Before I begin I have to describe to you the area I am in right now. I'm in my room, it's a modest room with a single bed, desk and wardrobe combo. It's nice. My window is open and the sound of the Beach Boys "I Get Around" is wafting through. Yes, the Beach Boys. Oh these crazy Brits.
Anyway back to the Italian adventures.
You'll have to forgive me, I cannot remember if I wrote about missing the train to Milan or not and I'm way too lazy to check or to really do much editing on this baby. In Venice, due to the whole time change business, me and Dave were an hour late for our train to Milan. We were pissed so we decided to get a bottle of wine and drink from it under the trees on a bench near the train station like a bunch of dirty Italian-esque winos (we are Italian after all, we pulled it off nicely). When we finally got on the train, we sat across from each other and played a competitive game of rummy. I'm sure you won't be surprised to find out that Dave kicked my ass. He later told me it's a little bit easier to play with me because he can anticipate my moves and what cards I want. While he was kicking my ass, a lovely young Italian lady sat down next to Dave. As I was sitting across from her, we'd occasionally catch eyes and smile. After a thorough ass whipping, Dave and I decided to discontinue our game. I don't know how it happened exactly but Dave started to talk to the girl. Her name was Tatiana. She was really nice and spoke decent English. We talked about Milan because she went to school there. We talked about what our plans were for Milan (which pretty much was going to see Franz Ferdinand and find our hotel at that point). She wrote out on a piece of paper her favorite places in Milan for us. Dave then asked her about the squirrel population of Italy. That was quite an interesting turn in topic. I laughed at him (honestly, who asks about that?) but then I had to agree. There really aren't many (if any at all) squirrels in Italy. Once we finally arrived in Milan, we all got off together and she tried to point us in the direction of our hotel. Unfortunately she didn't quite know where it was but she did her best. Then we parted ways.
I, being the keeper of the map, tried to get us to our destination in a timely fashion. Our bags were heavy and we still had to find the venue for the Franz concert. Well, we started walking off in the wrong direction, mostly because street signs like to do a vanishing act in Italy. I quickly realized the error though and we got going in the right way. It took us a while to find the place and I got snippy with Dave. He kept commenting on all the nice cars (yes, they were nice-audis and BMWs and what not) and I was frustrated because our map was what can only be described as inadequate. We managed to get to the street that our hotel was supposed to be on. We found a door that was locked that was supposed to lead to the hotel. Next to it was a panel of buttons, most with residences and one with our hotel name. Me and Dave exchanged dubious glances and Dave pressed the button. The door unlocked and we wandered through, still unsure of where the hotel actually was. The door opened up to a courtyard. This place was apparently an apartment structure with a hotel stuffed in the rear. We found the stairs to the hotel and entered. I told the guy at the desk, who evidently lived just to the right of the front desk in a small room, that we had a reservation. He took our passports (to copy records and the like from) and gave us the key. He told us to get settled and come back in three minutes to get our passports back. We opened our door and were greeted with a decent sized room with two dressers, one bed and a bathroom. We were happy enough with it. After the check in process was complete, we asked for a map (thankfully it was a decent one) and asked where the Franz Ferdinand concert was. He looked up the name on his computer (which was a generous touch, he could have said "I don't know. Fuck off."), found it on the map and told us how to get there. We had booked two nights in Milan, one full day and two half days, so we opted to get the three day metro pass. Milan has a fabulous metro system. Easy to understand and speedy as all hell. We got to the Franz concert in like 30 minutes and got our tickets. It was a mob of Italians, all speaking Italian. Me and Dave just stood near each other, occasionally speaking but mostly just observing, waiting for the opening band. It seemed to take ages. While we were waiting, I had this awful realization. We were standing next to a group of Italians, one guy with his hair up. I was (creepily) watching them and they must of have said something to this guy about how long his hair was getting because he took his hair tie out and let it all loose. I watched in horror as his gloriously beautiful, long hair tumbled down. I turned to Dave and said "Italian men have better hair than I do." Dave looked, smiled and nodded his head. My hair is at best a frizzy mess. These Italian men had shiny, soft (looking-I did not touch any) hair that shamed the rat's nest on top of my head.
Finally the band came out. Dave looked at me in surprise. "No opening band?" Evidently we got there just in time to miss the (most likely) lame Italian opening band and were just going to catch the top bananas-Franz Ferdinand. Everyone pushed forward as the band began their opening chords to "Dark of the Matinee."It took me back to the summer I listened to their self titled CD exclusively. I was 17 and volunteering at the VA hospital. I still remembered most of the words but I was hearing it in a whole new way. Italian accented English voices were shouting the lyrics all around me.
