Nice Nice Nice and Milan

23 June, 2008 – Nice to Milan

I had a really late one the night before. As I mentioned in an earlier post (from weeks ago, sorry), our friend, ‘Fernando’ drove in from Barcelona on his way to Zurich while we were still in Nice and it’s not often you get to meet up with a friend from Melbourne in an exotic location like Nice, France so one must make the most of it…

So, for the few short hours he was there, we watched the quarter-finals between Spain and Italy. I was going for the hot Spanish boys really, but was made to side with Italy just because... Then after the game, Marisa and I played tour guide and showed him around Nice town, because having spent 3 days there, we were of course, almost locals.

Anyways, late night and I had to wake up early to pack my bags as we were heading to Milan that day. I wasn’t as prepared and ready as Marisa so I had to wake up extra early just to pack. I reckon I must’ve only had about 3 hours sleep max. Not to worry, I can always sleep on the train (hopefully).

This morning, it is goodbye France and HELLO ITALY!

Got to the train station really super early and it was chock-full of people, pushing and shoving themselves into my personal space – urgh – as Otis will say ‘GO – AWAY!’

We waited and waited and waited and waited for our train, then shoved our way onto the train and found that it was one of those old compartment one rather than one of them new ones like the one we took from Paris. That’s mark #1 against Italy.

Got to our compartment and there was this stupid selfish Italian woman who was hogging the luggage space for her husband/ boyfriend/ partner/ whatever. You should know that luggage space is a privilege on one these trains, especially if you have huge pieces like ours. We’ve heard stories where people have had to keep their luggage in the corridors of these trains…. And that’s what we didn’t want to do because we had a somewhat comfortable position in the compartment. Anyway, no luggage-space hogging lady! We have luggage too and it’s first-come first-serve dumb bitch! It’s hard enough to lift our 20kg suitcases that high to begin with, we don’t need the hassle or the fight to get a little bit of space.

That’s mark #2 against you Italy.

Luckily, another passenger in our compartment moved some of his stuff around and helped me lift my suitcase onto the racks above. Kind gentleman, thank you so much.

The horrid part is now we’re stuck listening to this stupid woman talk and talk and talk and talk for the entire journey. *sigh* it was an awkward uncomfortable journey for us. Marisa and me, versus 4 Italians. Luckily I have my MP3 player, so in goes the earpieces and up goes the volume to drown out her irritating voice. Peace at last.

The train leaves about 30mins late, mark #3 against Italy.

I didn’t have a great time in Rome last year so I didn’t expect Milan to be any better, that’s mark #4 for you.

The train has intermittent electricity and air-conditioning, so sometimes when we go through tunnels, it goes completely pitch black in the carriages and you can’t do anything, can’t read, can’t write and Lordy knows what happens if you happen to be in the toilet at the time.

Horrid train journey, we departed late and we arrived in Milan at 4.04pm, only about 74 minutes later than scheduled. That’s 1hr & 15mins late. Mark #5 for you.

The toilets on the train were disgusting, filthy, awful and nightmarishly indescribable (if I knew more words, I’d use them). That’s mark #6.

When we got off the train, it was hot and humid, but not a nice heat like in Nice, it was an awful uncomfortable heat. That’s mark #7.

Long walk from the metro station to where we’re staying, I reckon I got more tan in that walk than I did in 3 days in the sun in Nice. That’s mark #8.

The gypsies hassling us at the ticket machine, that’s mark #9. I reckon this is one of the worse things about traveling… the gypsies/ street people hassling us. And they’re worse in here Italy than anywhere else I’ve traveled to. Opportunists preying on tourists, even after telling them to piss off, they persist, the little buggers. The first few hours in Milan and I had the feeling that I was gonna hate every moment of it….

Now that the bad stuff is out of the way, onto the good things about Milan.

Marisa’s friend, Nanda, was very kind to let us stay with her in her very cute little apartment. We had the entire basement level to ourselves, and it was gorgeous and it was cool and it was spacious. Nanda had only moved into the place the week before so she was still just settling in when we crashed over. Thank you so much Nanda for having us!

