After a crazy day of security checkpoints and no sleep the night before, I finally arrived in Milan – Linate. I’ll skip the part about how annoying and confusing the airport in London was.

The views from the plane when arriving where absolutely gorgeous. The area near the airport, I later found out, is mostly rice fields. So, as you come into Milan, the land almost looks like a quilt. Looking down from the plane you see a patchwork of different colors and shapes which are the rice fields. The airport (Milan-Linate) is quite small and old. In fact, when you get off the plane, you exit onto the tarmac and they bus you to the terminal. It was very 1950’s rockstar. There is a larger more modern airport, but it is used for larger commercial flights.

I lucked out and got a head of everybody going through customs. They were checking us in pretty slow. I also lucked out and didn’t lose any luggage! Thank God!

So I met up with our ICIF contact, Roseanna. She is such so super nice. She is your typical beautiful Italian woman. Very knowledgeable and funny, too. In the end there were supposed to be 7 of us from the United States on this trip.

Unfortunately, only five of us got there on time. Jared and Rand are both CIA students from New York. Laura is a student from Washington. And Annie is a student all the way from Maui. Rand was not as fortunate as the rest of us. His luggage did not show up on the flight. (As of now, the airline is still trying to track it down.) We decided to wait as long as we could (about an hour) to see if the other two students were somewhere in the airport. They were not. We figured they must not have made the connecting flight from London to Milan because of the change in flights from NY to London. So after an hour, we left without them. Since the airline would not tell us if they were on the flight or not, we had no way to contact them. So if they did show up later, they would be stranded (which would turn out to be the case).

The school is 2 hours south west of Milan by car. The scenery around Milan was pretty typical of any industrial/major city. It got more interesting as we headed towards the school (which will be referred to as The Castle from here on in). The little town (which I’m still not sure the name of), has a population of at least 6,000 people (according to Roseanna). This is where I became the typical tourist and brought out my camera to snap a bunch of pictures. The scenery is so beautiful. It’s your typical Italian landscape. Plaster buildings with red tile roofs and vineyards surrounding it. The dorms are…interesting. I ended up having to room with Jared and Rand. (The two other guys who didn’t make it would room together in another dorm). The only really nice thing about our accommodations is that the bathroom is huge (it has a bidet, aka the fun other toilet) and there is a balcony to walk out onto. Although the view is really nothing as it looks out into the courtyard and the surrounding apartment buildings.

So after settling in and unpacking, we changed and headed out to Magdelena’s. It’s a local restaurant that specializes in pizza. (Sidenote: Rand had actually visited the school before, so he was a little familiar with the town. He also is the only one of us who knows Italian so he’s acting as interpreter as well). The restaurant is the most popular in town. It was already packed by 8 o clock. Luckily the school made reservations and we had a table waiting for us. We started off with an antipasto appetizer which consisted of a chilled calamari salad, Vitello Tunato (sliced veal with a tuna mayo), beef carpaccio (raw beef with shaved parmigano reggiano), a roasted yellow pepper stuffed with what we believed was tuna or some sort of fish, and a slice of fresh bufalo mozzarella with fresh herbs. Very good.

The pizza in Italy is totally different than pizza in the US. The crust is much thinner and the sauce is made with fresh tomatoes and very little herbs. They use very little sauce as well. Also, you can totally taste the difference between an American tomato and an Italian tomato. It is fresh, sweet, and has that just from the garden flavor. Yummy. There’s nothing like it. Their pizzas are topped with not so typical ingredients like artichokes, prosciutto, tuna, and blue cheese. Sorry, no pepperoni at this joint. The pizzas were also individual sized/and boy were they tasty. I ordered the 4 Stagiani. It had ham, mushrooms, cheese, and artichokes divided into quarters on the pizza. Excellent!

You can’t think Italy without thinking wine. We decided to get a carafe of the house red with dinner. Woooowee was that stuff strong. Good, but strong. We noticed that getting wine is a lot cheaper than getting water in some places. They also like to mix things into their wine and make them into cocktails.

Dessert was an order of tiramisu that we all shared. Everyone was pretty full, but you can’t go to Italy and not try tiramisu. Honestly, it tasted like tiramisu from the US. In reality it is a simple dessert that you really can’t change too much. It was fair.

