milan – Page 3 – ⋆ Second Gen Desi ⋆

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Before that night in late spring of my junior year of high school, I could not comprehend how painful a mental breakdown truly was.

I played singles varsity tennis that fall. I had been awarded the position of first chair flute in county honor band that winter. And that night, I had completed two regional competitions for Robotics as president of my high school team, bringing home an award for our website as well—-something that had been a personal project of mine finally received validation, yet it triggered my anger.

Logically, I had nothing to “cry over”, yet the dark idea that it would all come crashing down triggered the tears, guttural yelling, and body slams against the floor of my parents’ bedroom.

My mom with her own mental illness, fueled the fire with her share of yelling and ridicule that I was the one that needed help. My dad, shocked at the scene going on before him and unable to stop my incessant crying and self-harm, threatened to call the police.

But this only pushed out more tears, and at one point, my body couldn’t take it anymore. I continued to lay on the floor listlessly while my parents calmed down as well.

The police never came, but Dad thought I should see a therapist. I was resentful, given the fact that my mother had not seen a doctor in years, but part of me felt the urge to see someone, with a sprinkling of curiosity.

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I have lived with depression since then, with it popping in and out of my life at varying intensities, depending on how kind my environment was to me.

An eating disorder was mixed in as well, sometimes making it unclear what was first to influence what.

The depression, along with OCD tendencies, popped up along my PhD journey as well, with one of my darker episodes occurring at a time when so many unknowns were at play… the biggest of which was the worry of how soon my first, first-author paper would be published, if I would be able to graduate, and if it was even worth all of the anxiety and emotional breakdowns I was going through.

It was around this time I decided to see my third therapist, but also consider taking medication for the first time. When I received the news that my paper had been accepted, that itself lifted away the weight of the world that was pressed so firmly at my shoulders for the past six months, but I still felt it necessary to seek out professional help.

Dr. S was an immense help through the first half of 2019. It may have helped that my environment suddenly turned friendly, but she helped me battle the ennui I was now experiencing as I inched towards a summer graduation.

At first I saw her once a week so she could get to know me better and monitor me as I started taking Lexapro for the first time. I was on 5mg initially, but was bumped up to 10mg. Beyond a few headaches and fatigue, the pill got acquainted with my body and lifestyle, although I personally didn’t feel any changes.

Especially since I still felt cyclical anger and irritability.

Dr. S was a trained psychiatrist, but would not continue writing prescriptions for patients unless paired with counseling sessions. I enjoyed our sessions in the beginning, since I was able to vent to her about my desire to start anew outside of SoCal. She knew about my plans to apply for a fellowship in Italy, and how I yearned to have the opportunity to meet new people and travel all over.

When my plans were starting to gel by November 2019, I began to grow tired of my sessions with Dr. S. Like with the therapists of my past, I had hit a plateau with her. I felt like I didn’t need her anymore, and that my depression had retreated once I received confirmation about Italy.

Of course with COVID in early 2020, my plans changed dramatically. I was “stuck” in Tulsa (although now I see it as a blessing I wish I could relive again). Being with my family definitely played a key role in mitigating stress. I was still taking my Lexapro, but popping a pill each day without knowing if it was truly serving its purpose was beginning to irritate me, to say the least.

Dr. S wrote me a prescription for 90 days to take with me as I settled down in Milan, but who’s to say if it got me through my two weeks of isolating self-quarantine?

Because my mind was already set on starting fresh and throwing myself into a different world, I felt ready to stop the Lexapro. I didn’t want to rely on medication to modulate my mood for the rest of my life, especially if it wasn’t doing its purported action in the first place.

Things seemed to be going wonderfully at work.

I was finally opening up and starting to date for the very first time in my life.

In fact, I was lucky to meet someone so early in the “game” who I clicked with instantly.

And with all of this new-found happiness, I wanted to see what my body could do on its own…in an environment where I felt in control and eager about navigating through.

So I stopped taking Lexapro in mid-August 2020. I informed my Dad and a close friend of my decision, both of whom knew of my recent depression history. My Dad, knowing the obstacles I have faced when it comes to doctors and their diagnoses understood why I chose not to wait until I found a doctor, but my close friend was more concerned. While I acknowledge it would have been helpful to see someone within weeks of arriving in Italy, I knew that with the painfully frustrating administrative system in place—especially in regards to healthcare—it would have been a nightmare to wait for a second opinion.

