Hi guys! So this post is incredibly late (oops). I started my exchange in Milan in late February. Milan has an incredibly busy lifestyle which regards high fashion so I have had to dress accordingly to fit in society (oh no what a shame…all the Gucci please!)
So far I’ve managed to visit a few of the main historical sites in Milan such as the Duomo, Sforza Castle, Parco Sempione, and the Navigli canals. They’re wonderful places to visit- but the Duomo can get incredibly cramped. Next to it is the Galleria Vittorio Emanuele II containing some of the high end fashion shops and restaurants. In that part of town there is a major fashion shopping scene-a shopper’s delight! Although Milan is a major city, it is comparatively small, and because it is a Catholic city there are loads of churches everywhere which are beautiful!
Other than being famous for their fashion scene, they have an incredible food district-dining out is a treat along the Navigli canals which are crammed with small restaurants along the famous canals that Leonardo Da Vinci designed, and during the weekend there will be markets selling antiques along it. Other than their own Italian cuisine, the next popular cuisine is Japanese food which i found very surprising!
In the first couple of weeks the weather had been pretty cold, but its certainly picked up to degrees as high as 35’C! Living in Italy has been quite an experience, especially when you can’t speak the language very well! However, I’ve found that the locals are very appreciative of your effort to speak their language- but sometimes their english is better than my italian so they would talk to me in english!
I’m studying in the Painting and Visual Arts course at Nuova Accademia Belle di Arte (NABA). The course at school is taught entirely in Italian which has been a great challenge for me-but luckily my teachers and a few of my classmates can speak English so if I have any questions about the homework they help explain what they want me to do. The structure of the classes are different to back home; the classes can last up to 5 hours on average and don’t end until 8pm. For a practical course the only time we can have access to studios to make work is one afternoon a week, the rest of the time we discuss our ideas in classrooms and research about contemporary artists that inform our projects. Seeing another cultures’ way of living and educational system has been a very interesting experience. With these blogs I will further explain the experiences I’ve had whilst living here.
