A friend!

My sister's friend in Raleigh emailed me a week or so ago about a close friend of hers that moved to Milan 2 months ago. Seeing how I am certainly not maxed out in the friend department and I am craving time with somone my age, I was happy to email her.

As it turns out, Amber, lives 2 blocks from me. In this city of 1.4 million, she lives down the street from me?! This is no mistake.

We emailed a couple times then met up last Saturday for lunch. She has been in language classes, 4 hours a day, since she's arrived here. So, she has some Italian communication skills! Soon she will start her position working with professors initiating a language exchange and culture exhange program, similar to one already established in Rome. She took me to a little cafe not far from us and we feasted on Milanese specials: pizza topped with pumpkin blossoms, a fried risotto ball stuffed with cheese, and fried green olives stuffed with meat. Yum!

She is also a talented photographer and has a side job pertaining to that.

Amber and I have plans to meet on Friday for dinner, yay!


Part 2:

On Thursday, I was taking an hour walk that turned into about 3.5 hours. I walked off the map I had with me and got a bit lost! As I was finding my way home I called Amber to see if she was home. She was, so we met just below her house at a bakery she frequents for bread and coffee. It's only about 2 blocks from my house. We asked for cold coffee and the barista came up with this delicious coffee martini. Not exactly the iced starbuck's coffee I had in mind but refreshing non the less. Amber has had 4 hour language classes daily for 2.5 months now and speaks Italian pretty well. She has become friends with the people that work at the bakery so she introduced me. One of the women said all American girls are cute. Funny....I think the same thing about Italian women.

The next day we met for "Aperitivo". Every bar puts out this spread of meats, cheeses, chips, veggies and dips, and appetizers about 6:00 or so. Usually it's free if you buy a drink or sometimes there is a "cover". It was fun getting to know her better over some yummy appetizers.