Nanda lives in an apartment block right on a canal that has many shops during the day and the entire strip turns into a restaurant / market stall street during the night. So finding food, and good food was not a problem for us. That night, since Nanda was busy with work stuff, Marisa and I went out looking for somewhere nice and cheap for dinner. We went into a little bistro place and while Marisa decided on a pizza, I instead had some pasta because I saw the size of the pizza they served at this place. One word to describe them, ENORMOUS!

We had a great meal, Marisa felt full after about 2 slices, and still had more than ¾ of the pizza remaining before setting herself a challenge to finish the pizza before the woman sitting next to us. This woman also ordered a pizza, but started 10mins after Marisa and still managed to finish her pizza BEFORE Marisa! All the while, still holding a conversation… how do they do it? How do they eat so much, so quickly while talking???!?!!!???!!??!

Anyways, I don’t know if it was her paranoia, but Marisa reckons the waitress gave her dirty looks when she took away her half-finished pizza. But we sat there for awhile wondering how do we say “can I have that take-away?” considering they don’t speak English, but then again, we also didn’t know how to say “Can we have the bill, please?” but they knew what we wanted…. I guess we just needed to learn some more hand gestures.

24-25 June, 2008 – Milan

Marisa and I ventured out into the hot Milanese sun in search of some breakfast before attempting to explore this new city. First stop, Il Duomo, the Cathedral which is conveniently located next to a big shopping area.

Observation #1 – everywhere you look, it’s just clothes shops and a few expensive cafes. At this stage, we just want a simple baguette or a foccacia! Something cheap. Where are these all hidden?

After 2 hours and starting to get really frustrated (that’s what hunger does to you), we finally found a place just near a Ciao’s Restaurant. Now, I vaguely remembered that in Rome, in many places we had to pay for your meal and get a ticket before heading to the food counter. Best way to determine whether this was the case here was of course, to watch a few people do it first and we just follow.

I had a delicious Buffolino Burger, it was a thin foccacia with buffalo mozzarella, pancetta and rocket leaves and it was yum!

After that, we just wandered around the shops for a bit. There are a helluva lot of shops here.

Went to the Gucci café for a refreshing drink. Here, even the menu has a leather-bound Gucci branded cover, how posh!

Anyways, I really just wanted something refreshing because it was awfully hot. I had wanted something they called “Punch Rum” but the waitress lady said it may be too strong for me…. Ok then, so fruit juice it is!

I couldn’t read the Italian menu, and I didn’t know what juices they had so I asked for apple juice because it was bloody hot and I just needed some fresh and light and cold. Problem was, she brought me a pear juice (blech, urgh, vomit, yuck) I hate pears, any kind of pears, hate them. Yucky. See, it didn’t even look appetizing, it wasn’t juice, it was more like pulp and pulp is not refreshing and is definitely not juice. So I had it changed but what came out next looked just as bad, it was not the crisp, clear and refreshing apple juice that I had wanted but a pulpy and brown muck. It almost looked like vomit. Actually, I won’t sugar-coat it, it did look like vomit!

It was horrible and it cost me 10 euros, worst drink ever. I should've stuck to the Punch Rum, at least I would've been happy drunk.

It wasn’t until later that it dawned on me that Italians must not drink apple juice because I was at the supermarket and there were juices of all sorts except apple. How bizarre. Pear juice, however, can be found everywhere. Who the hell drinks pear juice?! Yuck.

After Gucci Café, we met up with Nanda and a couple of her friends and we all went shopping (what else do you do in Milan?). This place does funny things to you, I’m not much of a shopper but even I got caught up in the frenzy of Milan. I bought a nice little gift for my little brother because I realized that I have never really bought him anything nice on any of my trips, I always get lil Lulu lots of stuff but rarely anything for my one and only brother, but I made up this time, I’m good, I got him something really decent and nice.

After that, we made our way to San Siro, home ground of AC Milan (so I’ve been told) but by the time we got there the guided tours had finished so all we could do was take a few happy snaps outside those famous curvy roundy bendy column thingies.

Everybody was hot, tired and sticky from sweat. I think I may have even put on a bit of colour, my legs are looking just a tad less sickly white than they did before.

On our way home to meet up with a few more people for dinner, we passed by a PwC building… nice, but not as nice as the one I work in.

