by Maureen | Jun 18, 2010 | Featured Articles, Graphics, Introspection, Journal, People, Photos
One year ago today my plane landed at Milano Malpensa Aeroporto. I caught the train into the center of town, to the Cadorna Station. It was a hot day. I started sweating quickly. My Irish/German skin was bone white in contrast to all those on the street and I laughed. I was whisked through the city here to my apartment where the French doors were open to afternoon light and air pouring through the sheer curtains.
It’s been a YEAR!
(NOTE: “Tricolore” – meaning “three colors” – is the nickname given to the flag of Italy. The colors are listed “green, white and red” (never “red, white and green”. Currently, many Italian flags are flying or hung from windows and balconies in support of the Italian soccer team at the 2010 FIFA World Cup in South Africa.)
Recent journal snippets:
25 Maggio – May 25 – Milano
“The morning sounds have changed to those of summer. Our days are in the low 80s and I sleep with windows open (until the mosquitoes discover me and even the nights require air conditioning).
The birdsong is loud and constant and a joy to me, as it is in Seattle. The other night/morning, I heard the first bird song at 4:14 a.m (I had stayed up late reading). I hear courtyard neighbors chatting. The drone of T.V. Distant traffic and the passing train. I hear the breeze in patio foliage and sounds throughout the building as people go about their morning. Cars come and go through the courtyard gate. All these sounds move through the ever-heavier, ever-warmer air as summer blooms.
Returning to Milano last week has begun a new stage in my time here. It points out my ease and familiarity with this place and its people. Spontaneous conversations come more readily. What a time to leave now that I’m having so much fun! It’s no longer a daily struggle. (It really isn’t much of a struggle at all any more.)
I’m moving in on the 1-year mark and what a year! What an absolutely amazing time this has been (and still is). I’ve really settled into a rhythm. My Italian has advanced enough that I can discuss more complicated ideas, not just my rudimentary daily needs. This allows meetings and connections withheld from me otherwise. Language lets me in. Without language, one is on the outside.
All of this and now I’m leaving? Now that it’s become “easy”, I’m going?!
Yes.
My Italian Year. Complete with the cycle of seasons, a long, dark winter and blazing summer. Sights to inspire and make my head swim. Food and wine so good that I’m bringing 5 pounds of Italy home around my waist. I have met hundreds of people in hundreds of ways and those meetings are the highlights.”
17 Giugno – June 17 – Milano
“A year ago today I got on a plane after having packed up half my life and given the other half away. My coming felt providential. I was compelled without knowing why. There have been times more difficult than I had anticipated, and other times that will always make my eyes sparkle. I truly believe this has been one of the best things I’ve done in and for my life. How wondrous!
And now, just a little over a month before my departure, I find myself as wide-eyed and seeing about Milano as I was about Seattle before I left. My senses are keen. I’m open to all of it with an intensity. I want to take it all in to carry back with me.
I feel a sadness about leaving. Now I know people. Now my heart is tied. I went out for pizza last night with Ewa, at the same restaurant where we met last July, a month after my arrival: Il Kaimon, (in the artsy Brera district. A street musician played classical music on a violin throughout dinner). Last year I was ecstatic to meet her and Piotr. They were my first spontaneous, independent friends here. Ewa and Piotr have remained friends all this time and their friendship has been a blessing. Ewa has fed me countless meals at their home. We’ve shared language, conversation and confidences. As my language grew, so did the depth of our talks. (She has invited me to stay with her when I return to Milano to visit.)
After our dinner, Ewa and I walked back to her apartment arm-in-arm, in Italian tradition, chatting all the way.”
Ewa was shy about my having the camera out.
– – –
The Tricolore shows up in many ways. Yes, I really did see these two t-shirts hanging out to dry over the canal today as I was riding.
by Maureen | Jun 13, 2010 | Apartment, Church, Food!, Journal, Meals, People, Photos, Shopping & Markets
Sally flew over from Seattle a week ago to share the sights of Milano, the wonderful food treats available and the simple efficiency of my apartment. She came off the plane and out of customs beaming.
We took the Malpensa Express train from the airport into town, and got out at the Cadorna station. We walked out in front so she could see the “Needle, Thread and Knot” sculpture by Claes Oldenburg and Coosje van Bruggen. The knot is across the street, as if the needle had taken a stitch under the roadway.
Our first breakfast was a caprese salad with mozzarella from the farm, lovely ripe tomatos, just-picked basil, served on a bed of songino – watercress – and some freshly sliced proscuitto. Not a bad welcome to Milano!