In my battle with depression over the years, I quickly realized that when it came to my body and mind, only I could be the one to decide what felt right for me.

I felt “normal” for about a week, after which painful, throbbing headaches began to make an appearance on a daily basis. I was starting to feel easily triggered by what I would normally see as minor inconveniences. On my early morning runs, I would have to stop mid-run because I would be on the verge of tears…

Things started to feel uneasy at work. I found myself silently hyperventilating at times, and I often had to duck into the bathroom to let myself had a good cry.

I knew fully well I had nothing to be upset about. I stopped taking the medication because things were going well. I wasn’t too concerned about these symptoms arising because I was expecting them as part of the withdrawal process.

Everything would be better in a few weeks…

But it seemed as though things were slowly retreating and heading in the opposite direction. The throbbing headaches did stop after three weeks. I wasn’t crying uncontrollably everyday either, but my mood was no longer at the same elevated level that it has been in mid-summer.

And perhaps it was because my environment, the one I thought I had control over, was starting to become more overwhelming than I ever imagined it would be.

Having the patience to learn and speak Italian was becoming a stressful chore.

Work was becoming something I was slowly starting to dislike. I resented the idea that my position wasn’t as flexible as I thought it would have been. I felt like my skills weren’t being appreciated. And having these feelings woven through a five-day work week was an feeling that grew unbearable by the minute.

As fall turned into winter, I thought time would make things better, but with the rise of COVID infections, we were back in a lockdown in late October. I was resenting the fact that I had yet to travel outside of Milan or Como, and I was counting on the winter holidays to make my Rome trip a reality.

But that of course didn’t happen.

At least I wasn’t alone during the holidays, but my anxious thoughts and depression still would not leave me, even though I knew I had a full week off from work to take in the last of 2020 (although, what was really there to take in?).

I kept thinking about how I was “wasting” my time off because I wasn’t able to travel. Or ruminating over what experiments I should be planning my first week back at work, even though that was the last thing I wanted my thoughts to dwell on…

Castel Baradello hike the day after Christmas. It was a beautiful sight, but my mind was gripped with anxiety about my week off ending soon…

And with the arrival of 2021, things still seemed to not “feel” any better. Yes, I was finally able to move into apartment that wasn’t the size of a claustrophobic closet, and with a balcony (something that was a top priority), but I still felt unsettled 😔

I thought I would appreciate a long, cold winter after months of painful humidity and encapsulated heat, but I guess I didn’t know what I was asking for when it came to an Italian winter. The weather became piercingly cold, and the sky always seemed to match my mood—gray, dreary, tired, depressing…

I tried to keep my mind away from the gray by appreciating things I knew would bring me joy.

Like, (finally) buying a Nespresso machine so I could have coffee on my terms.

Or stopping for adorable cats that ‘meow’ back and don’t mind being coddled.

And even trying to shift back to daylight runs vs. the nighttime runs I had a habit of partaking in during the summer. Because every ounce of sunlight helps.

Work continued to aggravate me. I still felt like I was doing tasks that weren’t adding to my skill set, and that what I was doing had no relation to what I thought I had signed up for.

Looking back, I find it ironic that in the phone calls I had with my Dad during this time, I’d semi-joke about having a breakdown at work given all the emotional turmoil that had been building up for the past several months.

And, then it happened right on cue 🙃. Before I broke down into a solid cry that drenched even my blue disposable mask, I was having a meeting with my boss, during which she expressed her disappointment with how things were going (I would later learn that she had been described by others to push people to their breaking point in an effort to get the most work out of them). I didn’t have the energy to explain my situation, so I let my emotions do the talking.

She seemed to understand immediately, and offered help where she could. At least that situation got me into a doctor’s office for the first time in Italy 🙄. I knew counseling had helped me in the past, but this time, I already knew what my trigger was.

A stressful, overwhelming environment.

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Since my breakdown as a junior in high school, I have accepted that depression will always be a condition in my life, and that it may need managing from time-to-time.

When I felt out of control with where I would be going to college and troubles at home with mom, diving into an eating disorder was my solution.

When I felt deep anxiety about the fate of my PhD, and the paper I was anxiously trying to publish for a timely graduation, Dr. S and my willingness to try medication for the first time was my solution.

And I thought Italy would be a long-term solution. Especially for the irritability and ennui that popped up in recent years, but it turned out that Italy was an issue of her own.

