return to milan.

when i knew i was leaving milan, i had this notion that i wanted to get back to milan on my way home from dubai at christmas. 

for the longest time, the flight scenarios just looked impossible. 

but one day, i happened upon an affordable and doable flight path and i bought it. 

my school in dubai has an extra week off at the holidays, so my friends in milan would still be in the city so that i could say hello. 

caitlin, of course, let me stay at her apartment...i just had to figure out how to get in the door! 

the key was with the doorman, who was nowhere to be found...of course! coffee break, i'm sure! 

so i dropped my bags outside her door hoping i'd be able to jump on her wifi since i'd used her network before...and success! 

after a little while, i checked back downstairs and the doorman had returned. 

and, of course, we had to hit our favorite places.

i love this little wine bar, convivio, and have posted about it many times before.

some of my favorite people!

then it was off to pizza am, one of the best pizzerias in town. you must arrive before they open if you don't want to wait forever.

ugh, so delicious.

good friends, good food.

see? #cleanplateclub

i'd basically been begging for a starbucks to arrive in milan the entire time i lived there.

and then three arrived as soon as i left. #figurati

so i had to go and get a latte. just because i could.

but there were plenty of lines!

i miss watching the little old italians walking the streets.

and i miss this foccacia. it's one of my favorites.

all that deliciousness.

channeling girl eat world.

another mandatory stop was luini's. i mean, when this is the line, you know it's good, right?

panzerotti. basically baby calzones.

delicious food, historic background.

milan was all decked out for the holidays.

blue skies and the duomo.

i was also able to swing by school to say hello and see how the renovations finished up over the summer.

and i couldn't pass up chocolate brioche.

and discovering i've been immortalized on the school's timeline.

i asked my italian teacher to meet me for lunch, somewhere we could have a bowl of delicious pasta.

she insisted on her sister's.

so we lunched over traditional italian ragu.

buonissimo!

it was awesome to get back to milan so soon after leaving. and honestly, surprisingly reassuring that i made the right decision to leave when i did. i'm so happy to have had the experience of living in italy for seven years, but am thrilled to have taken the leap into a new adventure.

until next time, milan.