city shopping with Jesye - Milan

I remember when I first moved to Denver, Colorado from Rochester, New York... it was a weird realization to think that I had no friends. At least no friends in the city I had just moved to! I wanted to wear a sign on the front of my shirt that said something like: "Just moved here... need friends." ...and on the back of my shirt: "Don't worry, I'm normal (kind of)." HA!

With time and with getting involved in things (like an ultimate frisbee league and weekly Bingo at the local dive bar), I met some great people and friendships grew. (It also helped that I moved in with Lenny, my oldest brother, and met all of his friends - who are awesome people).

There are a lot of really nice people at the school I'm working at here in Italy. That's really good. Still though, it takes time for friendships to grow...

Jesye is this great girl who's 23-years old and is awesome enough (and brave enough!) to move her life abroad for her first year of teaching. ...She's also from the Rochester, NY area! YEAH!

Having both chosen to stay in Milan for our first 3-day weekend when many people took the advantage of the holiday and traveled... Jesye and I spent time together and got into the city. We both love to shop... we both love bagels and coffee... and we both can laugh at pretty stupid things.    : )  That all makes me really happy.

...Having both chosen to stay in Milan for our second 3-day weekend holiday (last weekend)... we spent time together again... with bagels, coffee, and shopping! Perrrrrfect.

It always feels awesome to find people whom you can laugh with and enjoy spending time with.

New friendships in my new city! ...and hopefully more to come   : )

Can't go wrong with starting a day in the city with bagels and coffees-to-go!

A 5th-grader asked Jesye if her and I are sisters.... Ha!... I can see it!

Coming to the plaza with the Duomo, that's where we catch the 24 tram back towards Opera...

We ran into Heath! - a science teacher in the Upper School who has just started at ASM too.

(Ali - another new teacher - was with Heath... she was the photographer for the photo below.)

Then Jesye and I attempted a self-taken photo of us with the Duomo in the background...
But we could not get the Duomo to fit with our heads on her iPhone... and hilariously this is what we ended up with (unplanned):

Cute.