COVID has been an obvious key player in this, and it’s hard to say how things would have turned out if I had arrived in Italy back in early 2020 as originally planned, and if the world had not been shaken by COVID.

But ongoing events have made me realize that the biggest trigger of my current depression “flare” is directly associated with the very reason I came to Italy in the first place. And how do you manage and cope when the very thing that is your livelihood causes so much distress?

Recently, I’ve been fortunate to have possibilities open up. Knowing that there may be a way out has put my mind at ease, but at the same time, there’s no guarantee that the solution to cutting myself off from the triggers here will help me somewhere out there.

That’s why I’m trying my best—with whatever ounce of energy I do have—to take things day by day. Making sure to sip my coffee, savor a relaxing dinner at home, and pet that furry cutie before each run…

When it comes to using medication to manage my mental health, I personally do not want to get near it ever again. I’m sure it works wonders for some, but that doesn’t mean it works favorably for everyone.

Managing my depression has led me to prioritize my happiness no matter what. I acknowledge that what I may constitute as happiness right now in life could change over time, but even so, I believe that if we make it a priority to live in ways that ensure balanced levels of happiness, we can encourage the same from those we interact with on a daily basis.

An infinite loop of happiness, wouldn’t that be nice?

Looking down on Como from Castel Baradello, two months after Christmas ❤

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It’s been seven months of living in Milan, and I think I’ve had plenty of pasta and pizza to satisfy my authentic Italian cuisine checklist.

What I truly miss are foods that are “sacrilegious” here, like pineapple pizza or bagel breakfast sandwiches made with eggs and cheese.

Not exactly my vegan favorites, but man do I miss the plethora of vegan options that were in Los Angeles...

Back when I ran a food-focused, lifestyle blog (Will Study for Food), I made it a priority to check out restaurants and write full reviews on them. It was something I truly enjoyed, and while I never got to an extreme level of “food influencer”, I was able to connect with local restaurants from time-to-time to participate in tastings, or review products from food companies that got in contact with me.

But I soon grew tired of constantly posting about food. My blog post format was starting to get repetitive because seriously, there’s only so many ways you can be creative when it comes to writing food reviews 🤷🏽‍♀️.

Since starting Second Gen Desi and moving abroad, I have started to miss my food blogging days, but here in Milan, I wasn’t in the mood to take pictures of every caffè or brioche I stumbled upon.

But since coming here, I realized it would be fun to at least try foods from local restaurants that I could group into a “category” for a later blog posts.

I thought that it could perhaps provide some fun during these dreary times, and especially help restaurants survive via the delivery services I started to use on the daily 😅

So with this in mind, I scoured the land for whatever vegan restaurants I could find. One I had the chance to dine-in at, twice, in the summer before everything went COVID-crazy again.

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So if you are vegan in Milan and are struggling with options, or you’re somewhere else in the world and find it unbelievable that the land of formaggio and proscuitto even has vegan options, scroll on down to see what I ended up finding 👇🏽!

1 ) Flower Burger (dine-in, Porta Venezia location)

I knew of Flower Burger even before coming to Italy, when I still participated in the food blogging-charade and stumbled across someone’s IG post featuring a plate of colorful vegan burgers. I remember saving the post under a file where I archived any intriguing restaurants outside of the US—in case I ever happened to travel to a particular country, I was ready with my “where-to-chow-down” list.

It’s amusing that I ended up eventually visiting Flower Burger, twice!

My second visit was in early September, on a weekday evening after work. I came prepared to order in Italian and not use my Bank of America credit card (not that using that particular card was a bad thing, but it was a dead-giveaway to the cashier that I was not an Italian native and a give-away that I was not a native Italian speaker…)

In this visit, I was successful in ordering an Ocean Burger—their special edition burger outfitted in a bright teal bun, sandwiching some good fixin’s including lettuce, tomatoes, guacamole, a thick quinoa patty, and a mayo-type sauce called “beach sauce”.

The burger came paired with patate savory (potato wedges), but I didn’t think to ask for an extra order of sauce.

This is something I’ve realized about Italians—they skimp when it comes to saucing their carbs!

Besides the “dry” potato situation, Flower Burger’s burgers were, in my mind, the go-to for vegan burgers in all of Milano.

That is, until lockdowns happened again in late October, and I discovered a new guy in town…

2) Black Out Burgers by Avo Brothers

I was scrolling through Deliveroo, an app that has gotten me through Italy’s oscillating restrictions, in early November when I first spotted BOB.

