Tornadoes and Ta-Tas Parmigiano, Milan - Friday, August 1st

On Friday afternoon Shawn and Beth and I took off for Milan. It was all very exciting. Sharman drove us to the train station at about 2:00 for our 4 hour ride. The train wasn’t too uncomfortable and they served some delicious espresso about halfway through the trip. The scenery was gorgeous.

When we entered Italy the train stopped and some very serious looking soldiers checked everybody’s passport. We happened to have a young man sitting across from us who was from Florida. He had been studying French and is planning to teach it back home. When they asked if we had anything to declare we all said, “no”, but the young man then asked us what you have to declare. When we told him anything that you bought in Switzerland and are taking into Italy he said that he had some chocolate in his suitcase. I’m sure he didn’t have enough to declare, but we had a good time teasing him about being thrown into an Italian jail. We caught him surreptitiously taking our pictures with his cell phone. I can just see his email home. “Mom, I sat with these old ladies on the train, and they kept me from being arrested.”

We got to Milan and walked out of the biggest train station I’ve ever seen in my life. The picture doesn’t even come close to portraying how massive that building was, and I don’t have the sides included.

This google image gives a better idea of the size of the station.

Here is a random building across the street from the train station.

Shawn had mapped out the directions to our hotel, which was only a few blocks from the station. We got checked in with some difficulty as the clerk didn’t understand much English. But when we got into the room, none of the lights worked. And it was pretty dark for trying to figure out what the problem was. Finally we found this little slot by the door and figured out that you have to stick your room key (the ones that look like credit cards) into the slot to have the electricity work. We were glad we hadn’t called the desk clerk to tell him we had no lights.

Next we headed off to dinner. We bought a ticket on the metro and took it to the Cathedral Plaza which was very near the restaurant we had chosen.

A word about the Cathedral. Well, I can’t even think of a word. When we came up the steps from the metro and saw it, I almost cried. It was that beautiful. Massive. Stunning. Gorgeous. Impressive. Overpowering. Nope. There’s not a word. Pictures definitely do NOT do it justice.

The Cathedral Il Duomo is the third largest church in the world. It took centuries to build and holds 40,000 people. Here’s a picture from a travel site that shows the size a bit better.

I was awed beyond words.

We couldn’t really find the street we needed on a map, so we stopped a young Italian man and asked him if he spoke English. He did, and was very helpful in helping us find the way. He even walked us to the restaurant. Later I found out that he told Shawn she had beautiful eyes and he hoped to see her again!

Anyway, we wanted to eat outside. The restaurant had several tent type canopies, maybe 9 in all set up. There tables and carts with wine glasses and dishes under the tents, which were quite sturdy and had strong looking beams and poles. We were sort of in an alley which was protected on all sides by buildings, but it was charming. This was one part of the view from where I was sitting.

We ordered our dinner and the waiter brought us a bread basket and some wine.

Suddenly out of nowhere an incredibly strong wind came up. The tents started swaying and you could hear glass breaking as bottles and glasses fell off tables. One lady jumped up and ran out from under the tent, but we were sort of stunned and just sat there. Shawn was laughing and we all had put our hands protectively over our wine glasses. I guess that’s where our priorities were.

The wind died down as quickly as it came. I didn’t really think of the danger until I looked to the side and saw our waiter literally wrapped around the tent pole trying to steady it. The poles on the tents to the side of us were bent precariously.  Then Shawn said, “Here it comes again!” This gust was even stronger and scarier than the first. We grabbed our wine glasses and ran out from under the tent. Luckily not many people were sitting inside the restaurant, so we were able to go in and sit down. People were pretty shaken.

Then the downpour came. It rained like crazy. I’m not sure if a couple of the tents blew over, or if they took them down. But the poor waiters and busboy were running out and bringing in glasses and bottles and plates. They put tablecloths over their heads, but got soaked to the skin trying to get it all brought inside.

At one point we looked out the door and there stood the guy who had walked us to the restaurant! I’m not sure why he was there (Shawn, ever the optimist, thinks he was worried about us), but we didn’t catch his eye and he finally left.

Now that we were safe inside we got a little giddy. Three things happened that had us dissolving into laughter. First our waiter brought out a salad (which none of us had ordered). He put it on the table along with three plates. Since we speak no Italian we guessed that maybe they were giving us a little bonus because of the storm and the delay in getting our dinner. Shawn doesn’t like tomatoes, so she started moving them over to one side of the plate. She was just ready to dish out three portions when it occurred to our waiter that the salad wasn’t ours. He picked the salad up, and took it right over to another table and set it down in front of a customer. Shawn had been rooting around in it, but he didn’t even pretend to take it into the kitchen and get a different one.

Then our dinner came. The waiter had a large cheese grater which he used with a huge enthusiasm. We tried to say, “No, no. That’s enough”, but he kept right on grating. Cheese was flying everywhere.

A few minutes later I looked over at Shawn. She was wearing a black shirt, and I thought, “I don’t remember that her shirt had that pattern across the chest.” Suddenly I realized that there was cheese ALL OVER her shirt, right across the chest. So much that it looked like a pattern in the shirt. We laughed all night about her “Ta-tas Parmigiano”.

The third thing happened when Beth said she wished she had a spoon to help her eat her spaghetti. We were sitting right next to this sort of buffet table with desserts on top and drawers in the side. Shawn calmly reached over, opened a drawer, pulled out a spoon, and handed it to Beth. I was rolling on the floor laughing. How did she know spoons were in that drawer? And more to the point, how did she have the nerve to open it and get one?

All in all it was a fun evening and a great beginning to our trip. The rain finally died down and we headed back to the metro. There were a bunch of Asian women who were determined to sell us an umbrella, but we managed to get back to the hotel in one piece.

We were so excited that the hotel was air conditioned. There didn’t seem to be any way to control it, though. Later that night I woke up freezing. So I put on my sweatshirt and socks and pulled the hood on my sweatshirt up over my head. Shawn found an extra blanket and poor Beth had to make do with some sort of bedspread thingy. She thought it was a riot to wake up and see me sleeping with my hood over my head. But Milan was hot, hot, hot, so we were glad to have the air.