So after dinner, we decided to walk around the town at night. It was the perfect end to a long day. The town is quaint and charming. It’s also very hilly (great butt workout) and has such history. The castle is at the top of the highest hill and looks out over the town. It is currently going through some outside renovations, so the pictures I took have scaffolding around them. We decided to stop for a quick nightcap at a local bar. I had red wine with Campari (a liquor), seltzer, and a slice of orange. Delicious. That’s pretty much it. We went back to the dorms to get ready for day number 3, olive oil!

(Please excuse the spelling errors. I am typing this at five in the morning and Word’s spell check doesn’t pick up on Italian words. Also, the wireless internet connection only works in the breakfast room downstairs. Why am I up at 5 in the morning? Because I can’t sleep. It’s been a little gusty outside and the wind has been blowing around doors and windows. So every time I fall asleep, I get woken up with a BANG! It’s a little scary. Plus the hall light outside our door keeps going on and off. Ghosts perhaps?)

Bad news:  I can't upload pictures to this blog page from Italy. It takes way too long because the files are so large.  So go to

http://new.photos.yahoo.com/briguyinil@sbcglobal.net/albums

to view the pictures.

Today was the first day that I was really relaxed and didn’t worry about anything. 

It was rice day (something I know nothing about)! 

We started with a field trip to the Riso Gallo manufacturing plant.  They do the entire processing procedure (from it coming in from the rice farms to the finished product) as well as packaging and shipping.  The husk it, sort it, and clean it.  Then put it into boxes and store it in their huge warehouse.  Riso Gallo is the #1 risotto manufacturer in Italy.  They go by Riso Bello in America because the Gallo wine family would not let them use the name in the US.  They have 25% of the market share in the world.  They provide the aborrio rice for Trader Joe’s.

Facts about Rice and Riso Gallo:

1) 100% of the rice Riso Gallo manufactures is grown in Italy.

2) Rice is grown only in the northern part of Italy.  The Poe River is a naturally dividing line for the rice growing area.

3) There are two main families of rice.  Indica (which is what we are used to in the US) and Japonica (the family that includes Italian rice)

4)   Riso Gallo has gone under the name Riso Bello in the US since 1996

5)  25% of their production is exported

6)  Italy grows over 50 varieties of rice.

7)  Carnaroli is a type of rice to make risotto.  In Italy is considered the king of rice for Risotto.  Abborio is what we are used to in the US.  It is actually considered a lesser quality than Carnaroli. 

8) 10% of the population of Italy suffers from Gluten allergies (that’s about 5 million people).  Pasta is now being produced in Italy from rice flour.

We were not allowed to take pictures inside of the plant, but I did get one of the outside (really nothing too awesome about it) and the town it was in.

It was a truly educational experience.  I had never been to a huge factory before.  We even got to tour quality control and research and development.  They are doing some huge things in Italy!  On the way to the Risotto plant I did get to see the Alps off in the distance.  How amazing.  Living in Chicago you don’t get to see a lot of elevation changes. 

After coming back from the field trip, we ate a quick lunch and got into the kitchen for our Risotto cooking lesson (we ended up getting back late from the trip).  The recipes included a Risotto with shrimp and zucchini as well as a Risotto with Gorgonzola and Red Pepper Puree.  Both were excellent.

The stores finally opened today, so I was able to finally do a little shopping.  The stores in this town close early on Sunday and are closed all day on Mondays.  So I got to look at some really cool (and expensive) shoes. 

I also was able to try some Italian Gelato.  It was unbelievable.  Gelato is like ice cream only it is denser and richer.  They made one that was chocolate chip (except they use chocolate shavings instead of chocolate chips) and an almond gelato.  I will be going back tomorrow!  The cool thing is that it is so rich you only need a little scoop.  And to cut out the guilt even more, its best to share it with others.

Dinner was back at Magdelana’s (the restaurant we went to our first night here).  I had homemade (and I mean homemade) ravioli with a pomodoro (tomato) sauce.  What I love about their sauce is that it is so simple.  It is basically tomatoes, some onion, and olive oil. Really no spices.  Their tomatoes here in Italy are so sweet that they tend not to put basil or oregano (spices we often use in the US) in their basic sauce.  The ravioli were excellent!

Tomorrow should be fun, we are heading to a winery.  We are actually going to have lunch with the family who owns the winery.  Pretty exciting.

Finally, the weather was actually nice today.  Since I’ve gotten here its been cold and overcast.  The people at the school say its funny though because the days before we got here it was hot and humid (its been a total shift in seasons).