MILAN, Italy — Monday was one of the most interesting days I’ve had in Italy. In the afternoon, I met my friends Asena and Fernanda in the train station. We were all bubbling with excitement because we had big plans for the night.

We were going to Milan to see the LMFAO concert. We’d been working on setting up the plans and getting them approved with Intercultura for nearly two months, and it was finally the day of the concert.

We went to the Milan central station by train, and then we followed the directions we’d written down to Alberto Pini’s house. Alberto is a university student in Milan with some ties to Intercultura, and he was letting us crash for the night at the apartment he shares with a few other university students.

The apartment was small and basically how you imagine living when you’re in college, but it was in this beautiful building with a magnificent staircase, so walking up to that crammed little apartment felt like a scene from a movie.

Alberto showed us the room where we were staying and shared some coffee-flavored gelato with real coffee beans with us, then we got all freshened up and went to meet up with a few other exchange students who were also going to the concert that night.

We took a bus and then a tram to Piazza Garibaldi, ate a light dinner, and then went down into the Metro where we met up with Aldo and Hector from Mexico and Esteban from Guatemala.

Once we all convened, we took the metro train to Assago Forum, a tiny bit outside of Milan, where the concert was being held.

As soon as we got off the metro, we started to see people in very strange outfits – not at all in keeping with the suave, classic Italian style we’ve gotten used to. There was an abundance of animal print and neon colors.

Outside the forum were tons of vendors selling T-shirts and other LMFAO merchandise, which was nice because those were just as nice but cheaper than the ones being sold inside.

The show itself was super cool. Fernanda, Asena and I got into the best section (a thousand times better than where our assigned tickets were) by telling the big guard guy that we needed to go down there to “take a picture for school.”

I’m pretty sure he didn’t believe us because it was a dumb story, but he let us by anyway. I think our foreign accents had something to do with it.

Since LMFAO is American, the show was all in English and it was entertaining to listen to the people around me ask each other “What does that mean? What did he say?”

They could usually cheer in the right spots based on the inflection in the singer’s voice, but there was one point when I just about died laughing because the singer said something like “Our next song is about celebrating, so I want to know: Who’s got a birthday today?” and EVERYONE screamed.

Then he said “Uh, OK, how about this: Who’s got a birthday this week?” and once again everyone went wild screaming. Then, the guy asked “Who’s had a birthday in the last year?” and finally the response was accurate.

After the concert, Fernanda, Asena, Aldo, Esteban and I all went to a little restaurant before parting ways to hang out and talk about how much fun we’d had. We accidently stumbled upon the only Mexican restaurant I’ve seen in all of Italy and feasted on guacamole and queso dip.

It was late when Fernanda, Asena and I finally took a taxi back to Alberto’s apartment, and I was so tired that sleeping on an air mattress on the floor with my backpack for a pillow felt about as comfy and inviting as the softest, most luxurious bed in the world.

Chandler West is a Rock Hill High School student who is spending her senior year in Italy. She writes about her adventures abroad each week in The Herald and heraldonline.com.