Dance Class

This weekend I'm going to stay in Milan, instead of taking day trips like we have been the previous weekends. I want to relax and explore the city a bit on my own-- try out some italian and do my homework. But, I also wanted to dance. So, since a few of us had talked about looking into different salsa clubs/classes, we decided to try and find the one listed as closest to our campus, and ask about prices as well as see what the classes looked like. This is our story.

We left around 7:15 from our residence building. The class was 4 km from campus, and we decided to take a bus and then walk a few blocks. The bus ride lasted 8 minutes. We departed, and began our walk.

We slowly realized that there were no dance studios anywhere. Thus began the long process of stopping strangers and asking them where the studio was. We didn't exactly have the address, but we had three streets that it was in between, and if we found any of them, we were sure we could find the studio. Unfortunately, no one had really heard of any of these streets. They all gave us similar directions. Go straight, turn right. Or, go straight, turn left. We wandered.

After asking approximately 7 people, an elderly man decided to help us, and although he didn't know where the streets were, he began asking everyone who walked by. This led to a young man who knew where the street was, and not only was going to give us directions, but he was going to lead us there himself.

His name was Fabio, and he studies at Milano-Bicocca as well. He was very friendly, and spoke all in Italian, although he could speak English if we had problems communicating. We walked. We stopped and asked more people. We walked more. The he led us back to where we began. This was not so helpful.

However, he seemed to have an idea of where we were going, and we followed, because we had no other option. After walking with us for about 45 minutes, we arrived at one of our 3 streets. He asked us for the street number, and was completely astounded when we admitted that we didn't exactly know what it was. The situation seemed hilarious and we couldn't stop laughing at how ridiculous we were for about 5 minutes.

After collecting ourselves, we walked for another 20 minutes, asking various people along the way for help. Finally we found the school of dance. It turned out to be an elementary school that gave classes in the gymnasium. Unfortunately, the school was locked. The classes are Wednesday night only, and someone told us that only old people go. Fabio said goodbye and gave us directions to the metro station. His house was 3 minutes from where we met him, and he accompanied us for over an hour.

Then we took the metro back. There were problems there as well, since we had unknowingly left the city of Milano. This meant that our metro tickets wouldn't work, and we would have to buy new ones. None of us had money, so we collected spare change and luckily had enough.

Although we didn't dance (which I was bummed about) and we walked for about 3 hours, we met a nice Italian guy. He wants to hang out with us again, and he said he'll introduce us to his Italian friends as well. Which is fantastic, since everyone else I've met here is either Spanish, Portuguese, or from somewhere else-- but we all don't speak Italian. So meeting people to practice Italian with is great.

Tomorrow night, I will go salsa dancing. It is my new mission :)