On Sally’s first day in Milano, we walked over to the Saturday street market where the vendors were selling fruit, vegetables, cheese, meat, fish, clothes and a few household goods. We stocked our kitchen with fresh basil, red pepper, asparagus, spicy salame with fennel, fresh eggs, cherry tomatoes, blood oranges, pickled onions, both “sweet” and spicy olives, burratina cheese, smoked mozzarella, dried figs from Calabria, prosciutto and bresaola.
With hot weather, we opened the french doors and sat on my “shelf”, as Sally called it. Not quite big enough to be called a deck, or veranda, or lanai, it held our two chairs while we put our feet up on the railing. We chatted in the sun and greeted neighbors as they walked past to go dump their garbage in the room below us.
No trip to Milano would be complete without going out for aperitivi. We walked along the Naviglio Pavese Canal and stopped into one of the many restaurants that were hopping and lively on the hot, muggy night. We selected from their buffet of pasta, cheese, meats, pizza squares… and ribs (of all things). Sally’s martini was oddly sweet and not at all martini-like.
Sally enjoyed online communications, keeping in touch with family through Skype and e-mail.
There’s a wonderful graffiti wall outside of a garden center between Corso Como and the Monumental Cemetery. What a great backdrop! This is one of my favorite photos of Sally in Milano.
We just had to take a stroll through 10 Corso Como, the city’s legendary fashion, accessories, art and design boutique. This is NOT the place to pull out your credit card, but rather just harvest ideas for garment design and construction.
We made reservations for dinner on Saturday at Malavoglia where you ring the doorbell to get in and are greeted by bow-tie-adorned owner, Aldo, and a complementary glass of bubbly prosecco. We shared a primo of fresh pasta with black squid ink sauce. It was delicious.
One of the highlights of Sally’s time in Milano was her visit to the Duomo. We spent time in the piazza, “the living room of the city”. We walked its circumference marveling at the variation in details and gloried at the cathedral’s interior. We topped off the tour with time on the rooftop, getting up close to the sculptures, finials and gargoyles, and looking out over the city.
by Maureen | Jun 4, 2010 | Apartment, Featured Articles, Introspection, Journal, Photos, Quips
This two-room apartment of mine is really pretty great: A bedroom with lots of storage, two skinny little less-than-twin beds, and a table for sorting things. A well-functioning bathroom. A loft space that I’ve blocked off with fabric and use to store anything I don’t want to look at or use. And one big, high-ceilinged room with a cozy couch, long work table, room for my bike and more kitchen space than most of the kitchens I’ve seen while here in Italy. And I can clean the whole place in about 10 minutes!
When I’m home, I spend most of my time at the table, working at my computer. For the first few months, the lack of light was putting me to sleep, so I rearranged the space and put the table in front of the tall french doors. I also bought some inexpensive but bright lighting which gives me daylight at midnight if I want it. What a difference it made in my energy level!
Here’s an introduction to my “view” out of the french doors while sitting at my desk. I can look upward through the scrolled bars and see the plants in the neighbors’ terrace above me. Nice to see the green! I hung a sheer, white curtain at a 4 foot height so that I’m not in such a fish bowl. I’m on the ground floor and people walk right past me as they go down into the garbage room below me.
If I look up from my desk and too the right, I can see a patch of blue sky. I hadn’t realized how important it was for me to see the sky. Until I put up that 4 foot sheer, I had the full-height curtain closed all of the time, and I felt so enclosed! With the sheer, short drape, I can look out and still have privacy.
My french doors actually face out into a tight, dark cubby. The afternoon light hits my windows for a short time each day in summer. In winter, the light is nil. In this photo, my bathroom window is to the left, and the window at my kitchen sink is to the right of the french doors.
The bottom floor and part of the second floor of this building complex are filled with offices. The windows open up into this courtyard which serves as parking for workers and the few residents. You can see my neighbor’s garden terrace. It really is a bright spot for me.
I live on Via Bordighera, a couple miles south of my beloved Duomo. This shot (below) looks north on our dead-end road which stops at the train tracks a half block north of my apartment. That’s my bedroom window circled there. They park the glass recycling trucks on the street right outside my bedroom window when making their collection. The mural on the south wall takes an otherwise bland face and dresses it up.
These two apartment buildings sit askew on their lot and are surrounded by trees. The birds love this lot, so the neighborhood sounds like an aviary, believe it or not! I’m thrilled by the prevalence of the bird song.
Street signs are typically made of slabs of marble, about a half inch thick.
