Ciao a tutti,
Woah… talk about a long and eventful week! Lets just start with my flight from Atlanta to Milano. Like most people, I was unable to sleep on this 8 hour flight so I some pretty serious jet lag. Fortunately, I found three Bulgarian girls who also couldn’t sleep. They were on there way home from selling books door to door in Tennessee. (Strange)
Once I picked up my three enormous bags from baggage claim I was off to the trains. I went to the ticket clerk (who knew I was American before I made it to the front of the line) It was probably my boots and belt buckle that gave it away. (Don’t laugh Todd)
Then I got on the train for a 40 minute ride to downtown Milano. During this ride I sat across from Clara, a fashion consultant for a company I can’t pronounce. She gave me some heads up on where to shop for clothes because boots and big belt buckles aren’t “IN” over here. Haha
I arrived at NI Italy around 10:30 AM where I was greeted by Franchesca, our man lobby receptionist. This is where I waited for Massimiliano (Massi) who took me on a tour of the office. He is the HR assistant for practically everyone and is also a systems engineer. We have nearly 60 strong at NI Italy and I tried to meet them all on the first day.
After the meet and greet, Massi took me shopping at the local grociery store, and if it wasn’t for Massi, I would still be in there trying to find the milk. Initially I was trying to ask where the milk was by saying words like “Milk”, “Meelk”, and “Leche”. This is when they took me to the cooking section. So then I tried to explain in words what it looked like, “Blanco”, “Roundo” and then we ended up in the white wine section. By this time Massi found me surrounded by 4 or 5 workers playing charades while I acted out milk. (by the way, milk is latte) duh!
Then Massi showed me how to get to the apartment which is approximately a 20 minute walk from the office. The apartment has 3 bedrooms, 1 bath, and a nice sized kitchen. Two other NI employees are staying here also, Jaime, from Spain, and Egor, I’m not sure. So Massi dropped me off and I took a nap till dinner. (jet lag)
This is about the time Jaime got home from work and he took me to a phenomenal restaurant downtown Milano next to the Duomo. (corner of Alzaia Navigtio Grande and Viale Gorizia) This is probably the best pizza I have ever had. It even tops Mangia and Conan’s. So for all of you who have been to Conan’s with me; Lamb chops, Stevo, Berto, Missy, .. you know how much I like Conan’s! We ended up getting home around 12:30/1 am after walking around the piazza de Duomo window shopping.
