Milano, Pavia and the Magic School Bus

---

Hello my ever jelous readers! I have recently returned from a fabulous weekend trip to Milan, dahling. (Sorry couldn't resist.) My spanish and italian techer whilst I was at college, Carla, moved to Milan last year so I went to stay with her and her new husband for the weekend.

I arrived on friday and saw the duomo, although I didn't go inside, and we went for a walk around some of Milan and had a drink and a catch up. Then we went to the Festa dell'Unità which is the democratic party's festival so there were lost of hippy-ish stalls, bars, bands atc. Was lovely, a really nice atmosphere.

On saturday we went for lunch at her husband's parents house and I was shown a billion wedding photos and videos! Then we went to the Certosa di Pavia which is a monostary. It was really beautiful, and a monk did a tour and he made jokes! I didn't know monks were allowed to make jokes! Especially as the rest of the monks have taken a vow of silence, this one was only allowed to talk for the tour!

Then we went to a medial/renaisance (I can't tell the difference, is there a difference?) fair/battle re-enactment. It was awesome. Just like the kind of things I used to go to with my parents, The urge to buy a plastic sword was still very stong. They had birds of prey and stuff and we got to stroke an owl, it was so soft it was amazing. Then, as we were leaving, I saw the most surreal, bizare and hilarious thing I have ever seen in my life. Two buses arrived full to bursting with all the people dressed in the medieval costumes, and watching them all disembark, bringing with them all their swords and pikes and spears and flags was just the most hilarious thing. When I was little I had a book about the magic school bus that can travel to strange places or in time and watching that I was just like "The magic school bus is REAL!" hahaha It was so funny!

Then we went into Pavia and had a pizza with some of their friends. Pavia is a really lovely university town, I kind of wish I had gone there for half of my year abroad! There was a different festival going on there this week, the Festivale dei Saperi, i think it was called, and it was so cool. They had stages in loads of different places around town with different talks and things going on. And they had bookshelves everywhere with random books in them that you can just take if you want, and the idea is that you leave some in their place. I took 2 little books of italian poetry by famous italian poets. There were 4 and Carla thought I should take them all, but I fel too guilty seeing as I wasn't leaving in anything in their place! But now I kinda of wish I had taken them.. ho hum. Anyways so after the pizza we went in onto the uni campus and there was a big stage with some bands playing. First we watched an quartet singing onld 50s style jazz, who were really good. Then an italian ska band came on, all wearing zebra print trousers. I was loving it, but the poor italians didn't really seem to know what to make of it, no one was skanking. I so wished my sister had been there too because we totally would have got up and shown them how it's done! They had so much enegery, they put on a really good show, running round in the audience and the lead singer changing costumes between every other song!

Then on sunday we went back in Pavia and just had a wander round and an ice cream. There was a big antiques fair which was really cool, although I couldn't buy anything I wanted because I wouldn't have been able to get it back to England!

You may remember me moaning about not being able to go to the big MTV concert on Saturday because I'm going home. Well MTV have half made up for it. TRL (total request live) have set up their stage and are doing a little concert every day this week. No Duffy sadly, which is why they're only half made up for it, but lots of Italian bands who are actually pretty good!

So I'm off, down to the port to hang out at the MTV stage! I bloody love my life.

---