Unlike Flower Burger, they didn’t seem to have a brick-and-mortar store nor was their entire menu vegan-friendly. What made some of their selections vegan-friendly was using Beyond Burger in their “normal” dishes, but it was something else that made my eyes pop:

Britney’s No Chicken Burger

I was able to save a *bit* of money by making it a meal, getting some sweet potato fries on the side, TWO sauce cups, and a can of ice cold acqua frizzante.

The bag it came in helped me figure out why my burger was Britney’s (like, Britney Spears?)

Wowwww, oh wow—this meal was demanding to compete with what Flower Burger had to offer. The fries were incredibly sweet and earthy, and I made a wise choice by getting BBQ sauce and paprika mayo on the side for dipping. I was also able to request plant-based cheddar for the burger, the patty of which was incredibly crispy.

Anyone who says they can’t stand veggie/vegan burgers because they taste awful, and that they prefer the “real thing”, needs to try this. And be proved wrong.

From that point on, I ordered least one meal from BOB each week, usually on Monday nights since it served as a good pick-me-up for having to start a new work week.

I even raved about BOB on a vegan and vegetarian’s group chat I’m a part of with other expat women in the city 😂:

I gave BOB excellent reviews for quite a while after my first order, but when they made an egregious error regarding the last order I placed with them, that tampered with my trust.

Due to an order mix-up, I opened my bag to find a lovely beefy burger, and I decided to call it quits. Thankfully I caught it, but I was put-off from their lack of integrity and awareness for the customer.

I guess it was good while it lasted.

3) Avo Brothers

During my BOB obsession, I did take a break and order from the OG Avo Brothers.

Their menu had refreshing options like salads, bowls, and (vegan) desserts!

I opted for the Lolita Bowl, which wasn’t exactly vegan due to the halloumi cheese (which could always be taken out), but I went for it as is, keeping it vegetarian with the cheese.

I can see why it’s one of their most popular bowls (it says so on Deliveroo). It’s packed with spinach, avocado, purple cabbage, tomatoes, squash, beet hummus, and sunflower seeds 🤩

As far as the guilt-free brownie though….if I had known it would be so soft, chewy, and flavorful, I would have ordered at least….three? 🤣

4) Soulgreen

Soulgreen seems to be well-known by vegan expats here (at least based on the one chat group I’m in…), but from all of the times I’ve ordered from here, I haven’t been able to get away from the Falafel Wrap.

It’s an unassuming dish, with no fancy fillings, but it’s one of my favorites. Since it comes with potato wedges and ketchup (finally, a place in Milan that understands that some sort of condiment is essential when it comes to potato wedges and the sort 🙌🏽).

I’m used to falafel wraps with thick tahini-based sauces, but I was surprised by how the consistency was much like plain yogurt (very runny, and too runny for my liking).

I also wasn’t able to confirm if the sauce was dairy-free, so this ingredient might make this particular dish vegetarian rather than vegan.

5) MACHAPOKE

I was surprised to learn that sushi is incredibly popular in Milan, and in line with that, poke.

In LA, I always ended up doing a create-your-own type bowl if I ended up at a poke shop, so I could avoid the fish and get more of the other, better stuff 😉.

I was pleased to see that many of the poke shops on food delivery apps like Deliveroo offer vegetarian or even vegan bowls, and MACHAPOKE’s version is one of my favorites.

Their specific Vegan Poke bowl is so eye-catching—with a quinoa base, vegan burger balls (that actually look like falafel), avocado, broccoli, carrot, chickpeas, sunflower seeds, squash, and flaxseeds.

They threw in some chopsticks, soy sauce, and ginger, even though the bowl didn’t need it 😂. It was a struggle trying to get the last bits of quinoa with chopsticks, let me tell ya…

They also offer a vegan cheesecake, but since 75% of it is bland, it’s not worth a re-order. I didn’t expect the matcha layer to be too sweet, but I was hoping the middle layer would have been better in the sweet department (far from it). The bottom graham crust layer was the only part that was decent. Wish there had been more of that and not just like, 25%…

6) Cibo Vegan Food

Ah, Cibo Vegan Food—probably the most bland vegan outlet in all of Milan, and one of the priciest.

Due to a technical error on one weeknight, Deliveroo offered those who tried to place an order that evening a 5 euros off promo code to “make things right again”.

