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As I stepped off the plane in Milan, I was hit by a wall of hot, humid air. During the past month in Paris the temperature has averaged in the 60s, so I wasn’t quite prepared for 90 degree weather (although I know with the heat wave at home I can’t really complain).
Knowing that Milan is one of the fashion capitals of the world, I expected it to be, I don’t know, shiny, but in reality it is a little gritty. Gone was the clear blue with cotton candy clouds sky of Paris; instead the Milan sky is overcast and hazy.
Milan is a bit of a sprawl, connected by a public transportation system of buses, metros trains and trams. Our hotel was located a little farther from the city center (Duomo) then I would have preferred, but the center was easily accessible by tram. The trams are trolley cars that weave through the city, and are quite convenient if you know which trolley you need to pick up where—there are no trolley maps. Anywhere. Luckily the staff at our hotel spoke English and was really helpful.
Wednesday night Brian and I decided to stay near our hotel and tried a restaurant recommended by our “Time Out Milan Encounter.” The dinner started out a big rough. I was thinking that Italian would be more similar to Spanish, but I couldn’t understand a word of the menu. Our waitress spoke Italian and Spanish, but when I tried to remember my Spanish, all I could think of was French. After Google had helped me translate half of the appetizers (a painfully slow process when you’re hungry—my cell service is spotty, at best) an English-speaking waiter came over to help us. Brian and I are convinced that the owner thought we were travel guide writers, because the service remarkably improved. The owner gave us a free salmon tartar and the chef came to our table and apologized for how long it took to prepare our food (once we figured out what to order, it didn’t take any time at all). Then, the waiter offered us a complementary dessert, and when Brian and I were debating between two choices, he said we could have both. Not too bad for our first Italian meal.
The next day Brian and I took the tram into the city center. We went to go see “Il Duomo”, world's fourth largest cathedral, the construction of which started in the 14th century and was finished by Napoleon, and the big tourist attraction. When taking pictures, I was approached by another person who tried to tie a bracelet on my wrist (I guess it’s an international scam) and a man who tried to force corn in my hands to feed the pigeons. Across the square, people were holding out food so that the pigeons would land on their arms for a photo opp. I had no desire to get some kind of bird flu from the flying rats, so I repeatedly rebuffed the man’s attempts to give me the corn.
I knew that I’d probably need to cover my shoulders to go into IlDuomo, so I brought a cardigan to wear with my dress. Unfortunately, I didn’t know that skirts have to completely cover your thigh (my dress came to about a centimeter above my knee), so I, with my “risqué” attire, was turned aware. Brian went inside for a quick look while I sat outside and watched children pick up the pigeons and contract bird flu.
We spent the rest of the day shopping (mainly window shopping, since Milan has the original Prada and similar shops outside of my price range), walking around the city and eating gelato. We visited the Ferarri store, where Brian debated taking a Ferarri for a 15 minute spin for a mere $200 Euro.
For dinner we took the tram down to the canals in the Navigli district. The Milanese have “aperativos” before dinner—basically a happy hour where there’s a buffet spread. It was a nice evening so diners poured out of the restaurants onto the sidewalks along the canals. We decided not to be like the Milanese and went straight to dinner at another restaurant our tour guide recommended.
Our dinner was another memorable one. The host asked if we had a reservation, and when we said no he looked at a waiter and said “take them upstairs.” We were sat at a table sandwiched between a wall on one side and the balcony railing on the other, so that the waiter had to sit me first, then walk Brian to the other side and seat him. The meal was amazing though, and we had a great view for watching the people on the first floor, so we didn’t care.
Thursday night must be a big bar night in Milan, because on our tram ride home we saw about half the under-35 population outside drinking. We called it an early night, though—the next morning we had to catch a train to Cinque Terre!
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