Thursday 3/17: Summer in the City (2/5)

The flight down was rather uneventful. Apart from managing to get a chuckle out of some fellow passengers upon pointing out the similarities between synchronized swimming and the flight crews' demonstration of security procedures, it was standard dull and cramped Ryanair flying. Ryanair has one redeeming feature, and one only: It's dirt cheap.

I had left a still wintry Norway of freezing temperatures and snow so it was wonderful to step out into an Italian spring that almost felt like a Norwegian summer, with temperatures in the lower 20s (low 70s for you yanks). I managed to locate the bus into Milan without any difficulty, and arrived at the Central station on time. An immediate example of Italian logic, the central station is not, in fact, all that central and it is located quite a bit north of a station called "Northern station", which is much closer to the centre.

I took a cab to my hotel, a fairly low priced, yet not really cheap place considering its standard (or lack thereof). When I arrived, there were two young guys on duty, and their English was atrocious, despite the hotel's website promising "English-speaking staff". They did however manage to convey that the hotel's Internet connection was not currently working, thus providing me with two excellent reasons never to stay there again.

We'd agreed that I would call Ms K at her hotel sometime between 6 and 7 PM. I first tried calling from my hotel room. Now, the normal procedure is to hit a 0 for a local line out. I tried this, but nothing happened. I dialled 9, the usual number for the reception, but their lack of English proficiency made any attempt at conversation moot. I then tried to experiment with various numbers, but soon found that the buttons on the phone stayed jammed inside it when I pushed them. It was all extremely frustrating, so I went downstairs to call from the lobby.

Needless to say, the girls - being female - were not in their room at the appointed time. I cursed and muttered and went back to my room. Three more times within that hour I tried, but no one was in. I looked at the map and decided to try and walk to their hotel to wait there. On the way, I called the hotel from my cell, but there was still no sign of them. The walk was shorter than I had feared - about 25 minutes - and it was surprisingly easy to find my way around the streets, which immediately gave me a positive impression of the city. It also helped considerably that it was still quite warm, around 20C (68F).

At the hotel, I found that the girls had arrived a minute after I'd called them last. I rang them up from the lobby and they promised to be down right away - meaning about 15 minutes in MST (male standard time, which usually follows clocks -unlike FST, which follows the inexplicable logic, or lack thereof, of the female brain - such as it is).

Finally, the elevator door opened and Ms K stepped out. I almost didn't recognize her, since she'd now let her hair grow quite a bit, while I'd always seen her with a very closely cropped cut. Right behind followed her friend, Ms S - of whom much more later. They were both all smiles and we hugged and shook hands and did away with the usual pleasantries of travel details and such before venturing outside to hunt down some dinner.

After the compulsory indecisive loitering outside the first couple of places we came to (why is the first place never satisfactory?), K finally decided she wanted to sit outside. We found a place just up the street from the hotel and though it didn't have any menus in English, there were pictures of most of their courses, so we felt fairly safe. Apparently, the Yankees had had some surprises earlier in the day when ordering "pepperoni", which to the civilized world is a sausage, but which in Italy is the vegetable green pepper. (I'd had a rather nasty surprise myself a few years earlier, when some evil French had tried to poison me with a vegetable dish while I innocently expected spicy meat). In Italy, our pepperoni sausage is called salami. What they call our salami, I don't know. Possibly green pepper.

Being the cosmopolitan European, I'd bought an English guidebook for Milan - possibly the driest, most annoyingly pedantic guide I've ever read, with an overview map that covered so little of the city it was almost useless. Still, it was better than nothing. We discussed what we should do the next couple of days. K and S had initially asked me about going to Florence (the only place they'd bought a guide for) but since that was a six-hour roundtrip, we soon dismissed the idea. They were however keen to behold some mountains, as such topological features are rather scarce in the Atlanta area - indeed east of the Rocky Mountains. (Note to any hillbillies reading this: I love the Appalachians dearly; they're mighty purdy as hills go. Nevertheless, proper mountains they ain't, not to a Norwegian anyway. Now put down that shotgun and go back to sodomizing your goat or sister or whatever).

We didn't make any decisions about Saturday that evening, but decided upon a rough plan for Friday. After eating and drinking, we stepped inside for coffee and to get some warmth, as it was getting a bit chilly outside. This being Italy, it was just as cold inside so we soon retreated to another place further down the street (one of those we had passed on our initial loiter). Here we found a warm, well-lit place with friendly and English-speaking staff. S was still hungry, as she hadn't finished her dinner, while I merely settled for a delicious dessert of meringue cake. After a while, the proprietor himself came over and talked to us, shaking hands and grinning all round. His name was Achilles, and he was Greek. Also, he was a born salesman. I got the feeling this guy could have made a handsome living selling air conditioners in Antarctica. As it were, he was doing a brisk business in the fur industry, with a factory in China and customers all over the known universe. That very night he was entertaining a big group of Spanish customers at his restaurant.

He became very excited when he heard the girls were from the US. He immediately started a vigorous re-telling of his adventures flying around in a tourist helicopter over Manhattan. He seemed to have business contacts and/or residences all over Europe - Greece, Vienna, Barcelona, London to mention a few, and had stories about all of them. He asked us what we were eating, only to launch into a lyrical description of a dessert not on the menu; I believe the name of the thing included the word "Montenegro". As drool was beginning to trickle down our chins, he ordered the staff to bring out three servings - on the house. While he retreated to his table of Spanish customers, we thanked him profusely - as well we should, the dessert was indeed yummy. Being full to the point of bursting and tired from a long day of travel we finally said our goodbyes and returned to our respective hotels.