Milano
Trip Start
Jul 01, 2007
1
25
29
Trip End
Nov 25, 2007
Milano,
Italy
Thursday, November 1, 2007
I am going because I want to meet a friend, Gabriella, and because I want to revisit it after many years. Gabriella is from Siracusa in Sicily, 12 kms from where I was born, but has been living in Milano for some years.
We met in Buenos Aires, at the house of a mutual friend, Amalia, with whom she was staying. She was incredulous that she would meet a person from the small town of Floridia (and living in Australia) in Buenos Aires and we tried to meet a couple of times when she went home to visit in Sicily but the dates just didn't work out.
So here I am on the train travelling over the vast, flat, foggy plain of the Po river, the only large area like this in Italy, which is mainly mountainous terrain
Arrival at Milano railway station
. I sit across from a well-dressed young Italian businessman in a dark blue velvet suit, green shirt, nice tie and funky brown shoes. He speaks excellent English, with only a slight accent, on the mobile phone several times and I assume he works for a US company, or is having dealings with one. He notices I have Primo Levi's book of stories and essays 'The Mirror Maker' on my lap. I have taken my shoes off and put my feet up on the seat next to him and he looks down and notices them and the frayed hems on my jeans and a look of slight distaste crosses his face.I pull my notebook out and write this - it's a funny feeling writing about a person sitting opposite and watching you, while it's still happening. Hundreds of people get off at the huge Milano station and it takes a while for me to put my luggage in storage, get out of the station, get oriented and walk in the light rain to the Duomo (Cathedral).
It is a massive building, the 3rd largest cathedral in the Catholic world, and has a lovely Gothic design, which makes it look airy and light. Inside it is huge, dark and mysterious. I see a tiny old lady in a felt hat kneeling with her head bowed right down - she moves from one section of the church to another, crossing herself, mumbling something, then fervently staring - at pictures and statues of Jesus on the Cross, Mary, a saint, etc.
Fur-lined Crocs
A very well-dressed lady puts some money in the box, takes a couple of candles, lights them and puts them in the candle-holder, crosses herself, sits down and spends a few silent minutes in contemplation before getting up and leaving.It's hard for me, an agnostic (for want of a better word), to understand, but there's no doubting the faith of these people.
I ring Gabriella and she gives me directions to her apartment, then I drop in to a bar in the Galleria and have a glass of Barolo, the first I have ever drunk. Barolo is one of Italy's best wines (from the Piedmont area in the north-west adjoining France) and is very long-lived - usually at it's best after 10 years and often drunk 15-25 years old - mine is only 5 years and still very firm.
Gabriella is a writer for Italian Cosmopolitan and last month her article on Buenos Aires was published - it's great reading it and going back in time to when we were there. She has a lovely apartment only 20 minutes walk from the Duomo and I sleep in a room with a sofabed and her library. As you will know I am an avid reader and cruise the shelves for something to read. I see Nick Hornby's novel 'How to be Good' (never read him before) and start to read. Once I'm started it's hard for me not to finish a book and as I'm only here for 2 nights I spend virtually the whole of the next day lying in bed reading, and finish the book by late afternoon. What would Gabriella think if she knew I had lazed away my whole day (while she's slaving away at work) in her apartment (I tell her and she's surprised I read so quickly). I really enjoy the book, alternating laughing out loud uncontrollably and wiping tears away - I don't know what it is but I seem to be very easily moved to emotion these days. I finally finish the book, have a shower and shave and go for a stroll in the neighbourhood in the evening
St Carlo's church
.Gabriella rings from work and we organise to meet for a drink later, then she is going to attend a performance of a modern dance piece (I have given her very little notice of my visit and she had booked this some time ago). She tells me about an area of Milano where some of the old man-made canals (called Navigli) are still visible (they started building them around 1100AD, but most were covered over in the early 1900's), and I catch the tram there.
I eat at the Osteria Milanese, a traditional eatery - a bruschetta of thinly-sliced pure lard (as fine as carpaccio) and greens - the lard is silky and sweet and virtually melts in the mouth; grilled fillet of fassone (a type of cattle) - served very rare with fresh porcini, which I accompany with a dry, savoury Barbera wine, then a traditional Milanese dessert (Pan di spagna - something like a sponge but so much tastier and soaked in liqueur) and they give me a mandarinello (like a limoncello but made from mandarines) on the house.
