A day in the life at Bocconi
Guest Post by: Finance Graduating Senior Cody Martinson. He is a Undergraduate student who participated on a Foster Exchange at Bocconi University in Milan, Italy for Spring Semester 2019.
Italy, what a magical country. Every day spent there was worth writing about, but one specifically great but typical day stands out to me. Like most days in the dorms, my day started with a €0.20 espresso from the dorm vending machine accompanied by a beautiful morning sun and small talk with everyone else who was down in the lounge, followed by a quick game of foosball. After another espresso we dispersed back to our rooms to study and prepare for classes later in the day. Two tram rides, a panino, and a couple hours of class later and I was back relaxing in the dorm. Another conversation at the espresso machine later and I was off with five friends on an expedition to get fresh milk at a dairy farm.
After a quick aesthetic walk through a few fields, pollen drifted through the air that day and covered the ground like snow with a bright and a warm afternoon sun shined down, we had secured the dairy and seen some cows. While sipping milk, we meandered back to our dorm down a different path, in the process finding multiple parks we didn’t know existed. After taking breaks in two of the parks we ran back to our dorm to change and get a soccer ball, the last park we’d found had goals and a clean field, something we’d been searching two months for. Picking up a couple more friends in the lobby we headed back to the field and played the most intense yet low-key game of pickup soccer I’ve ever had the pleasure of participating in. Playing until the sun had gone far past the horizon and we could barely see, we called it a day and headed home. With all of us too tired to chef up our regular group meal, we headed to the group favorite pizza joint across the street from our dorm.
With a variety of delicious pizzas and calzones and a little bit of wine, we spent two hours at the restaurant having conversation and enjoying each other’s company in a very Italian fashion. Conversations about the highlights of trips we had, stress with classes, and an assortment of other things we closed out our meal with another espresso (if you’ve noticed we drank a lot of espresso in Italy). We paid our bill and stepped outside, after which we spent another half hour chatting with the pizzeria’s owner while he smoked a cigarette. After we slowly made our way back with stuffed stomachs we separated for the final time that day and so ended one of the most extraordinary but typical days of my time abroad.
