Lecco, che bello!

I had a wonderful day in Lecco.  I arrived around 11 AM, after very successfully navigating the train situation.  Ok, I had two issues.  First, I was trying to shove my money in the wrong slot of the ticket machine.  Luckily, someone helped me.  Second, I wasn't sure how to distinguish the first and second class seats of the train.  All of the seats seemed to be pretty good, so I was a bit nervous I was in a first class car.  I was googling "train Italy distinguish first second class" when I heard someone else ask (in Italian) whether the car was second class, so I feel a bit better about myself.

After arriving, I started wandering.  My "Northern Italy" guidebook doesn't actually cover Lecco (though other lakeside towns are included) so I didn't have a plan of specific sights to see, besides the mountains and lake.  On my way to the lake I stopped at a bar to get a coffee - I think I did ok, but I certainly haven't mastered the art of ordering an espresso.  The Italians seemed surprised that I, as an American/foreigner, want an espresso.  I think I should be able to just order a caffe to get an espresso, but even when I order an espresso or ristretto the barista typically clarifies that I want an Italian coffee.

Why yes, that is the Italian equivalent of a "Little Free Library" in the foreground.

After briefly warming up on the ristretto, I started walking along the lake.  It was beautiful, and I contemplated how much of the scenery and experience I can describe in Italian.  A family asked me to take their picture (in Italian) and I managed to respond and do so.  There were some people kiteboarding on the water-  I cannot fathom a wetsuit warm enough for that water!

I walked for some time, passing some restaurants that I remembered later for lunch.  I stopped in one shop (art and jewerly) and possibly managed to construct a sentence that would mean "I'm just looking".  It was the sort of place where there are no visible price tags, and I decided I probably had not fall in love with anything...  Then, I found a tea shop.  Sadly they did not take credit card, but luckily I had a lot of cash.  I think I've now managed to buy at least 3 months of loose leaf tea - two of my favorites (lapsang souchong, pu erh) and an exciting oolong.  

The shops were starting to close for lunch, but many of the restaurants were fairly empty.  I knew I wanted some place where I could sit and eat, rather than a quick bite at a tavola calda/bar.  However, the cheaper ones are all "surgelato" - they prepare and serve frozen food.  This is fairly typical in Italy (for inexpensive fare) and I decided to splurge on a nicer lunch.  I looked at a few menus offering fresh fish, and ended up heading back to one of the restaurants I had passed earlier.

I went to an Indian restaurant for lunch, which was a great idea.  I chose one of their combination lunches which included a fish curry, and had an excellent hot tea.  Even though I didn't finish the main plate or the dessert, I was still so stuffed that I just had to sit by the water and digest for awhile.  So good!  Interestingly, this is one of the few places where the waiter started speaking to me in English (without me asking).  I didn't think of it until later in the meal, but English is widely used in India, so the Indian staff are very likely to speak English.    

I wandered a bit more, taking some pictures and window-shopping.  I contemplated getting a new coat... I was wearing the coat I took to wear if it was raining or if I wasn't at work, and it just isn't warm enough.  Most of the stores didn't open until 3 or 4 PM, and I decided to head home.

Old city!  The remnants of the old walls, protecting Lecco from dragons and whatnot.

Off to Lecco!

My first weekend adventure is to head to Lecco, to the north of Milan, on one of the lakes (Como).  I figured this would be a simple trip, where I don't stay overnight and I do not need to catch the train at 7 AM.  It will, of course, be very cold - so I need to come up with something to do other than "walk around outside".  That might involve practicing getting coffee in "un bar" (which is a cafe here). 

The first challenge is choosing a departing location.  One station in Milano has more trains to Lecco, a different station (of course) has only the fast trains to Lecco.  The second challenge will be actually getting a ticket, figuring out if it needs to be validated, etc.  Beyond that, I am not too concerned - especially if my phone battery doesn't die!

A few things I didn't expect...

I have less time that I expected.  I cannot entirely figure out where my time is going right now!  Some of it is probably the commute - while not long, I am used to a 5 minute commute.  There are likely many small things (making hot water for tea) that are taking a bit more time since they are not (yet) integrated into my routine and are slightly more difficult than what I am used to.  I am also getting a reasonable amount of sleep, which removes about 2 hours from my useful hours.  Then there is the food shopping, which I am doing much more frequently (every day or two), compared to once a month in Atlanta.

It also doesn't help that I hadn't "worked" for the past month, so my brain is comparing "day spent working" to "winter break", rather than "teaching during the semester".  My current schedule is way more relaxed than during semesters, but I had overestimated my free time when I was here.  For instance,  I have no idea how I could schedule Tibetan lessons, as I had hoped to - if I am traveling on the weekends.

