Things I (one day) will tell my nephews

I don't know why, but I've been noticing that grandmothers have this incredible ability to know literally everything that happens with you, and, most of them, to have experienced all the possible experiences.

I,too, want to be one of those cool grandmothers, so that's why, after only 19 years and a good half, I've collected a discrete amount of what in italian I would call "figure di merda", which in english would be " times I acted like a fool", though it's much better in italian #sorrynotsorry, and I seriously can not wait to tell them all to my hypothetical future (un)lucky nephews.

Please don't judge me.


N. 1- I've lost a tampon in the forest/beach (difficult to separate them) during a party in Norway and I went to the ambulance asking for a new one. They all started laughing and gave me a pack of toilet paper instead.

N. 2- After a night spent drinking wine, I threw up on my bedclothes and kept it there for one week, because I didn't dare tell my parents. Eventually I told my mum and she and my dad laughed at me for days afterwards.

N. 3- Conversation with my Norwegian family: "You know what they say, <When you drop a fork on the floor, a man is knocking at the door>!" Me: "Is he nice?"

N. 4- I got really drunk in Amsterdam and woke up with a barricade in my room made by my friends to keep "someone" outside - not going to say anything more about this. We had to take the plane back home the day after and threw up every now and then on the way from the hotel to the airport.

N. 5- In Cambridge, me and my friends greeted the police officer with a tea cup full of vodka and asked him to take a picture with us. He didn't notice the alcohol and took the picture.

N. 6- I got out one day in the middle of the night and called my friend to go "catch" the Northern Lights, and got lost somewhere in the forest, with the sound of the mooses and my friend swearing in the background.

N. 7- One month after I moved to Milan, I got really drunk and threw up in the tram.

N. 8- I jumped off the trampoline in the pool and found out just once I was in the water that I had lost the upper part of my bikini.

N. 9- I almost burned down the whole kitchen while trying to cook some spinaches. Literally.

N. 10- I managed to set my hair drier on fire a couple of times.

And, last but not least, my hair was once like this:

That's not all,but I've ashamed myself enough for today. I'll probably make a part two one day.

Once again, please don't judge me.

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Welcome to Milano

Surprise, surprise : I live in Milan(o) now.
Ok, it's not that a big deal, though it surely enough brought quite a few changes in my life.

First of all, I'm not living with my parents any longer (again), YAY! Welcome adulthood. Just kidding, I must admit I kind of miss them every now and then, especially when I'm having "troubles" with my new flatmates (not that we argue that much tbh). Yes, I do live with other three girls I'd never met before and yes, we do have problems sharing a f*@#ing small bathroom, but "that's just the way it is".

Second of all, I've finally started going to the University, and God, I'd never thought Interior Design would involve such a lot of stress! Nor that its materials would be THAT expansive, I guess I may have just found out why a designed armchair can cost up to many hundred euros!
Jokes aside, I do really love my faculty and its laboratories, especially Models lab, which I still haven't had the pleasure to use, but for which we had to take an enabling test (nothing too difficult indeed),and the people in my course are just amazing: I've known them for only a couple weeks and I already am in love with most of them.

Nevertheless, I'm probably going in Lithuania for one week next month for a workshop between my school, PoliMi, and Vilnius' Design School. I'll let you guys know what will come out of this for sure.

Actually, moving to Milan hasn't changed my daily routine only, but also, and most importantly, the perspective I have/had of my future. Don't get me wrong, I still don't know 100%  what I'll make of myself in these next years, but I do know, more or less, which way I'm going and, I'll be honest, it is an amazing way indeed.

I'll go to sleep now, since I'm feeling like crap and I unfortunately have 9h lab tomorrow, I'll be writing soon, I hope.

Thank you.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D6-EUSvJchI

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Changes

It's raining cats and dogs (and cows and horses and the whole farm) outside right now, and so has it been ever since 1 September. Exactly the opposite of what it was like last month. Actually, many things are the opposite of what they were like last month. Let me just give you some examples.

I travelled a lot in August, I even got back in Norway for ten days. It took me something like 16 hours to get there - had to go to Naples, then Milan, waited there 7 hours, then took the plane to Amsterdam and then again to Trondheim- but it was totally worth it. Seeing my host-family and friends again was amazing, and it felt almost like I'd been away for just a couple days. That was last month. If I'd went back now, I would probably feel like I don't even know the place, since almost all my friends and my h-brother have moved out to start what is called "folkeskole" or university or whatever they're up to.

Also, just last week my best friend didn't even know where and what she was going to study, and now she's leaving tomorrow to start the Uni in Venice. Even my "love life" has been put upside-down in the past few weeks. Crap.