Now, it's been a really long time since I went to a huge concert like that. The last one I remember going to that had more than say 60 people was Regina Spektor almost two years ago. I'm used to small bar, local scene type of venues. So being constantly jostled by all the dancing Italian bodies that were pretty much uncomfortably close to me was off putting. But when the group of kids near me decided to start moshing, that was a whole new thing. I've seen moshing before, I've just never been that close. I was being pushed every other second. I kept looking at the girl that was being shoved into me with apologetic eyes but she understood and kept on singing along. Then, on top of the moshing and constant jostling, a girl and her boyfriend danced up to my left. No big deal until she stepped on my foot three times and slammed her elbow into my forearm with enough force to give me a visible bruise the next day. So I started to do what I like to call "defensive dancing." Basically I poked my elbow out a little more than is polite and made some sharp movements. After contact was made, not just with my elbow but also my shoulder, she stepped off to the left a little more. I smiled at my victory and was immediately shoved forward by the moshers. Honestly, who moshes to Franz Ferdinand?! I thought as I righted myself and tried to get back into the music. Franz finished their first set and walked off stage. Everyone was clapping and shouting so they came back for their encore. I looked at Dave. I was tired and the whole experience, while being amazing and definitely one of a kind, made me really uncomfortable. Dave said we could leave unless they started to play the song "Lucid Dreams" which was his favorite off the new album. Lucky for me, they played Jacqueline, the opening song from their self-titled CD. Dave firmly clasped my hand and we pushed our way through the crowd, dodging moshers and drunken idiots on the way out. We finally reached fresh air and we spent a moment letting our ears adjust to normal volumes. Outside there were tables and tables of Franz souvenir shirts, etc. I glanced at them, trying to decide if it was worth it to buy something to commemorate this experience. An older Italian gentleman motioned to us and started talking in Italian. Dave told him we only spoke English. He only spoke Italian. At first he looked defeated but the scent of a possible sell made him press on. Using hand signals and very broken English he told me the prices of the t-shirts and hoodies. "Diece euros" he said, pointing to the t-shirts. Venticinque euros for the hoodies. My Spanish days kicked in. 10 euros for the shirts, 25 for the hoodies. Then he threw me a curve ball, 30 for both. I held my breath and looked at Dave. "It's up to you," he said. I weighed my options quickly and bought a green Franz Ferdinand t-shirt. We thanked the man and walked off. "He almost had you with that 'deal,'" Dave said.
It was very late by the time we got back to the area our hotel was. We were hungry but couldnt find any place that was open. We walked into this little restaurant that had all the lights on but evidently was closed. Dave asked if he could buy a bottle of water, he later told me that he would have died without that water. The lady let us buy a bottle of water, despite not knowing a word of English. We thanked them (in Italian) and left. We decided that we were too tired and it would be best to go back to the hotel and sleep.
The next day we decided to find some of the places that Tatiana (the girl from the train) wrote down for us. I'm not going to go into detail about the day. Here are some of the highlights: We took the metro in the direction of destination number one (the name of which escapes me), ended up at a supermarket where we bought water (another lifesaving bottle) and walked to a closed restaurant that let us sit down if we would wait 10 minutes for them to officially open. No one but one guy spoke English and because we didn't speak Italian we have no idea what they said about us as "Americanos." We walked to a park and spent a few minutes sitting on a bench reflecting on how much we weren't enjoying Milan. Then we walked to a castle and were accosted by a group of African who were "giving away" bracelets. I don't know how many times I said "No grazie" to this guy and tried to follow Dave away from them. Dave got caught up one and got a bracelet tied to his wrist. As I waited, the guy who was trying so desperately to give me one tied a bracelet around my wrist. I knew they'd want some kind of money for it and I didn't have any. The guy that was talking to Dave was all about Obama. He turned to me and smiled. "Is this your wife?" he asked Dave. "No, my sister" "Oh she is very beautiful" and then he asked me if I loved him. I just smiled and looked away. After giving them some money "for the orphans in Africa" we managed to get away.
We went to a square and saw the Italian TRL being filmed.
There was a huge crowd and a big screen that was airing the show. After watching the crowd for a bit, me and Dave walked away and talked about how Milan is like the Italian New York. Then we tried to figure out the degrees in Fahrenheit. We both knew the Celsius to Fahrenheit equation but it took about 20 minutes to work it out properly. While walking around, we met another African who talked to us about the orphans in Africa. We told him we already gave money earlier in the day. He started talking to Dave about exchange rates and the "economic crisis." Then he looked at me and asked "Is this your wife?" No, I'm his sister. "Oh! I'll trade you 10 goats for her like we do back in Senegal. Ha! Ha! Ha!" Yes, David was offered 10 goats for me. I still don't know if I'm supposed to be flattered by that.
After being really unimpressed and underwhelmed by Milan, we decided to get some food and go back to the hotel. We were going to leave for Florence early the next morning.
Here's the link to the rest of the Milan pictures: http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2359174&id=15933734&l=2a65ab760d
Next stop: Florence.
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