Sunday in il mio Milano

Gottfried called us at 9:30 (as we had earlier arranged) and we started getting up and making our way to the train station to go to Cerra Maggiore, where he lives. We had a lot to learn very quickly: how to buy a bus ticket, where to catch the bus, how to buy a train ticket for the line we needed, how to buy a phone card and use the pay phones (that was hard to figure out actually!). Gottfried had given us very good instructions for the train, so at least we knew exactly what to ask for. We got into Lengano, a city near his after a 20-minute train ride (though we had to wait a while for the train to actually depart the station). Gottfried met us at the station not 5 seconds after we arrived (not exaggerating). He apologized for making us wait – what wait?! Unfortunately he and his family have been going through a very hard time lately. He had just had a failed and very painful dental procedure, which had complications requiring further surgery, his mother-in-law is passing away slowly, and his wife’s family has suffered the loss of three uncles in the last year. Very sad times for them right now, but he insisted upon keeping our meeting. By the time we arrived at about 2pm we went for lunch at one of his favorite family restaurants and ate REAL Milano Italiano food: David had risotto with mushrooms, I had gnocci, and Gottfried had a maccaroni dish. Oh my gosh, I love Italian food!

Monday in il mio Milano

We got up and decided to try to use the bus as the man at the desk of our hotel had explained it to us. We were feeling pretty confident so we got on the 724 and headed for the central station so we could go see the Duomo (cathedral) in the center of Milan. After a while we started seeing the buildings we had seen the night before when we were going the wrong direction. Time to get off – indeed we had taken a bus that does NOT go to the central station as we had been informed. Fine, so we get let off at this big building with signs for stores. We thought about crossing the street and taking the bus back in the right direction when we realized what that building was. It was a mall.

Ooooh…. so we went in and checked it out. Well, now, the Milanese invented shopping malls (no kidding, they really did). This mall was the bomb. It had a store in it where you could buy anything – a la Walmart or Target. It was the biggest store I had seen in 6 weeks (well, that’s kind of a long time). When we went in with our backpack the man at the front was saying something to us in Italian (we don’t speak Italian). I figured out from the plastic thing he start putting on the zipper to the backpack that he wanted to close it up so we couldn’t shoplift. We also noticed that they had U-Scan! (for anyone who doesn’t know, David and I have a secret love of U-Scan). We bought laundry detergent (exciting, I know), diet Cokes, these little pieces of bread stuffed with olive essence (a la “Combos”), and a great bag for the digital video camera. Mmmmm….. shopping. When we walked out we were hungry and what did we see, but a food court. David had pizza and I had pasta with shrimp and artichokes. Found out I don’t like artichokes. We looked around the mall a little more and David found a coin-operated machine with little Hello Kitty figurines in it and bought me one. Awwwww…

We left the mall and headed for the center of Milan. We saw the Gothic-style duomo, which has 135 spires on the top of it, and we even climbed all the way to the top to see the cool view and walk around (you can really walk around the whole roof!). Then we went inside and saw the art and the stained-glass windows. They started building this church in the 14^th century, but didn’t finish it completely until 500 years later. We found a sports store that sold soccer jerseys and David bought some and then we went to La Scala, which is very famous for its school of singing (the style that developed, not necessarily the place of learning). They would be performing a Mozart opera (ahhhhhhh, Mozart!!!), but also a very cool Stravinsky ballet, “The Cage.” Would have loved to go, but not sure it would work out for our schedule.

David saw an adverisement for what looked like a really big store south of the center of the city. We took the tram to the store (as is indicated in the map… which is sponsored by the store… hmmm…) and found it – yay! Um, it wasn’t as big as we thought – maybe we’ll just leave it at that. So, we went back on the tram, took the train to the bus and stopped to get dinner at this great Italian restaurant. I had the best lasagna I’ve ever tasted and David had pizza. We discovered that in Italy, sometimes the men’s (and the women’s) bathrooms are what is known as “Turkish” (look it up on Wikipedia). We waited until we got back to the hotel.

