was well
worth it to spend such a great week with them!
Beginning of next week, expect updates from my weekend visiting Christie at the Georgetown villa in Florence!
Miss you all! xoxoxo
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cristina
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aunt janice dancing
hey... i wanted to see aunt janice bust her moves, but maybe it's my mac, but the video didn't load and i couldn't see it. i bet i wasn't missing much. she never does dance, does she?