Festa della Liberazione

WHOA there.  After several years of using Blogger, Gmail changes and then Blogger does too?  I apologise if the formatting of this post is therefore somewhat strange.

I feel, currently, like it is a Sunday evening.  The very good reason for this is the Italian concept of a mid-week Bank Holiday.  Some of Italy's Bank Holidays are on specific dates, meaning that if it falls on a weekend, you don't get the day off, but if it's mid-week, hello mid-week mini-break.  Today, 25 April, is taken as the anniversary of the Liberation of Italy, when the Nazi army left Northern Italy.  Hence, there were several Communist demonstrations around the Duomo.  How this makes sense, I don't really know (last time I checked, not being a right-wing fascist doesn't automatically make one a Communist) but this isn't my country.

ANYWAY, I celebrated the day by firstly getting up late after a terrible night's sleep, then choosing to wear a red dress (I couldn't quite get green and white in as well), followed by icecream at Grom for a secondee's birthday, exploring bookshops, sitting in bookshop caffès reading the Sex and the City novel in Italian (awesome - it's quite easy, and surely it's useful vocab?) and then going for aperitivo at Bar Bianco and on the Corso Sempione with a friend from uni.   The aim of getting to know different types of Prosecco and discovering the best has fallen by the wayside since I discovered the Aperol Spritz.  Best early evening drink ever.

Aislin is arriving tomorrow - she was supposed to be taking the sleeper train from Paris to Milan, but unfortunately her Eurostar was delayed, meaning she missed it.  Damn you Eurostar!!  So she's in Paris and will be arriving tomorrow around 3pm.  Must check train station!!

Regarding the level of Italian, things continue to improve.  I'm certainly speaking it more in the office (I think people have realised that I tend to understand the gist and can also read/write it relatively well) and I spent a whole Italian lesson basically talking in a monologue about York, what there is to do there, why I went to a sixth form college, what I studied, etc.   Quite proud of myself, actually.  Shame my tongue hurt at the end of it, think it's the shapes that the words form.  Also a shame my accent is still shockingly bad.

To finish, I attach a mini-montage of my outfit below.   Ciao ciao.