step 1: Milano!

this past weekend i went to Milan to meet my parents and onward to Torino for a day at the olympic games. it was a long long weekend with very little sleep. i'll try to recall all the details.

friday morning was crazy. i planned to leave the centro at 9 15 to catch the 10 30 train to Milano. however a series of events conspired to stop me from doing this. i was going to take a shower after breakfast, but the Centro cleaning ladies decided to clean all of the bathrooms at once then. that set me back about 20 minutes while i waited for them to finish. i left the Centro at 9 30 and luckily caught a 75 bus right away. but traffic was bad in Rome. we pulled up to the piazza (which is really just a massive orgy of bus parking and bus stops) in front of Stazione Termini and there was a huge traffic jam at the intersection. we were stopped dead, so a woman on the bus started telling the driver to open the doors and let us off there, we could walk. i backed her up with gestures and my little Italian, but the driver was adamant, he had to get to his stop first. it took us 15 minutes to get from the corner to the stop (about 100m away). i ran into the station and got to the ticket desk at 10 10. they were sold out of seats for my train, so i booked a seat on the 11 30.

my parents were planning on meeting me at the station in Milan when my train arrived, so i had to let them know i was going to be late. i had an epic battle with the Italian payphone, and in the end i never was able to dial the toll free number for my phone card successfully. i fortunately had a local access number for Rome, so i had to sacrifice a 1 euro coin (i didn't have any smaller coin) and use that number. i got through to the hotel, but the man there only answered "pronto," not identifying the hotel or anything else about himself. i tried to speak italian, but it was too difficult. he didn't know much english but i think he handed the phone over to someone else. i could barely hear in the loud station, but in the end he told me my parents were out, and i left a message that i would be late. they returned to the hotel, but never got the message.

the train ride was somewhat eventful, although not for me personally. a man who i would guess was in his early sixties got a cell phone call from his sister. the conversation went like this:
"pronto. eh...? c'è morta!? o, ma donna!"
she was calling to inform him that their mother had died. he made and received several phone calls to and from family members for the rest of the ride. i hope that he and his family are all doing ok.

i got into Milan at 4, so there wasn't really much time to see anything because most places were shutting down at 5 or 5 30. the main area of the duomo was open until 7 though, so we went in there. i want to climb onto the roof again, which i did the last time i was in Milan 14 years ago, so i'll have to go back. i think i probably will some weekend this spring.


that night we went to my godmother Cynthia's apartment and had dinner with her boys, Federico and Alessandro, and her mother, Rosalba. i haven't seen Rosalba since i was in Italy the last time so it was really like meeting her for the first time. she's not afraid to speak her mind and is a fabulous storyteller. we heard lots about her life in Italy and in the US over a delicious lasagna that Cynthia cooked. i'd like to go to Milan again just to see them (not that i won't get some sightseeing in too).

we retired fairly early to our hotel since we had to leave early in the morning. to get to our rooms you had to go two flights up and one flight down. italian hotels are kinda screwy. the largest dimension of my little single room was its height. i meant to take a picture but forgot. not that there would have been much to take a picture of...it was so small that i'm sure there was no angle that would have done it justice. the bed was warm so i slept soundly - something i definitely wouldn't be doing the next night.