Italian word of the week: _asciugamano_ – towel

You never know how much you rely on certain items until you don’t have them. In this instance, I am referring to a towel. To get to Italy from St. Louis, I had to take three flights — from St. Louis to Chicago to New York to Milan — which added up to about 22 hours of traveling. 

I don’t know if you have ever traveled for that long, but usually what I crave most after traveling for an extended period of time is a hot shower, which is pretty hard to do without a towel. And unfortunately for me, Bed Bath & Beyonds do not exist in Milan.

After trying downstairs to see if my dorm had any towels, I asked the doorman where I could buy one. Just my luck — the doorman didn’t speak much English, so he had no idea and simply pointed outside. So outside I went.

It might have been helpful if I had looked up how to say towel in Italian in my dictionary before I left, but of course, I did not.

Off I set with no destination or direction in mind and no clue how to say what I needed in the local language. Some people will call this setting yourself up for complete failure, but I like to think of it as ignorant, wishful thinking that the magical towel fairy would give favor to me on this jet-lagged day.

The first place I tried was a pharmacy. I tried to inconspicuously look around for a towel on my own by carefully avoiding the sole employee inside. However, seeing as I was the only one in the store, she obviously found me and started asking me in questions in Italian. My jet-lagged brain could not comprehend at all.

I just started saying “Do you have a towel?”  while weirdly miming what a towel might do. When she responded “Si, si,” I think my heart grew wings and flew out of my body. I found a towel? Really? At the first place I tried?

She proceeded to bring me over and show me their finest shampoos. It seemed the towel fairy had the day off. I shook my head and tried again. She told me that they didn’t sell whatever she thought I needed there but tried to direct me to a place that might. I left the shop and got utterly lost for an hour before giving up and going back to the dorm. But I refused to let Europe make me into a non-showering European. So I gave in and took a shower and dried off without a towel and passed out.

Jet lag = 1, Mollie = 0.

January in Milan is a wonderful time full of sales because all of the stores are trying to get rid of all of last season’s clothes. After orientation today, some of my new Australian friends and I went shopping along Corso Buenos Aires, a major shopping street in Milan. After going in all the shops with various items of fabulous Blair Waldorf-worthy clothing, guess what I actually ended up buying.

The cheapest one I could find to buy separately was Lacoste brand. Only in Milan, I guess, would the cheapest towel be Lacoste, but I felt rather silly buying a brand-name towel like that. So I settled for a set of two towels on sale for about €10.

I think my first problem in Milan could have been a lot worse. Another student I met encountered a man who tried to steal her money as she bought a metro ticket. He got her change before she could, and when she tried to get it back from him, he stuck it in his mouth.

So I think I’d rather dry off with a spare Mizzou T-shirt than have a strange man playing kiss and tell with my change. Just some advice for any of you thinking about studying abroad: take a towel! It might take up a lot of room, but it’s worth every millimeter of space. I promise.

_Ciao_ for now!