Milano

Milan was 2 cities ago, and I'm having a hard time conjuring up its sights and sounds while I sit here in Florence, a city I've only known for 4 hours now and have already enjoyed much more than the city of my topic today.

Milan was a rude awakening, a jolting reminder that we were not in Switzerland or Germany anymore. Our hotel did a really great job of contrasting the countries. Switzerland and Germany hotels were efficient, professional, swift (oh, except for that one waiter in Munich hotel). People were also very nice and helpful. In Switzerland, they were even chill, which is unexpected. Anyway, the Milan hotel where we stayed had a fabulous location but not much else. The elevators really could use a lot of fix or at least stop where it is asked to. The hotel employee should not have screwed up my friend's dry cleaning order, or at least acknowledge his or her mistake. The guy helping my friends get a new battery for their TV remote control should not have entered the neighboring room and taken their battery from their remote control. A lot of shopkeepers and ticket/cashier attendant would not give you the time of day if you don't speak Italian, which I think is somewhat fair, because I don't expect everyone to speak English. But it is hard to swallow still, because I've been to countries where they try to communicate with you anyway in their own language mixed in with gestures and such.

But Milan is the home of their magnificent Duomo, easily the most impressive cathedral I've ever seen. This is counting St. Peter's in the Vatican, which I visited afterward. Milan also offers good food for much cheaper than Rome or Florence. I learned about aperitivo - their happy hour - where you pay for the fixed price of 8 Euro or 12 Euro for one drink plus a buffet of tapas or nibbles or antipasti. I ate fiori de zucca and loved it, of course, since it's basically zucchini, breaded and fried. I ate the best risotto at Savini, a restaurant in the Galleria, an impressive, grand, beautiful hall of shops next to the Duomo.

Not to be omitted from this diary, of course, is Milan's men and women, well dressed, high style, and perfectly groomed. We had a meeting in the hotel's restaurant with a clear view of the street when my friend JD, in mid-sentence, dropped to the couch and groaned: "I can't stand it anymore, all the women here are sooo gorgeous! I need to get out of here!"

Get out of there we did. On to the next stop: Rome.