Tuesday in il mio Milano

Got up this morning early so we could head to Torino and see the 2006 Winter Olympics. Since we had bought our train tickets the day before at the station, we knew where to go and when, so we left from track 4 at the Centrale Statione at 9:18am (headed northwest). The highlight of the lovely train ride (I do so enjoy riding trains) was that the man next to us talked on his cell phone practically the whole time. I think when that cell phone had been exhausted he pulled out another one and went to town on that one. We have noticed that people here have multiple cell phones for some reason. Have not figured out why yet… We got to Torino at 11:15, which was nice and early for our 3:30pm event (women’s hockey, Canada vs. Sweden). All I have to say is, good thing we got there early. Events were spread out around the city and the transportation was very confusing, so we actually were directed to the wrong venue, where I stood in the willcall line for 20 minutes incorrectly. OK, so fine we go back to the train station and get on the right tram to go to the Palasport ice rink. It was the right tram… but going the wrong direction. Eventually we figured it out, got off, and changed directions. Got back to the train station (which we had now seen for the third time) and got to our venue. Still plenty early, so David went in and started waiting while I hunted for food (well, not literally hunting, but searching). I found this great small shop where I got some sort of sandwich. I don’t really speak Italian and the owner didn’t speak English, so I’m still not really sure what it was, but it tasted good. Some kind of egg/zucchini/foccacia thing. So, went back to the rink, found David (and his new Italian friends), and waited for them to let us in. Got into the rink and got to see the Canadian women’s team wipe the floor with the Swedish team. I didn’t expect to enjoy it, but I really had fun. David taught me about all the penalties and infractions like: offsides, cross-checking (David’s favorite), icing, interference, elbowing, hooking (which they pronounced as hooooooking) and tripping (which I liked best). Hey, just because they’re women doesn’t mean they don’t know how to be aggressive - they really played hard. This was Canada’s third game so far and they gave up their first goal today to Sweden. We think they are going to win the gold. It was a fun experience.

David bought hockey pucks and I bought an olympic pin and we headed back to find dinner and get back to Milano (a 2-hour train ride). Unfortunately restaurants here don’t really open for dinner until 7pm and it was 6:30. We were kind of out of luck until we found this place that was open before 7pm (though by that point it was about 6:51pm…). The restaurant was very nice, but it kind of reminded us of Luby’s. The food was good and we left satisfied. We were right near the train station, so we went there and hopped on the 7:50 train back to Milano. Of course a lot of people were going to and from Milano for the olympics, which means that there were a lot of international tourists. In our car there happened to be a bunch of Japanese folks. David read his book and I listened to music and read my book. Yesterday David bought me a little Hello Kitty figurine from one of those coin-operated bubble machines and I found it in my pocket, so I took it out and positioned it on the little table near our seats. David starts cracking up and points out to me that the Hello Kitty was staring at our Japanese neighbors. It was kind of funny in a non-racist way. We got back and took the bus to our hotel, where we checked email and chatted with the desk manager.

David insists that I write about the two sets of “potential guests” who came into the lobby after 11pm looking for rooms. As our friend Mihail (the desk manager) pointed out, they were looking for rooms for 2 hours… David was pretty shocked. Needless to say, they were turned away.

Wednesday in il mio Milano

It was raining when we got up this morning, which quatched our plans to go back to Lake Como during the daytime. We decided to be a little lazy and take our time getting ready, then, and go to some sort of indoor venue. We would have gone to the art museum here, but we were a little art-ed out from last week in Paris, so we decided to go back to the mall we found on Monday. Since we found the mall two times when we were really trying to go somewhere else (the central station), we decided we had to convince ourselves we really wanted to go there again, so that we would somehow be brought there. We knew that when we took the 724 in the direction of what we thought was the C.S. we went to that mall. Well, we didn’t do a good enough job because we ended up on the other end of Milan and the bus stopped for about 15 minutes to take a break before it started its route back. We stayed on it and eventually it did turn around and it went to the mall.

We had decided to go there in order to ironically eat at the Mexican restaurant inside, which we did. David’s nachos were good, but my fajitas and rice were different from what I am used to. David got me two more Hello Kitty figurines and we bummed around the mall and then we left. We noticed that there was another building that I thought was a mega movie complex, but what David thought was another mall. We were both right! We took the bus back 2 stops and went in. We found a “Dave and Busters” kind of place, so we went in. I did the Dance-Dance Revolution machine and David found this great drumming video game along those lines (where you have to “be the drummer.” He also played this bowling game (kind of like a cross between real bowling and skiball). We won tickets, but not enough to get anything so David gave them to a little kid there and we left. We thought about going to see a movie, but they only show movies in the original languages on Mondays and Tuesdays, as they explained to me, so we didn’t stay. We went back and relaxed at the hotel.

Later we went back to the restaurant where we ate on Monday for that great pizza and lasagna and had been friendly with our waiter. He was there again tonight and he asked us if we were staying in Milan for good or if we were just visiting. I asked him if he was offering us a job, and it took a while for that joke to set in. In fact, I don’t think it did, but that’s OK. He actually said that women could not work there and I said, “look, I have big muscles! I could do it.” Yeah… well, he was nice in any case. Turns out he and his father own the place and we saw him over by the main entrence/behind the counter preparing some food. They were so friendly – very nice. David said he wanted to go back there Thursday night when I was gone, so I’m sure he’ll talk to them again. We went back to the hotel and David helped Mihai with his resume.