I guess things just have to go the way they do.

And anyway, it didn't change all for the worse, in fact I've actually managed to find a new flat in Milan since I'm moving there to study Interior Design by the end of September! I can't even put in words how excited I am, you guys will definitely hear more about it in the future.

Also, my hair turned BLUE. This is actually a funny story. I was shopping with my h-brother at Cubus and as I was trying on some hats (for your information it was the cutest hat EVER : light pink, soft, with "#CUTE" printed on it) with my hair pulled in a ponytail I realized it wouldn't look bad at all if I cut it short. Of course, when I explained the idea to my h-brother he said it was the dumbest thing I could ever think of. You know, brothers. Anyway, I was really sure of cutting it, but one week later, as I was shopping (again) at Cubus (again), I found this blue-ish/green-ish hair color powder and of course I had to try it. It looked amazing, indeed. So I dropped of the cutting idea, and dyed my hair what was supposed to be green, and got blue instead the day after I got back to Italy.

Ok, it wasn't that funny after all. The moral here is: if you need hair inspiration, go shopping at Cubus, bye!

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My life goal

This time it is going to be very personal.

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The UGLY BFF Message

Since I recently finished that hell which is usually called "High School" , my Facebook timeline and my WhatsApp conversations have been invaded by thousands of posts and messages declaring the love that each one of my now ex-school mates felt for each one of us; and this doesn't apply only to them, but to most of the now ex-students of almost every high school there is in my city.

Generally I would have nothing, more or less, against a happy and free spread of love, though this case in particular upsets me quite a lot for a very simple and practical reason : they are all bullshit.

Of course, some of those declarations do really come from deep in the hearts of the writers, but it gets quite funny when they come from people you've hardly ever heard of or from people you know they at least have never really liked you.

What's even funnier, is the way they are written and the things they say, which all go, inevitably, the same old way. I know you're literally dying to read some of those messages, aren't you? Well, I have a surprise for you guys! Here is what I call the Ultimate Goodbye-I Love You-BFFs Message 2.0, or the UGLY BFF Message:

Oh my God! I can't believe five years have passed by! It seems yesterday we started this journey that turned out to be the best experience of my life until now and I'm glad to have experienced it with those people that turned out to be a second family to me : YOU GUYS! Do you remember our first day of school??? As always I was (choose late or early according to the author personality) and anxious to meet those strangers with whom I'd spend some of the most important years of my youth and how strange it was to meet you all for the first time! (Please fill in a detailed description of how everyone looked the first day now). I must confess that I didn't exactly love everybody from the very beginning, and  (name of the person the author still secretly hates) can confirm that, right? Hahaha, but as time passed we all got to know each others very well <3 Oh, how many things we did together! Do you remember when (episode which nobody remembers but the author)? Hahahahahaha I will miss those moments for the rest of my life <3 <3 <3 I just wanted to tell you guys that I love you, and will always do, and I know we'll never stop seeing each others! As (name of a teacher) always said: (lame quote from the teacher)! Remember, it's not a "goodbye", but a "see you later, alligator"!   XOXO

And that was the last time you ever heard of them.

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What to expect when coming back from an exchange year

Being an exchange student is an indescribable and unique experience, we all agree on this, but how does it feel like to come back to your Home Country?

Here's a little list of "What to expect" based on my friends' and my own experiences.

1)"Where am I?"- this is usually the first question that pops up into your mind right after the general excitement of seeing your family and friends for the first time in months. Be prepared because, especially for those of you who have been in a country where people speak a different language than yours, the day when you wake up wondering How comes I'm NOT in my room? is coming.

2)"Take me back HOME"-do you remember those moments during your exchange year when you were all the time looking for things which would eventually remind you of your Home Country? Or when the only thing you wanted was to be back home for just one sec? Well, it's exactly the same shit all over again, just reversed.

Then these moments disappear, just as magically as they did during the exchange year. And that's exactly when the third and worst moment of all starts:

3)"Host Country, please, STAPH!"-it's everywhere. It almost looks as though the entire World has just found out about the existence of your Host Country -whichever it is- and can't wait to make you aware of it. Every. Goddamn. Second. Be it Norway, Argentina, or even the most improbable tiny village in the far north of Siberia, every news is going to mention it somehow. I'm not kidding, Karma can be such a bitch at times. And for those of you who don't see what harm it could do, just scroll back to point 2.

How do we survive all this?
Come on, that's an easy one! The same way we survived the exchange year: put a smile on your face, a positive attitude on your mind, surround yourself of nice people and make junk food your best friend!

Good luck to you all!

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