Everyone in my office is female (almost).  I sit in a room with other medical physicists - many of them split their time between clinical work and research, so the people there really varies.  The first day there was one guy in the office, but he wasn't there yesterday or today.  Everyone else is female.  There are some other offices in the Health Physics section, and they are mostly male.  Yet this isn't a case of me being "put with the women" - this is where the simulation computer is!  Eventually I will figure out what role, position, and specialty everyone has, and maybe there are gendered patterns.  But at least I am meeting a bunch of (scientific!) women who are about my age.  Today the group at lunch was 8 of us.

I may be a tad overdressed for my workplace.  I am carefully watching how people dress here.  My neighborhood is more immigrant/working class than designer, but I see a mix of people on the Metro and at OSR.  Some people are certainly dressed well, either in a "fashionable" or classy sense.  The gentleman at the cell phone store was wearing a jacket, sweater,  button down shirt, and tie.  At OSR, many people are in scrubs.  There are many young (20ish) people in sneakers and jeans - I assume they are students.  The women I share an office with are at a level or two above jeans - put together, but they wouldn't stand out at an American mall, for instance.

I am walking less.  It is hard to get to 10k steps in a day!  At Agnes, much of my job involved walking short distances repeatedly.  I had to walk across the building for the printer, I paced during lecture, I walked to meetings in other buildings.  Now, I stay at a desk at OSR and everything is right there.  My walk to the metro station is fairly short, and there metro network is very good in the city - I'm never that far from a station.  Since it is so cold, I am not motivated to walk when I could take transit.  It is possible to walk between the Metro stop and the hospital, rather than taking the light rail, which I might start doing.    

Good Luck Today!

So, apparently major things are happening in the United States today.  I received my first message from the consulate here:

The U.S. Consulate General in Milan informs U.S. Citizens that on Friday, January 20, 2017, from 6:30 p.m.  a demonstration is planned at Largo Donegani, in front of the U.S. Consulate General Milan, by a group opposing the U.S. administration.  The police will monitor these events and expect approximately 200-300 people at the event. They expect the demonstration will be peaceful. 

The U.S. Consulate General in Milan recommends that U.S. citizens and their families avoid the areas of the demonstration and exercise caution if walking or driving in the vicinity.

As much as part of me wants to go and join the demonstration, I'm going to listen to the Consulate and avoid the area.  It isn't near my flat nor where my Italian lessons are, so I should be ok.  I haven't even had anyone (apparently) recognize me as an English speaker or American on first sight.

Bottom line: if riots somehow break out at the protest in Milan (I don't think they are the rioting type), I won't be there.

A very successful day

My morning started with the challenge of getting up early into a cold apartment, taking a shower, etc, and getting out the door.  While I didn't leave as early as I had hoped to, I was to the office within the window I had set for myself.  I don't have a badge yet, but I had been told to buzz and that someone would let me in.  I pushed what I thought was the buzzer, but nothing happened... Luckily, someone arrived who was entering the same office area and they let me in - I don't know if I had met them yesterday or not.

Almost no one was around, but I knew what I could make progress on.  One of the people I share an office with arrived a bit later.  Eventually, I worked up the courage to ask her about lunch - I didn't want to eat by myself, but I wasn't sure I could eve navigate the system (whatever it was) on my own.  She happily agreed to take me to lunch.  I also asked her about the Metro transfer back from OSR, since I didn't want to run into the same problem as yesterday where I couldn't exit.

Lunch was fine - cafeteria food, so it won't be providing my most delicious meals in Italy, but it will certainly work for weekly lunches.  Interestingly, I had been warned it was expensive - but it wasn't.  Perhaps I was given the wrong change or the cashier assumed I got the employee/student price.  I'm sure I will figure out the actual price soon.

I made more progress in the afternoon, and I think I am ready to run some (example) simulations tomorrow.  Basically, instead of using my primary simulation tool directly, I am going to be using something that interfaces to it.  I think this will be advantageous in the end, but now I have to deal with a learning curve.  So my achievement for today was reading over 200 pages of software documentation.

Chatting with my office mate, I learned that she dances salsa - including Cuban salsa!  I find it pretty amazing that I have met a small handful of people in Milan, and yet already I have a connection to the local salsa scene.  She also helped me a little bit with the monthly transit pass I hoped to get and explained a little more about the transit pass I currently have.  Her advice was very helpful, as I actually found the machine to validate my ticket to avoid being scolded by the transit employees today.

I stopped at home to change out of work clothes and because I thought I (maybe?) could only use it if I returned to the station I departed from.  I figured out, with the help of the internet, what ticket I needed to buy to supplement it (for today and tomorrow) and headed to the Loreto transit stop.  I was behind schedule, but I hoped to get my electronic transit card and sign up for the monthly ticket today.

My office mate had written down how to ask for the card and ticket, which I thought I could say on my own, but with the nervousness of sorting out the situation it was very helpful to reference something written down.  There was a form to fill out, which I more or less managed.  The fields had English translations, but that wasn't that helpful.  "Civic code?" I took my best guess and left a field blank which I think is for the equivalent of the Italian social security number.  I had read that was needed, which is why I wasn't sure I could get the card at all.  My form was accepted, I had a passport picture with me (since I had read the website ahead of time!), and I immediately had my card.  The entire process took about 10 minutes!