With that in hand, I could “splurge” a little and see if Cibo was worthy any hype.

Their menu was headache-inducing due to the Italian I had to comprehend after a long work day, but I ended up getting their vegan paella, a “cake” slice with pears and ginger, and “arancino di cereali misti”.

When my food arrived, I could tell not much work went into the packaging. I think the assumption that vegan places tend to be environmentally-friendly is an assumption gone awry…

Everything was double-wrapped in plastic

The vegan paella was nothing special—just flavored rice with bite-size pieces of tofu and tempeh mixed in.

The “arancino” reminded me of a bland falafel—not even the “soy” sauce (basically hummus) could help it out of the flavorless black hole!

Oh, and the excuse-for-a-dessert that was the pere e zenzero cake slice. It could have been sweeter is an understatement…it needed to be dipped into a pool of sugar 😂

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Just like it’s possible to live in Los Angeles without a car, it’s possible to eat vegan in Milan, if that’s what you truly want! LA has far more options, but for a city in a traditional country with (ridiculous) food rules, the options that are available in Milan are decent.

Perhaps when these lockdowns ease down 🤞🏽🤞🏽🤞🏽 I’ll be more motivated to see what else I can find…

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This post was a collaboration with The Desi Condition. Check out their site for information on their podcast and art collective, which especially emphasizes mental health in the South Asian community.

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Before I turned 18 years old, the holidays were a time I looked forward to with deep anticipation and pure excitement.

Two (sometimes two-and-a half!!) weeks off from school.

Hot cocoa with whipped cream paired alongside one of many classic holiday movies on primetime.

Spending entire days with other kids in the neighborhood, playing to our heart’s content knowing that we’d get a free pass to stay up late at this time of year.

But all of this changed for me immediately after Christmas 2009. My spiral into an eating disorder began along with a new decade, and it eclipsed the happiness I normally felt during the holiday season.

The next round of Thanksgivings and Christmases were made miserable, thanks to an incessant voice chiding me to keep my servings of Dad’s green bean casserole and tofu wild rice stuffing small. In the years that followed, I made sure that a set of measuring cups was placed alongside my fork and knife—I could not get off track, even for one day.

In my darkest moments, I would have never had the courage to disregard my ED’s voice to indulge in holiday treats. I’m glad that this isn’t an issue for me now—-living in Milan surrounded by numerous pastry shops selling delicious Christmas desserts.

This went on for six years, until finally in 2016, I had my epiphany. I had chosen recovery, and was on a path to healthy weight restoration.

Still, the incessant thoughts kept nagging as I helped myself to servings of Dad’s home-cooked food like never before, and my body image had reached an all-time low. Fighting with an eating disorder is a strenuous, mind-numbing battle, and it’s only felt worse during the holidays.

My fight eventually paid off. I can say with a content mind, body, and soul that I have beaten my eating disorder. The thoughts still pop up from time to time, but the way I manage those thoughts has developed considerably.

We are all not on the same path however, and my heart goes out to anyone still struggling with their ED at this moment—especially during this particular holiday season. The stress of COVID-19 and the socially isolating lockdowns it has caused can be a huge road-block to recovery.

If the girl I was from 2016 was struggling with her ED recovery through a COVID-ridden holiday season, this is what I’d encourage her to do, given her unique situation:

If living with family/roommates who are aware of your struggles—and willing to help…

Your ED is probably rejoicing at the fact that large gatherings for Christmas dinner or New Year’s Eve parties are not happening this year (at least in a fashion that is approved by society…). But perhaps the people who you are currently living with want to have some sense of normalcy with a festive dinner, and ED does not approve.

If they are indeed a supportive bunch, vocalize the thoughts running through your brain. Allow those around you to understand your current anxieties and offer care in a way that will help you make it through the day. Tell them about your calorie fears, how having measuring cups next to you makes you feel assured, or why you need to know if your “safety foods” are part of the menu.

Hopefully you’ll then find yourself with a team. The day will feel easier, and perhaps more enjoyable, once you have unloaded your deepest fears and anxieties onto people who want to help you tackle them.

If living with family/roommates who are unsupportive, or if you are living alone and unable to see your family/support system in-person due to lockdowns…

If you are living in a household with people who you don’t trust or cannot be vulnerable around, you have every right to excuse yourself from spending your time with them, but don’t let ED win either.

EDs thrive on making their victims suffer in silence, but planning ahead will help you from succumbing to that. Plan out a holiday dinner for one, with foods you enjoy (and not necessarily “safe foods”).

