Cultural differences

Whilst living in a foreign country for the first time, i have noticed that it is the smaller things in life that make a big difference...

This post is mainly going to be filled with photography and images i have taken during my Erasmus experience to capture cultural differences.

The Streets
Graffiti is huge in Milan, when i first moved out to Milan i had this image in my mind of a pristine city, high class and full of interesting people. To be honest with you i couldn't have been more wrong! Graffiti is on EVERY wall in the city - i love street art and use the influence in a lot of my work, but i feel there is a big difference between street art and graffiti. Some pieces around the city are wonderful and very inspiring but there is a lot of mess on the streets that bring down the cities class.

What i love most about living in a new country is experiencing their way of live everyday. Here in Milan we don't have much of a skyline but the streets are narrow and cobbled which means the lighting throughout the day is so different to back home in England. I have experienced some beautiful sunsets and weather out here so here is some examples...

Bars
I don't know what it is about Italy, but they seem to just throw food at you constantly! (not literally, of course)
For instance- you fancy going to a bar for a couple of cheeky wines. You arrive at the bar of your choice, you sit down, you order your drinks and they bring out a plate of food! Usually ham and cheeses or bread with some sort of topping. Don't get me wrong i'm not complaining, I love me some food! (especially when it's free) but joking aside this is actually a really cool way of understanding the types of food that they eat in Italy.
My mum and dad came out to visit recently and i took them to a bar where they have this kind of service so we had been nibbling on bready bits for a couple of hours. We spent so long catching up that we were in this bar until they served aperitivo and we were so full from eating steadily throughout the day that we didn't have room for dinner that night!
The best bar I have been to which catered for this kind of service was a bar called MAG. The bar itself is a dark, quirky, jazz bar with a great atmosphere. We sat at a tall table with high bar stools drinking prosecco (mum was paying, obviously) and the waitress brought out a plate of ham and cheese - as soon as the plate looks a bit sparse, they bring out another one!

Expenses

Living and studying in the UK is fairly cheap and cheerful, we have our weird and wonderful ways of getting by on next to no food, we have endless student bars and nightclubs with discounted prices and it's generally all under our noses. Naturally, I came to Milan thinking there must be some sort of student sub-culture. Long story short - I was wrong. The average price for a pint of beer is 5.50 euros, the same for wine and cocktails begin at 7 euros. On top of all the expenses at university (buying fabric and materials etc.) We just cannot afford to have the student life that we are used to. Don't fear - the supermarket sell wine and it is insanely cheap!! I have never paid more than 2.50 euros for a bottle! And it's good wine too! As you can imagine, my friends and i have managed to salvage our Coventry University student lifestyle by wacking on a great film drinking copious amounts of wine! Happy Days!

And just to make sure you have a nice day, here's some adorable dogs i've spotted along my travels...