Milan

All his life, Fabio has been an Inter Milan fan. They are the pro soccer team from Milan. This weekend, Fabio fulfilled his dream of watching them play live, but it wasn't without a little adventure. Here is a run down of our weekend in Milan, with a few blessed highlights.

Saturday 11am: We board the train in Zug bound for Milan. It's crowded to the max and hotter then hell (I'm assuming). We make a spontanious decision to upgrade to 1st class and don't regret it for one minute!

Saturday 1pm: We change trains in Lugano. We are waiting by the train we just got off and Fabio realizes he left his jacket on the train. Without thinking he bolts back to where we were sitting (I've never seen him run so fast). I see him get on the train and pray the train doesn't shut its doors and start moving until he gets off. He grabs his jacket and jumps out the door a literal second before the doors shut and the train starts moving. Whew!

Saturday 2:30pm: We pull into Milan and proceed to try and find the bus to our hotel. Italians are less than specific with directions and after a few wrong turns we find the stop. We shove our way onto a crowded bus and enjoy the mixed smell of body odor and alchohol. A lady shoves me in the butt because apparantly I was smushing her flowers. When Fabio asks what stop to get off for the fair (which was supposed to be right by our hotel), the bus driver says in a smart a** way, "At the fair." Thanks, buddy. Sorry you hate your job, but you don't have to take it out on the rest of us. Seriously.

Saturday 2:50pm: By some miracle I see our hotel as the bus passes it and we are able to avoid even more confusion by getting off the bus at the next stop. Good thing it was right on the bus route and good thing I have eagle eyes. (Remember, our cell phones don't work in Italy.)

Saturday 3:30pm: We venture to the historic part of Milan on these super sweet trams. (Similar to the ones in Basel.) There are no signs for what stop is what. There is no announcing what stop is next. Every time we stop, I have to peer out the window to see, "Does this look like something we are looking for?" At this point, we are really missing Swiss public transportation.


Saturday 4pm: Again, miracle of all miracles, we find the Duomo, a famous Milanese landmark. We wander around the piazza, visit the inside of the church and walk through the Galleria Vittorio Emmanuele, a famous historical shopping area. There are a million people everywhere and we wonder what it would be like when it's actually peak tourist season.




Saturday, 5pm: We start looking for a "non-tourist" place to eat dinner. Fabio really hates eating where all the tourists are. (Hello...we ARE tourists!) But, I agree, when we have found those places, they are better. We find this really, really, really cute pizza place. It's on the second floor of a store/cafe that sells old prints and music books used in the Teatro La Scalla just down the street. (Teatro La Scalla is one of the most famous theaters in all of Italy and has been for hundreds of years.) The pizza is yummy and the place is just charming as I'll get out. Sorry for the blurriness. (Is that a word?)


Saturday, 6pm: We walk back to the Duomo to catch the Metro to the soccer game and are stunned by how beautiful the Duomo is at night.




Saturday, 7:30pm: We arrive at the metro stop "right outside the stadium". Yeah right! It took us more than a half hour to walk there! Sheesh. We got there just in time for the match to start. It was great fun, and Fabio's boyhood dreams came true! He got to see Inter win a match live in Milan! It was the highlight of the trip!


Saturday, 8:30pm - 10:15pm: We witness about 10 different soccer players at 10 different points in time writhing on the ground in "sheer agony" due to some minor clash with the opposing team. It's quite silly. The players run into each other and then one or both of them writhe around on the ground pretending to be hurt beyond sanity and then all these people, coaches, medics, trainers run to the field in preparation to rush the said hurt player to the hospital. Seriously, each time it happened, I had to laugh and think, "Oh...poor baby. I'm sure it's going to hurt just long enough to waste time and then he'll be back up as if nothing happened, but for now....ohhh! Poor baby."


Saturday, 10:30pm: We attempt to find our way back to the hotel. We have NO idea where to go. All we know is that the hotel website said it was "half mile from the stadium", so Fabio attempts to ask people where the street is that our hotel is on. Two people tell him "Oh, that's far! You don't want to walk!" But we can't find any public transit amid the chaos to take us anywhere near the hotel, so we decide to walk it. One hour and 4 very tired legs and feet later, we arrive at our hotel that WAS NOT a half mile from the stadium! We manage to still be in good spirits and settle in to our hotel room.

Sunday, 9am: We wake up and turn on the TV and to my delight, my favorite American reality TV show, "John and Kate Plus Eight" is on! It made my day! I reveled in all 15 minutes of the show before getting up and getting ready. Sigh. I really miss American TV.

Sunday 10am: We head out to spend the next five hours in Milan. We take the bus to Castello Sforzesco. Imagine the Medicis of Milan. They are the Sforzescos. We spend a few hours there wandering around and visiting some of the museums inside.


Sunday 12pm: We take the metro to the famous shopping street in Milan. Since it was Sunday, it was pretty dead, and few shops were open, but it could be called the Rodeo Drive of Italy, although, in my opinion, Rodeo Drive is much more impressive.
I didn't see as many beautiful, stylish people on the streets of Milan as I thought I would.




Sunday 1pm: We are disappointed that we can't find any Italian ties (affordable that is) or restaurants open. We head to the train station in hope of a little more activity. While in the metro station, we see adds featuring Barack Obama. OBAMA '08!!!!!!


Sunday 1:15pm: We roam around the train station and are yet again, disappointed by the lack of options for shopping and food. We see a few sketchy restaurants, one of which is a "Mexican" restaurant. We say to ourselves, "Hey, we ate Mexican in Zurich, why not try it in Italy too!" Sounds like a fun idea, right? We feel proud of ourselves for thinking outside the box.

Sunday 1:30pm: We get the food we ordered. "Let's be safe and order arroz con pollo." Oh man. This was not safe. This was not familiar. What we got was a scary piece of boiled chicken with some green rice, a cold potatoe and some bright yellow sauce on it. I have never been so scared to eat food in my life. We picked our way through it, trying to make it look like we ate something and jetted out of there as fast as we could. Yikes. That may be the last time we "think outside the box" when it comes to eating out. As Fabio said after his first bite of the rice, "When in Rome, we will do as the Romans do." Amen.


Sunday, 2:30pm: We board the train after a last minute gelato. Lucky for us, we boarded at the origin in Milan because after Lugano, it was mayhem on the train. It is just not a good idea to travel home on a Sunday night.


All in all, it was a good weekend. I must say, of all the places I have seen in Italy, Milan is probably on the bottom of my list. It's just a big, dirty city without much character (compared to what else I've seen). The soccer game was sweet though and we did see some beautiful things. We are happy to be home, and here's to another weekend gone by too fast!