You deserve to enjoy yourself during the holidays. Even if you are not ready to tackle a holiday meal with unknown calories, planning ahead and preparing for foods (and drinks!) that provide comfort will make this isolating time a little less rough…

Even this can be a challenge if you are at it alone, so make your dinner a virtual one. Call up another friend in lockdown isolation, maybe even family (parents get lonely too…), and plan on your menus together. If you trust them, have them help you brainstorm ideas on what foods or meals to purchase that challenge you, as well as foods you are comfortable with.

And most importantly, create a plan with those you trust in case you feel you might fall prey to post-meal restricting or purging behaviors. Having a designated person to call in case you feel the urge to restrict or purge hours after your meal is the ultimate prevention tool against relapse.

Fighting an eating disorder takes an incredible amount of energy. Waking up each day and choosing recovery over and over until one day it sinks in…that is hope, gasping for air.

This holiday season is even more isolating for an ED victim—but I hope you keep fighting and eventually be gifted your epiphany 🧡

You may not have your epiphany this Christmas. The voices may still have a hold on you all the way through New Year’s…maybe well into 2021, when the fear of COVID diminishes with the rise of vaccinations. The world will continue to go on, but you may still not be ready.

Understand that your journey is valid, and keep fighting until your epiphany does come around. Take this moment to celebrate the fact that you’ve made it this far—you’ve survived a global pandemic while also sorting through personal struggles you may have not been able to voice.

Give yourself this moment. No matter how many times ED tells you you don’t deserve it, I’m here to tell you that you absolutely do.

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When I was given the greenlight to pack my bags for Italy in June of this year, I did not give a single thought to what would happen in the months after—let alone days after—arriving in Milan.

Once I was out of my self-quarantine, things began to take shape. I was able to socialize, meet new people, and get back to filling out my bucket list of all the places I wanted to visit now that I was living in Italy (of course looking back at it now, this seemed like a wishful thing to do as we are now trying to survive a second wave of COVID…).

My birthday was coming up in August, and my original plan was to visit Cinque Terre—but life had other plans that I was unwilling to pass on.

So on my 28th birthday, I wasn’t on a tourist bus snapping pics of coastal towns and the sea—I was several miles north, deep in the Canton of Ticino, Valle Verzasca.

From Northern Italy (Como), it takes about 1 hour by car and 3 hours by train to arrive here, and it’s difficult to miss.

Despite Italy being a sweaty mess that August afternoon, the weather in the valley was mild, cool, and cloudy—the definition of a perfect escape from the horrors of summer weather. So many others had the same idea that day…

Even though a lot of time was spent commuting, getting through one of the trails that was linked to a parking area took no more than an hour! And within that hour, there were so many picture-worthy sights to take in and return home with:

Honestly, my most favorite sight of the entire trek was this building—the blue window shutters against a white backdrop and flowers on the window sill? It just screamed classic Swiss/European design 😍.

Ultimately, I was glad I was able to celebrate my first day of being 28 years old in the middle of lush, Swiss greenery.

This was my last “trip” of the summer, right around the time others in Italy were preparing for their August getaways. I didn’t feel comfortable asking for an extended amount of time off at the time, since I had just started a new position, and I’m relieved I didn’t. At least I can say I didn’t put myself or others at risk for the sake of lounging on a beach…

Of course, I’d love to explore more of Italy and its neighboring countries when the time allows for it. Verzasca was a lovely teaser for what is still out there waiting for me…

2021, I hope you have more lush green landscapes in store for me...

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After almost a month in Milan, I was itching to explore. Quarantine-ing for two weeks made me feel restless, and starting work soon after made me feel a bit overwhelmed, but I went into this experience telling myself these things –

A) Don’t feel pressure to go out “exploring” every single weekend if you don’t feel like it. Italy and surrounding countries will still be there, and you’ll get to them eventually.

B) Weekends are yours and yours only. Work is always going to have its demands, but keep it at work. Do your best and give it your all during the week, but the weekend is there to relax, recharge, and rest. Those PhD weekends working on quantifying images from microscopy even with Netflix in the background were not exactly “fun”, admit it 😂!

Despite starting my new job at a time when people were planning their grand vacations for Ferragosto, I didn’t feel comfortable asking for time off within a week of starting. Looking back, it would have been nice to plan a more leisurely, longer stay in a city outside of the Lombardy region, but I felt most comfortable staying local and going out on weekends when I could.