The waiters are fascinated that I'm from Australia and engage me in conversation - everywhere I have been in Italy they say things like 'Australia is beautiful and life there must be wonderful' - not in a jealous way but in the sense of 'well we live here and it's all we know, but you live in a new country that is wealthy, has few social, economic and political problems, and everyone lives in large houses with gardens and there's lots of space'.
I must seem a bit churlish as I am not necessarily convinced these things are completely unadulterated joys and I sometimes mention the flip side of alienation, lesser amount of family and community bonds, and a certain lack of intensity due to the relaxed lifestyle - I of course am speaking absolutely personally and without judgement - these are my views only and different things appeal to different people
Milan Cathedral at night
.Gabriella has told me about a Halloween Day tango - yes, Halloween has even made it to Italy (well, at least Milano, which is the most Americanised city), and many young women (and a few men) are dressed all in black as witches (very attractive witches I must say, with their olive complexions and stylish witches clothes - yes, even the witches here have to 'make a buona figura').
I catch a taxi to the milonga 'comunabaires' and stay until the end at 3am. It's a very nice place - there is a bar and restaurant area, and a sizeable dance floor to to the side. It's fun telling my dance partners I'm from Australia - some are amazed and ask 'is tango danced in Australia?', to which I usually reply 'yes, we actually do have some culture', to which they usually make profuse apologoes to the effect they didn't mean that, and we usually both laugh - others have friends that have been in Australia, and others have been there themselves and say how much they enjoyed it.
After the milonga there is the problem of how to get home - it's 3am, I'm far from the city, I don't have a a map or actually know where I am, and there's bugger-all taxis about, so I start walking along the road and eventually a taxi comes by and I sneak into Gabriella's apartment as quietly as I can.
Milan Galleria at night
Next day is a public holiday and Gabriella is making a long weekend of it in the country and I'm catching a train to Geneva. We have breakfast at a well-known caffe that is 'in' (well, an Italian breakfast, a coffee and a pastry), and she points out a fashion editor dressed in all the 'right' clothes, we catch a tram to the station (one of the old trams, like the old Melbourne rattlers, with wooden seats and windows that open), and we say goodbye.I walk to the navigli as I want to see them during the day, and I have lunch at a cheap and cheerful place - crespelle (a sort of crepe) with porcini, and a cotoletta milanese (otherwise known in many parts of the world as wiener schnitzel, which would no doubt upset the Milanese greatly if they knew about it).
While waiting for my first course and daydreaming in the sunshine I hear at the table right behind me 'listen Maria, if you're just going to sit there and criticise, you can just fuck off now', delivered in English in a terse American accent. Maria, who I'm sure is Italian, responds mildly 'you can be brutal sometimes' and I can't hear the rest of the exchange, then everything goes quiet for a bit. Maria, who I have now surreptitiously looked around at, and who is a very cool customer indeed, starts the conversation again and puts her companion/workmate into a reasonable humour again. The conversation is about interest rates and money and I guess they are finance executives of some sort
Milano main piazza
.As I'm writing this down the man leans across to my table and asks, in badly accented Italian, if he can borrow the oil and vinegar set, and I try not to let him see that I'm writing in English.
I can't resist buying a tart with berries after lunch, then a pumpkin icecream (Halloween special) and I end up missing my train to Geneva (I know you're all laughing at me and thinking how hopeless I am, but really, what's more important, catching a train or eating a new flavour of icecream?). So, I stay another night in Milano and get an early night.
The next morning I stop by a Mondadori bookshop, one of the major Italian publishers, and for some inexplicable reason I buy my first book ever (and possibly my last) by a French philosopher, Jean Baudrillard, called 'In the shadow of the silent majority'.
By now you must think I have completely lost it - not only is there my occasional ranting and raving to put up with, but after reading this I am going to probably disappear up my own arse and spout incomprehensibilities - here's an example:
'The mass realises that paradox of being both an object of simulation(it only exists at the point of convergence of all the media waves which depict it), and a subject of simulation, capable of refracting all the models and of emulating them by hypersimulation (its hyperconformity an immanent form of humour).'
If anyone would care to enlighten me on what this means I would appreciate it, as otherwise it's going to be very hard work to get through this book - I definitely think it's easier to be deeply shallow.
I do catch the next day's train to Geneva on time. My time in Milano has been far too short and I put it down on my list of cities I need to revisit - there is the Castello Sforza, fashion shops to check out, a more leisurely time looking around the cathedral, and there are the Italian lakes nearby. Oh well, next time ...