I wasn’t sure how many people was expected to come for dinner with us, but it sure surprised me, we were a rowdy group of 10 and when we get a bunch of Indonesians together, a lot of noise they do make! But it was a good pleasant change from the dinner for 2, yes, sometimes even a hermit creature like myself will crave a bit of social company.

Funny thing was, we were told we were going to this restaurant that specializes in horsemeat steak, and we should try it… umm… yeah, this was one of them, thanks but no thanks situations. This restaurant, funnily enough, was the same one we went to the night before! Same waitress served us too. How awkward. This time, Marisa learnt her lesson, no more humungous pizza for her, a nice sized pasta was all she wanted.

We were taken to a street party near an old church where apparently every night, people just congregate and drink on the street and socialize. So this proves that yes, it can work, people don’t cause fights and can be trusted to drink on the streets and have fun as well. Curfews don’t work. It just causes resentment and more trouble and frustrations.

This street party is an interesting concept, so kind of Nanda to take us out like this, despite having to work the next day. What a terrific host.

I’m finding that I’m enjoying Milan a whole lot more than I had expected to, despite the poor start, the heat and the poor experience I had in Rome. I hadn’t expected to like it because Italians are well-renowned for their extremely slow service and over dramatizing minor situations (sorry, dear Italian friends in Melbourne, you know I love you), I hadn’t expected to like it because there is honestly not a lot to actually see and do in Milan.

Our last night/ day in Milan was packed full of shopping. Shopping in Milan is surprisingly affordable, despite the brand names there. Marisa and I went our own separate ways and I actually got swept up in the euphoria of it all, I blame the heat. I bought quite a lot of stuff, including a few pairs of shoes, and I would’ve bought more if I didn’t have more sense. Shoes are gorgeous and cheap and most important of all, they have my size! Italy has shoes that fit me! I’m in shoe heaven! In hindsight, I probably should’ve bought some work shoes…… damnit!

I found a cute pair of casual shoes in my beloved Richmond colours, unfortunately, only in a size 36, still too big…. Bugger. Such a shame, they were prettiful shoes

After a long day of shopping, we met up with Nanda and went out to watch the semi-finals between Germany and Turkey at Duomo Piazza on the big screen. A few of Nanda’s friends joined us later in the night. There wasn’t as many people there as I had expected because Italy bowed out of the Eurocup a few days earlier and they’re just not that interested anymore. The piazza felt a little empty considering the size of the place.

There was a man who was trying to sell the most adorable little puppy, a brown cocker spaniel looking thing, just beautiful. I really really wanted to hold her for a bit but he approached a couple of ladies sitting next to us, perhaps because we looked like tourists and wouldn’t buy a puppy anyway. He managed to get them hooked, patting and hugging the puppy but I guess he may have pushed too far when he tried to sell them more and more ‘accessories’ and they just moved away from him. I feel sad for the puppy, she just wanted to sleep and this man wouldn’t let her rest. Poor thing.

After the game, we found a place in a part of town called “Birera” (I think?). Nanda told us that this was where the rich people go, where models and their kind hang out. So, we very un-model-like bunch rocked to this fancy area for a very late dinner. We had originally planned to have they the Italians call “Aperativo” where you order and buy drinks and they feed you for free. What an awesome idea! We should have that in Melbourne! When Marisa and I heard about this concept, this wonderful deal, we were…. Well, how should I put this….. completely up for it!

Unfortunately, by the time we got anywhere, it was kind of late and past Aperativo hour, so we just found a place that was still opened and had a super late dinner. A wonderfully scrumptious Risotto Milanese. Very delicious indeedy.

Oh, I forgot to tell you about my new shoes. I wore my new jelly shoes, which a super dooper comfy, but I had neglected to take into account sweaty feet in the hot weather, and sweaty feet make jelly shoes very slippery, especially so if your shoes are still just a tiny little bit too big (yep, 35 is still just a margin too big for me). So, here I am sliding around in my shoes and occasionally slipping out of one of them, but knowing me, I don’t like doing things by halves, when I do something, I like to do it well so when I slip out of my shoes, I don’t just slip out of one, I slip out of both shoes at the same time while crossing a busy road! I had to run back, pick up my shoes and run across the road barefoot and put my shoes back on. All in front of a huge crowd of people. How embarrassment.