Ski Trip!

Bardonecchia: 1312 metres above sea level; host to the 2006 Winter Olympics snowboarding events.


Both ESN and ESEG, the two main exchange student organisations, organise a ski trip, and I'd been wondering for a while about whether or not to go. I'd only been skiing once before and it was a hideous disaster - I spent most of the day lying in the snow, unable to get up after falling over, trapped by the skiis that I couldn't even get off. In the end I sent the ESEG guys an email a week before the deadline to sign up asking if there would be any opportunity for people who didn't know how to ski to learn - and they replied the day before we left, saying that there would be lessons for beginners (run by the organisers) every morning - and if we didn't like that we could always get other lessons from the ski site itself. I decided to go and suddenly I was 250 euros down and had a hell of a lot to organise before leaving the following evening - including buying some ski pants, borrowing some other clothes from a friend, and renting the skis and boots !


The whole affair was 'organised' in typical Italian fashion - I had a lot of friends from our language class who were going but I didn't catch the bus with any of them - the only space left was on the bus later that evening with mainly non-Bocconi people. I met 4 really friendly Brazillians but we spent a fair bit of time sleeping on the 4-hour or so ride - that is, until the bus driver decided to sing along with the radio.... over the microphone. That part really sucked.


Arrived and eventually got my stuff sorted out. My 3 roommates were three Portuguese girls, Renata and Raquel from Porto (both studying Psych at Cattolica, the Catholic University in Milan (apparently there's also one in Porto)), and Silvia (from Lisbon studying design). Neither Raquel or Renata spoke very much English or Italian, but Portugese is more similar to Italian, so we decided we would all try to communicate as best we could in (mainly) Italian - which actually ended up being a really good thing for my language skills! None of them had skiied before either, so we all took the classes together.


The 'classes' were run by Alberto (a former ESEG guy) and his friend Christoph (actually German, but studied at Bocconi and a really good skier - was on his way to professional skiing until he hurt his back). We started off on the baby slope getting our basic skills (stopping and turning) right. Both of them taught us very well, taking us down the slope in a group or individually, or at other times standing at the bottom to watch us as we came down - always ready with some suggestions or scathing Italian witticisms. In the afternoons they went and did their own thing while we struggled on on our own. Others in the beginner group included girls from Latvia and Serbia, and Victor and Andrea, the Brazilian couple from my language class.


Just like my first time ever skiing, that first day was spent mostly on the ground, trying to get myself up after having fallen over. Getting up is a skill that constantly evaded me throughout the weekend - it's a very difficult thing to do when you're not used to skiing! I ended up with some incredible bruises and was really sore for at least a week afterwards!


The first afternoon, four of us tried to tackle an easy (as opposed to baby) slope - we'd gone only about 100 metres when one girl fell over and hurt her knee. Unfortunately she spent the rest of the weekend on crutches and actually had to terminate her exchange and go home for operations which was really sad - and scary for us! They carried her down the slope on a sort of stretcher which two skiiers held between them, we were a bit worried about whether she would even make it down to the bottom! But that afternoon alone I saw at least another 4 people being carried down like that so I gather it's pretty normal.


After the first day of skiing my roommates and I went to the supermarket in the town and got some food, as we were self-catering. I think we saw about half of the rest of the ski trip there as well - in a very tiny supermarket! On the way back we decided to take the (free) bus, and waited for at least half an hour - initially we waited at one spot where we met an old local couple, who were very friendly and suggested we wait around the corner where there were more frequent busses. So we moved over there and met another couple who we (well, Silvia and I) chatted to for a while. All the locals that we met around Bardonecchia were very friendly, and always wanted to hear about the Erasmus students and where we were all from (Erasmus is the within-Europe exchange program).


On Thursday, Friday and Saturday nights most people went out - Thursday and Saturday to what is apparently the only pub in Bardonecchia (on Thursday I think we were the only ones there, but on Saturday a whole lot of RANDOM people turned up too, including two transvestites! surely the only two trannies in Bardonecchia....), and on Friday to a club which was actually really good (but we were so exhausted we didn't stay for long!).

On the second morning of skiing I was so stiff, sore and tired that I could barely roll myself out of bed - and getting to the shower was a real struggle! That day Alberto lead us down the easy slope that we'd tried so unsuccessfully the day before. It started at 'La Grangia', a restaurant/kiosk up in the mountains (and a good lunch spot!). Even though we'd seen Kate go down the day before, with help from Alberto we figured out a good approach - 'piano piano' (slowly slowly) - to the longer slopes and managed to get down without any harm. From then on we really started to enjoy the skiing!


On the third afternoon Alberto lead a few of us up a ski lift from La Grangia to do another slope. We thought it might be a similar level to the one we'd tried the day before, but watching from the ski lift, Silvia and I soon realised that it was not - not only was it a lot longer but MUCH steeper. We were ready to kill Alberto when we got off the lift - we couldn't imagine how we were going to make it down alive (or at least within 3 days, if we went at the pace we felt we needed to!). But he had faith in us and we all made it down really well, it was amazing. After that we went down the same slope several times, often with other (more advanced skiiers including others on out trip). The only time I fell over the whole day was crashing into another girl who had already fallen over and I couldn't avoid in time! Still wasn't able to get up on my own though.

The biggest danger on the slopes seemed to us to be the children - we'd often be overtaken by schools of up to 10 kids who skiied at unbelievable speeds - and what seemed to us as way too close for comfort! We decided by the end of the trip that they must all be either fearless or crazy, and should be eliminated from the slopes for everyone's safety.

