untitled design (1)

Learn Italian online

Snow!

As I scribble down this brief entry it’s snowing all over Milan. There is already enough of the wonderful white stuff for that delicious silence that only snow can produce to descend upon the city this evening. Wonderful! I love snow, it adds an extra dimension to everything. All that perfect whiteness drifting down and enveloping all the buildings and streets. Everything looks so clean and fresh. Stunning! There is nothing quite like it in my book. Makes me feel new and young and lots of other good things. It’s the first real snow the little one has ever seen and to mark the occasion I brought him a snowball from outside to see and touch. He even uttered the word ‘snow’ to, just to make everything seem really magical.

The funny thing is this is only about the third time in around ten years that I’ve seen snow here in Milan. It routinely blankets all the mountains, which seem to almost surround the city when viewed from the top of the Duomo, which is Milan’s enormous and highly ornate cathedral. The effect is really unusual, for me, for being English I’m used to seeing either everything covered in the stuff or no snow covering anywhere. There aren’t many mountains in the UK, so seeing snow capped peaks is something of a rarity, unless you happen to live up in Scotland where there are some almost-mountains.

think in italian logo dark bg 1

Stop reading, start speaking

Stop translating in your head and start speaking Italian for real with the only audio course that prompt you to speak.

The snowflakes bring to mind the journey into work I used to make on the metro, the Milan underground, from which I could see all the snow capped mountains on a clear day. OK, I know I said the metro is an underground railway, but this underground becomes an overground on one of its lines, the green one, so you can see everything around. The view was (and still is) great and really perked me up while I was struggling with the waking up process, which has always been something which has happened to me slowly. Even those infamous Monday mornings took on a new and almost tolerable light in view of the views of the distant Alps.

I shall whip out later and take a few photos and maybe even post one or two here, if they come out well that is. When I arrived at work, I was greeted by a bunch of my students, one of whom was having a bit of a hard time getting used to the cold. Maybe she has an excuse seeing as she comes from Sicily, where in August in is not unknown for the temperature to hit 45° to 47°C. Boy, that is hot. It ‘only’ reaches around 35° to 38° here in Milan in high summer.

I’m off to dig out, finally, my scarf and to resurrect my trusty gloves. Might unearth my hiking boots, too.

Most Popular

Back in a Week or So

Blog from Italy is going on a short holiday, but normal service will be resumed towards the end

Italians of the Decade Poll Results

Just before the New Year arrived I pondered who my own personal Italian of the decade might be. My thoughts evolved from discussions into a poll, and here are the results, along with an apology for certain omissions.

Categories

Related Posts

how to learn italian fast

How to learn Italian fast?

The time needed for learning a second language is an important factor to consider. Whether you want to apply for a job or finally decided

Light Canon

Nope, that’s is not a miss-spelling, ‘Canon’ refers to my Canon 400d, which now sports a heavyweight, in all senses, Metz 58 AF-1 flash unit,

pexels vincent rivaud 2233348

Food time!

Lunchtime, baby is sleeping – dozed off while we were searching for x-ray copies and doing a bit of shopping. Well, this is Italy, so

A Business Undertaking

A funeral parlour in Milan came up with an unusually callous way of drumming up business, so unusual that it caught the eyes of the Italian authorities.

The scheme caught my little eye as an example of abject callousness, and an instance of just how low people can sink in order to fill their bank accounts.