I was right on time for my language lesson, which is also in that area.  I'm very happy with how the lesson went - we mostly conversed, but she would occasionally pause to correct mistakes that I was consistently making.  We were mostly speaking in Italian, but we used English to clarify grammer details (or when I had no idea how to say something).  I'm very optimistic that I will improve over the next week of working with her.  I'd like to sit and practice/review right now, but I feel very tired...

After the lesson, I stopped into a store that had caught my eye yesterday.  It is called "Tiger", and I would describe it as an Ikea of random small stuff.  It seems to be from Denmark, and clearly is design-focused - but there is little pattern to what they have.  I saw they had (European) USB wall adapters, which I wanted to get.  But I discovered they also had stationary, craft supplies, exercise equipment, kitchenware, pet supplies, and spices.  Between the notebooks, glitter, and spices, this is basically my favorite store ever!

I did, of course, look at the spices.  They had a strange mix of spices - including "Dragoncello".  I could figure out what most everything else was, but didn't have a guess on that.  Instead of buying it (because I am a reasonable human being), I took and picture and translated it later.  The English name (Tarragon) isn't that exciting, so I shall call it dragoncello henceforth! 

Just like Ikea, everything was very cheap.  There are a number of kitchen supplies I'd like to acquire for the apartment, but they didn't quite have what I needed.  I did buy a small ceramic (paring-style) knife, which will be an improvement over the steak knives I've been using to cut bread and cheese.  I managed to not buy any glitter.  I had no idea how to ask for the USB charger in Italian, but the cashier spoke enough English that I got it.

I promised myself I would stop at the pasticceria, next to the metro station, on the way home to get bread.  I bought two pastries (I don't know their name in Italian, so I did call them "these" and point) and a small loaf for dinner.  I was fairly pleased with the interaction!  I felt emboldened to head back out to one of the small meat markets, but once I was in my apartment I decided I was too tired.  I've managed to write this and eat dinner, but I think my bed is in my near future...

Just so you know: Earthquakes in Italy

I realize that the American news is probably filled with ridiculous quotes from our elected officials, but there were some devastating earthquakes in central Italy today.  This region has had many earthquakes over the past few years, and the batch today were not the worst. 

I realize that certain people don't have a great sense of Italian geography - but the earthquakes struck about 6 hours from where I am in Milan.  Rome, by comparison, is 2 hours from the area struck by the earthquakes today.  So, I am absolutely fine.

Historically, Italy has had major earthquakes - mostly in the central or southern regions (I am in the north).  I lived in California for 7 years right next to the San Andreas fault line, so I am not particularly concerned about earthquakes here.  I am not planning on traveling to the central region - partially because it has never fully recovered from the earthquakes over the past few years.  Don't spend your concerns and worries on me - do send thoughts and prayers to the Italians near the village of Amatrice (and in the entire region) who have lost homes and loved ones today.

Benvenuto a Ospedale San Raffale

This afternoon I headed to Ospedale San Raffaele (OSR) where I will be working.  My collaborator was going to meet me "at the station" of the light rail at OSR, so I figured getting there would be easy.  I took the metro one stop, then looked for the light rail to OSR.  However, I didn't realize that one didn't "exit" the metro to take the light rail - but then I saw the signs and headed back in.  At the lightrail my ticket was refused a few times and I came to the conclusion that I had to buy a different ticket to get on the lightrail.  Ok, no problem.

I successfully met my collaborator who showed me around the labs and then to the office area.  We chatted about the ongoing research projects, I met many people whose names I will not remember tomorrow, and then I started exploring the software installed on the simulation computer.  I feel like I made some progress today, in only a few hours!

Then it was time to head back to the light rail... I managed to get off the elevator on the correct floor and backtrack my steps.  I was in some underground tunnels for awhile, then into the main hospital area.  I actually made it to the rail station on my first try - there are painted colored stripes on the floor, so all I had to do was follow a line, really.

OSR is very large - it is a hospital and a medical school/research institute.  In many ways it reminded me of the Stanford Medical School, where I worked for 3 years.  There is one atrium area that is effectively a church, which Stanford didn't have.  I'll get a better picture of the stained glass when the sun is shining.

Tomorrow morning I get to see if I can backtrack my steps to the office.  At least I now know (I think) the right way to get from the metro to the light rail.  In my confusion today I had left and then gone back in - apparently this was a problem!  I assumed that it would be fine since it was at the same station and in such a short period of time.  But when I went to leave the station on my way home, my ticket wouldn't let me out.  My ticket is a "one round trip" ticket per day, so the system was fairly sure I had already taken my round trip.  I got to have another conversation with my terrible Italian, attempting to explain to the metro employee what happened.  I couldn't really explain the details of what happened, or understand the details of what he was saying.  He finally gave up and just let me through.  Hopefully I do better tomorrow!