Milan is way too helpful

  Milan, Italy
Tuesday, May 30, 2006

Fully expecting the bus ride back to be just as hair-raising and efficient as the ride to the hotel, we got up with an hour or so to spare. Breakfast - the usual coffee, rolls, and jam, was served at the hotel, and we set out to try and catch the bus.

Try One - We're on the right line going the right direction, but it is only hitting the same five or six stops over and over again, going in a loop. Time spent: Twenty minutes

Try Two - We're on the right line hitting all the stops, but it's going in the wrong direction. Time spent: Thirty minutes

Try Three - We finally find the right line going the right direction and not looping. It gets stuck in traffic. Time spent: Twenty minutes

Unwittingly, we saw pretty much all of downtown Genoa during our Grand Bus Tour. We also discovered that no one uses tickets, so we followed their lead. Just in case, we keep validating the first ticket over and over again, so we look like we're supposed to be there. Genoa was fine, with nothing spectacularly good or bad about it. It is very clean with random signs on the streets and alleys and no particular regard for a grid layout. Unlike Rome, there are no ancient ruins littering the landscape, lowering the interest level by at least 30%.

However, now we're running late and barely make our train to Milan. We hit Milan running, literally, and the strangest gold-toothed girl finds us while we're standing at the machine to buy metro tickets. Basically, this was our equivalent to Hordes of Roaming Gypsy Children. When she told us the machine wouldn't work and we needed to follow her to another machine, we basically shrugged and complied, since we were in such a hurry to make our museum reservations. The machine *was* acting peculiar and not giving the normal prompts. Plus, Milan's subway zone map is crazy. She gets to a new machine, tells us we can't use coins and must use paper money. When Sarah gets a five euro bill out, she says that that just won't do, and starts trying to paw through Sarah's wallet herself. Well, we were in a hurry, not totally stupid, so Sarah snatches it back and gets a ten for the machine. The girl hurriedly presses buttons without asking where we were going, getting us tickets to the Duomo. That's about the time I started getting really annoyed, as she had assumed the wrong destination and I hate unnecessary "help." Then we learned the reason for putting the largest bill possible in the machine - she wanted to be in charge of the change, keeping a "fee" for her "help." Supposedly one euro, but we're pretty sure she palmed more than that.

However, we were in too much a hurry to argue, so we glanced at each other, ran to the metro, and proceeded to vent our annoyance when we hit surface streets. As usual, we got totally turned around because it's hard to tell which direction you'll exit the metro in. While we were getting our bearings, a college-aged guy asked if we needed directions, and proceeded to walk us back in the right direction, slowly, while giving a tour of the sights of Milan. We did not want a tour of the sights of Milan, nor did we really want his assistance, coming on the heels of the gold-toothed girl as it did. But this boy really just wanted to show us his favorite parts of Milan while he walked home and did not ask for a tip of any kind.

We made the reservations to Brera Pinacoteca only seven minutes late. Success! Since there were no overall signs explaining the museum (in inglese), my interpretation was that it was a collection of mostly Italian art from the fourteenth century through the twentieth century, showing the different themes of each era and the evolution of portraiture. I could be wrong. Basically, what we got out of it was that the human figures look *so* much better starting from about the eighteenth century, but most artists still could not draw children or babies. Children were drawn as elf-like creatures (I thought they were supposed to be elves until I saw them with Jesus and started reading captions) and most of the infant Jesuses are positively scary. Drawings of saints being killed, or as bloody ghosts following their deaths, seemed to be a huge thing over the centuries. The most ghastly recurring one was the fellow who got martyred by having a cleaver sunk into his skull - the cleaver/axe and the blood was shown in many, many pictures. I'm not sure who that was. We learned St. Sebastian was killed by many arrows, and St. Cecilia may or may not have been pressed to death.

Some of the huge, twenty-foot plus paintings are remarkable, and you can't really get the full effect with just a walk-by. However, most of the large paintings are fairly straightforward Biblical or war scenes. There was also a room where it seemed to be the craze for a time to draw dead animals as food.

I didn't like these as much as the Roman art, but some of the later crucifixions and Madonna With Childs were okay. My favorite crowd-pleaser was Il Bacio (The Kiss). It reminded both of us of the similarly posed V-Day picture.

After the museum, we started hunting for our hotel. We took to the bus to the general vicinity, and started to follow these *horrible* directions to the hotel. I can manage to get us lost in Italy with a map and *good* directions, so whatever possessed people to give directions like "Turn when you get to This street. Walk until you get to This Other street, then turn again," I don't know. (Notice the lack of right and left turns.) We walked for upwards of an hour with our pounds and pounds of crap, and were getting quite tired, when we stopped by a bar for directions. The bartender really didn't know where the streets were I was talking about, but an elderly lady nearby did. However, the lady didn't speak English, so the bartender translated for her. We get an idea of where we were supposed to go between the two of them, and head off.

About a block later, we realize the lady is following us. She tries to say something, gestures a bit, then gives up with a shake of her head and makes a curt gesture to follow her. This little seventy-plus year old lady in inch and a half heels walked us at a brisk clip the half mile or so almost all the way to the door of the hotel. That was one of the nicest things ever done for me by a random stranger. We couldn't believe it.

After we rest, we head back out to find an internet connection. We get a tip that we need to go back into the center of the city, by the Duomo, and take our brand-new "bus tickets are actually not necessary" knowledge learned in Genoa to hitch a ride. Snap a few pictures, but can't go inside because I have a tank top on.



We start at the building by the Duomo with a giant neon sign that "Everything Is Going To Be Alright." They have internet, but they're closing for the evening, and they direct us down the street. We find another internet cafe on the second floor of a bookstore (by mistake), but their computers are down. They direct us down a side alley by a mechanics repair shop, where, oddly enough, the internet is working perfectly. We are so dependent on the internet for bank and train and email info that it's hard to function without it. It's kind of sad.

When we get back to our neighborhood at around 8:30pm, we find everything is closed already, even though it's still light outside, so we end up eating at a McDonalds. I get curry sauce with my nuggets, and you have to pay for individual ketchup packets.



All in all, we found that the folks in Milan do dress decidedly more nicely than folks in the states do, and a good step up from their brethren in Rome. Milan is rather grey, austere, and commercial, but I have no real complaint. Commercial is just not really my sort of thing.



(A few pics forthcoming)
ETA: Sample pics are now up. Full set in flickr.