Not Dead

As Fedor was here, I didnt have time to write anything the past few days, so this is going to be a long story:
Even before Fedor arrived, I already had an interesting experience with Poste Italia again. This time it concerned a package from Amazon, with 2 books and a DVD I ordered. The package had been opened by Poste Italia and resealed afterwards. After stealing the DVD... So now I am paying for a DVD that some son-of-a-fuck Italian shithead is watching. That pissed me off. But of course, the arrival of Fedor, Saturday afternoon compensated for everything!!!!! He also took the present Mark gave me for my graduation and I promised would get to Milano. Unfortunately, it broke in transport and the glass front was in ruins once it got here. But, I still hung it up in our living:

At night, we had a huge BBQ at my home with a lot of people (my PhD-friends, who all took random friends as well, and friends of my other flatmates, etc). This was an absolutely awesome party, and everyone was very drunk. Sunday afternoon, Fedor and I started with the quest that was set out by my ECU Posse. As my graduation present, I received a route through Milano to 12 places which contained Milano highlights. At each of these places, I had to open en envelope and something related to the particular attraction would be in there. Unfortunately, we did the tour on Sunday and Monday, and a number of things were closed. Some others had to be booked in advance and we'll do them next time (this includes the Last Supper and visiting the Scala). But the tour was great and we saw a lot of Milan (the Milan Museum was particularly excellent-->I didnt know it existed). Below here, there are pictures of the twelve places we went to, in the following order:
1. Bastioni de Porta Volta: ATM Bar, which was closed on Sunday, unforunately (we go next time)
2. Piazzale Cimitero Monumentale: a grand cemetery, which was also unfortunately closed (we go next time)
3. Piazza Della Scala: the Scala opera house, where I will try to book a show for next time
4. Via Sant'Andrea: Milano Museum, excellent
5. Piazza del Duomo: the Vittorio Emanuele Gallery, which is an amazing place and we had coffee there...
6. Via Palazzo Reale: the Royal Palace Museum, where we'll go another time, because the queue was endless...
7. Via Ugo Foscolo: the Feltrinnelli Bookshop, which is indeed the finest bookshop Milano has (and one of the few with any English books at all)
8. Piazza del Duomo: the Duomo of Milan, which is an awesome church. Especially on the roof, it is very nice.
9. Via de'Amicis, 19: an old amphitheatre, even though we were a bit surprised to find ourselves in front of an ugly residential building. Unfortunately, the museum was closed on Monday... Next time
10. Piazzale Cadorna: Modern art as part of Milano, very odd
11. Piazza Santa Maria delle Grazie: the Last Supper, which I will book for next time
12. Piazza Buonarotti: the Music House of Verdi, very interesting.












As the photos show, Fedor took some lovely weather with him when he came here... We had a great weekend, also meeting our friends Nina and Antonio on Sunday... All in all, I was very sad to see him go again this morning. But he'll be back in 3 weeks, so it wont be too long, I guess. After Fedors departure, I returned once more to the Questura. I met a friend there, who was waiting as well. After 2 1/2 hours I was finally called forward and it turned out that all my paperwork was actually complete!!! So then I could enter another queue of people who waited for the finalisation of their Permesso di Soggiorno. And today, at 11.30 I finally became a legal immigrant in Italy!!! It really felt like a huge victory. My friend, who was from Non-EU Turkey waited for nearly 6 hours, but received hers as well!
After this victory I went to Uni, to find out that my lecture had been moved to Thursday. So after lunch, I went home and cleaned up some mess. Tomorrow I plan to really start studying. And to get my Milanese registration at the Ufficio Municipale (Gemeentehuis), but that will probably prove difficult...
ciao, OJ