When my labmates inquured what I would be doing in my next “free weekend from quarantine”, I turned the question on them and asked where they would recommend I travel. One of them immediately spit out “Como!”, and I thought why not?

It sounded beautiful, wasn’t too far by train, and was near one of the supposedly most beautiful lakes in the country. The word for lake in Italian, lago, even sounds more regal than just plain ol’ “lake‘.

When I think of ‘lake’, I think of this stagnant body of water (Folsom Lake, CA, 2005)

I started my half-day “adventure” with a lazy wake-up call (8am for me, lol) and proceeded to take the green line to the closest transfer point for inter-regional trains.

I ended up getting off at Sesto San Giovanni station and made sure to get myself a take-away cappuccino before boarding my train.

From there, it was about a 1 hour train ride to Como Lago station, one of the most beautiful train stops I’d ever seen—perhaps it was the summer flora that did the trick:

From there, I followed the crowd of passengers from my train towards the city center…since I made the mistake of not downloading Google Maps for the area (I didn’t have data yet because I still had my US number…had to wait at least one more week before getting my Italian one 😂).

As I walked on through, I realized this was the beauty people talked about when they referred to Italy.

The narrow roads, the faded, but beautiful-in-its-own-right architecture. It made sense to take pictures here.

Once I got to the center, I wasn’t sure what to do first—eat? Wasn’t too hungry yet. Shop? Didn’t feel like it. Walk some more?

I opted for walking, and felt the need to inch away from the crowds. Even during pre-COVID times, I tried to keep a distance from crowds 😂.

I ended up walking up an incline into what seemed to be a private neighborhood. It was a long, winding road, and I could definitely see it being used by the locals for their daily cardio.

I love seeing funky buildings like these and wondering what it would be like to live on the top floor.

Bikers passed by me, as well as cars and their annoying honks, as I made my way up. I didn’t want to walk too far without knowing where I was headed, so I made the wise choice to walk back down and orient myself towards the lake instead.

Before turning back however, I had to document the fact that yes, I had stumbled upon something beautiful.

As I made my way back down, it looked as if the crowds had doubled. Orienting myself so the lake was in front and the city center was to the back of me, I decided to walk north starting from the right side of the lake.

I realized about 20 min in that the “better” side of the lake was the left one—after seeing what all was there from my current viewpoint.

As I got further away from the center (and the crowds, again) I was starting to feel hungry and agitated. There were scattered groups of teenagers chatting animatedly and elderly folk walking hand-in-hand, but I soon found an isolated place to rest for a bit.

My walk back to the center was slower in pace, but at least I was ready to eat something. I ventured back to where the shops were, and found a cute bakery:

I wanted to use the opportunity to practice my Italian, but two things happened: 1) I happened to be in line right after a pushy Englishman who put no effort whatsoever to speak un po’ italiano. He demanded still water and extra forks. I was embarrassed for him, but mostly irritated by his behavior since the ladies behind the counter assumed I was a tourist who only chose to speak English as well, and 2) I pronounced olive wrong (I should have said “oh-lee-vuh”).

At least I had my (unpictured) foccacia olive alongside some gorgeous views.

After my lunch, I headed towards the left of the lake and the most exciting:

I didn’t care to hop onto a boat or go on a fancy lake tour—-taking my time by foot and soaking in the views on my own was enough for me.

Since it was a day in mid-July, the weather was starting to get unbearable. I had to take another break, but at least it was at an adorable stopping point.

For me, 4 hours was enough, especially going solo. Before leaving back to the station, I got myself a cup of mint gelato. I admired the front of the station before hopping back on the next train to Milan.

Little did I know that I’d be back very soon.

Since that first day in Como, things have taken wild turns on all accounts. Things that I never would have expected, but made me rethink what my priorities were for the time being in regards to travel.

I knew for sure that I wanted to try new activities, have novel experiences, and meet amazing people, so in that sense, I may have sacrificed the chance to explore more of Italy earlier in my journey. I’ve stayed “close to home” for the past (almost) six months in Italy out of choice due to work demands, my personal energy levels, and as already stated my new priorities, but I don’t regret this at all.

My (half) day in Como has led me to where I am right now.

Day by Day

Vegano a Milano

Holiday Hunger: Managing ED During a COVID Christmas

A Verzasca Twist

A (Half) Day in Como