I awoke earlier than expected this morning; about 8am. But that allowed me more time to get myself sorted. I spent the first half of the day laptopping, which entailed talking to Dal, sorting out photos, and recording Day 1′s ordeals.
At around 11:30ish, I left for the centre of Milan. While I probably should’ve taken a tram, I just walked to the Metro station. the problem is that I still don’t know where to get tickets. The hotel receptionist said go to bars, but that doesn’t seem right. Sure, there’re bars all over the place (they’re more like cafes, but I imagine bar can mean more than one thing in another language).
Anyway, navigating the subway wasn’t so bad this time, and it wasn’t long before I arrived in Duomo – the centre of Milan. I was immediately greeted with a sight of the Milan Cathedral, which is a sight to see. It would be so much cooler if that place was some sort of sacrificial church, but oh well. I have photos up on Facebook, but some are of crappy quality. The outside ones were blurred because I was juggling an umbrella and the camera and the inside ones were blurred because I put the camera on Manual to turn off flash. I now realise that I can do it another way and leave it on auto. Ah well. If you want decent pictures, go to Wikipedia or something.
The inside of the church itself was pretty awesome. Though it was the centre of religion, I still held appreciation for its architecture. I realise now that I could have gone to the roof of the cathedral (for a small fee). If I have free time, I guess I’ll go and do that.
Because I didn’t take my map, I had to guess where the other tourist attractions were. I wandered about for an hour or so, and didn’t really find anything particularly interesting. I hadn’t quite recovered from my flight, so I was feeling a bit light-headed and headed back to the hotel again.
I had planned to try and find a bar that does ‘aperitivo’ (happy hour in which you buy a drink and get a free buffet), but I couldn’t find a place that could sufficiently cater to my needs. On my way down the street, I came across a supermarket and decided to grab some stuff. The beers here are very cheap (although I have yet to taste it); cheaper than Double Brown! And they sell them in singles, which probably explains the lack of a binge drinking culture like in NZ. And Pepsi comes in 2L bottles, although it isn’t much cheaper than in NZ.
I decided to head back and try out a pizza takeout place. Luckily, there was a friendly guy in there who spoke English fairly well. And he liked metal. When I say that, I mean he likes the old stuff: Black Sabbath, AC/DC, Led Zepp, Metallica. So not an extreme metalhead, but probably as metal as someone in Italy would get without being prosecuted by the church. I had a bit of a chat to him while having my meal (some pizza with veges). I figured they would be, but the pizzas over here are drastically different from NZ. The toppings are very sparse, and they only have a small number of toppings. But they’re a fair bit bigger. Hmm, I probably should’ve taken a photo. Ah well, next time.
Anyway, the guy offered a free coffee as I left, so I figure he was a nice guy. Many of the Italians here seem to be not quite so nice. Sure the ones I asked for directions were nice, but the ones walking about all seem to have scowls on their face. Perhaps it’s just how they look.
This entry was posted on Wednesday, September 16th, 2009 at 2:31 am and is filed under Europe 2009. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.
9/16/09 @ 9:04 am #
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Category:Italian_heavy_metal_musical_groups
I’m pretty sure at least half of those are extreme metal and therefore your assumption that you can’t be extreme in Italy is invalid!