On the last day we well and truly got the hang of the higher slope, as well as the easy one we'd done earlier. I fell over twice but managed to get myself up again - a big achievement! On one of the runs of the harder slope I had almost made it down to the bottom without falling, and feeling pretty proud of myself, I yelled out to a few of the more advanced skiiers to get going as I headed down the last hill. I heard Alberto say (in Italian) to one of the others 'let her go, she'll fall over within 10 seconds', and no sooner had I started to process that, than I lost control and fell over fairly spectacularly! Naturally the others found this hilarious, and skiied past me really close, splashing me with snow! Funny, but very wet.


On the bus trip back I ran into the same 4 Brazilians (who I hadn't seen for the whole trip!) and had fun chatting to them again. We were all pretty exhausted after 4 full-on days. The bus made a few stops and by the time we got to Bocconi I was one of the few left - and someone had taken my sticks! A few others were also left without sticks (don't really know how that can happen - fixed number of people, fixed number of sticks), and after a thorough search of the bus they found only one stick. I took my skiis and the one stick back the next day, but thankfully didn't have to pay anything as someone had explained the situation earlier that day.


Even a few months later I still speak with the 3 Portuguese girls in Italian - the trip was actually a real boost for my language skills!

Dogs in Italy

Italians love to have dogs. There is probably at least one dog in every one of the apartment buildings my friends live in here, and (unlike in Paris) there are parks (some with dog-specific areas) in Milan, which are packed with people, children and dogs on most sunny afternoons and weekends. The obsession doesn't end there. It is common practice, everywhere I've been in Italy, to take your dog into shops (yes, even food stores) with you. Some shops have 'no dogs' signs but for most it is accepted that customers might bring their dogs in. Very strange. There are special regulations for bringing dogs (and other animals) on public transport (see my photos for a full translation!). Sadly we have seen a few signs of mistreatment of the dogs around here - not abuse, but just lack of love.

Bocconi and Esselunga

The beginning of classes at Bocconi brought lots of discussion of classes, timetables, textbooks, exams, and many other issues. I have to take 5 classes at Bocconi to get credit for 4 classes in Melbourne, and I am fairly restricted by what I had approved before I left. My five subjects are:


European Economic Policy
Foundations of the European Economy
Management of Fashion and Design Companies
Development Economics
International Trade


The last two are in Italian (but I can do the exams in English); the middle subject is a classic exchange student subject (like 'Australia Now' at Melbourne!).


Each class typically has two one-and-a-half hour lectures per week - and nothing else, no tutorials or any other form of learning. Assessment is typically only by exams; for most, you can choose to take a mid-semester exam, or leave it all until the end-of-semester exam. There are several sittings of each exam, so you can choose your exam timetable like you would a class timetable at home. That part took a LOT of explanations - most of us come from different systems!

Class timetabling here is a basically a nightmare. There are four time slots for classes each day: 8.45-10.15, 10.30-12, 2.30-4 and 4.15-5.45. Only in Italy would you have a two-and-a-half hour break for lunch (as I may have mentioned earlier, lunch is traditionally the main meal and workers often return home for lunch. Most services are closed over lunchtime). Compared to Melbourne where there are about 8 slots per day this means the timetable is very inflexible with clashes fairly likely (and there is usually only one stream per class). On top of this, it is quite common for subjects to change their timetable part way through the semester, or have a week of different class times to accomodate a visiting professor (something common to almost all my classes). Because of my limited choice of subjects I am stuck with a timetable which means that while I should have 10 classes per week, I can usually only go to 6. The first week of May is particularly bad - I should have 13 classes and can only go to 7.


As we were warned, the Italians have a very different culture with uni matters. Most Italians don't work while they're at uni. In class once a lecturer asked how many people worked, and I was the only one who raised my hand in a class of about 50 (that was quite a shock for me!). Lecturers are spoken to in the formal 'you' address of Italian (using 3rd person, not 2nd person).

There is absolutely nothing to do on campus here except for a few sports teams. I guess this could be partly attributed to being such a small university (not sure of the size exactly but it's definitely smaller than Melbourne!), but there is definitely a different culture regarding uni - while at uni, you study. I can't figure out what all the Italian students do all day, but there are always lots of them (especially around exam time) sitting in the cubicles outside almost every classroom with their laptops out, studying together.


As we discovered during the language course, Bocconi classrooms seem to be heated regardless of the outside weather. During winter the classrooms are unbelievably hot, so winter coats and scarves are very quickly removed; when the weather is warmer the classrooms retain the heat and get even hotter than outside - opening windows is not common practice but it doesn't seem to help anyway!


Timeliness also appears to be very important (ironic in a country where otherwise timeliness is not a major priority!). We have one lecturer (although he is definitely not the norm) who gets annoyed if someone is even a minute or two late to class. He will continue to berate everyone who comes in late and has even told people to leave. Once he started class about 3 minutes early and was STILL telling people off who came (in theory) on time. He considers it an interruption but we just find it irritating - he's the one interrupting the class, the rest of us can quite happily ignore latecomers. The worst part is that he himself is often late to class.



Another major component of my life in Milan is Esselunga - the haven of food, only a 5 minute walk from here. Supermarket prices are very cheap here, almost all basic food supplies can be bought for less than 2 euros. Esselunga is enormous, it seems much bigger to me than any supermarkets we have in Geelong or Melbourne, and there is a wide variety of food (except things like sour cream, maple syrup, chips with flavours (not even salt and vinegar!) and a few other basic things that really surprised us!) My favourite part is that the pasta section takes up an entire aisle, both sides. You can usually find a kilo of pasta for less than a euros and there are SO many different types, I don't think I've even tried half of them. I think that generally the food is presented much more carefully here - lots of the fruits, vegetables, salads etc are set out nicely in baskets with greenery decoration everywhere. Almost makes you feel like eating some ;-P