This is the intersection at Via Bordighera and Via Imperia: my neighborhood, looking west. All the buildings at this corner have their corners chopped off, so it creates a wide, octagonal intersection and cars park every which way. I buy my water and chat with Enza at their little shop on the corner at the farthest left.
From this intersection, I would turn around and go one block east to the Naviglio Pavese (canal) that I love so much. It’s SO close!
This is where I live.
by Maureen | Jun 3, 2010 | Canals, Certosa di Pavia, Church, Discoveries, Featured Articles, Journal, Photo of the Day, Photos, Quips, Travel Blog
A sunny holiday in the middle of the week calls for a bike ride. Apparently every family in Milano had the same thought; the bike path along the canal was crowded with those rolling tra-la-la along. I, on the other hand, felt full of vim and vigor so I pushed myself hard for an hour until I was further along the canal than I had gone before: Certosa di Pavia.
What a beautiful little town about 15 miles south of Milano. I saw spires to the east and followed them to a gem of a church I had been unaware of.
“The Certosa di Pavia Gra-Car (“Charterhouse of Pavia – Gratiarum Chartusia”), Shrine of the Blessed Virgin Mary Mother of Grace, is a monastery and complex in Lombardy, northern Italy, situated near a small town of the same name in the Province of Pavia, 8 km north of Pavia. Built in 1396-1495, it was once located on the border of a large hunting park belonging to the Visconti family of Milan, of which today only scattered parts remain.
Certosa is the Italian name for a house of the cloistered monastic order of Carthusians founded by St. Bruno in 1044 at Grande Chartreuse. Though the Carthusians in their early centuries were known for their seclusion and asceticism and the plainness of their architecture, the Certosa is renowned for the exuberance of its architecture, in both the Gothic and Renaissance styles, and for its collection of artworks which are particularly representative of the region.”
(Read more in Wikipedia.)
I enjoyed the verdant courtyard between the entry gate and the church’s door, and marveled at the detail-laden exterior. Photos were not allowed inside of the church, nor were such casual, immodest clothes as biker’s lycra, so I could only stand at the doorway and peer in at the vaulted, starry ceiling overhead.
How wonderful to hop on my bike, discover a place I hadn’t seen yet, and unexpectedly see something so beautiful! As I rode away, the sun was bouncing off the rice paddies alongside the church compound. The wind picked up strongly and required that I shift gears to ride against it, arriving home in advance of a northern storm that loomed dark but never materialized.
by Maureen | Jun 3, 2010 | Discoveries, Featured Articles, Introspection, Journal, People, Photo of the Day, Photos
While here in Milano for the cycle of a full year, I’ve tried to get some sense of every holiday or special occasion. I’ve attended, or found myself caught in the middle of, festivals, parades, fairs and spontaneous crowds, and each one tells me a little more about Italia and her people. Yesterday was Festa della Repubblica.(See the wikipedia entry below.) I went online to find out what the city was doing for the holiday and I found mention of the ceremony at the Piazza del Duomo.
I came up out of the subway into the piazza at a quarter ’til noon. Being little, I weasled my way toward the front of the crowd so I could see better. A military brass band was playing, and a half dozen military groups were standing in formation.
At noon, they began raising the flags of Italia, Milano and the European Union. (I was amused that the visual backdrop for the ceremony was not the Duomo, but rather a sexy sunglasses ad for Dolce & Gabbana. I’m sure D&G planned their ad placement for this precise timing!)
When the national anthem played, the crowd around me sang with passion, especially the older folks. A marching procession followed, with each of the military groups in formation. Firefighters and local police were included in the groups.
It was a short march around the corner of the piazza then down to the side of the Duomo and the courtyard in front of the Palazzo Reale. (I was surprised when I got a little choked up.)
Small groups of city officials and military leaders gathered for informal portraits, then people dispersed into their midweek holiday.
“Festa della Repubblica (literally Festival of the Republic or, in English, Republic Day) is celebrated in Italy on the second of June each year. The day commemorates the institutional referendum held by universal suffrage in 1946, in which the Italian people were called to the polls to decide on the form of government, following the Second World War and the fall of Fascism. With 12,717,923 votes for a republic and 10,719,284 for the monarchy, the male descendants of the House of Savoy were sent into exile. To commemorate it, a grand military parade is held in central Rome, presided by the President of the Republic in the role of Supreme Commander of the Armed Forces. The Prime Minister and other authorities attend too.”
An article (in Italian) on Milano’s web site:
“Festa Repubblica per recuperare i valori del Paese”
“Festa Repubblica to recover the values of the Country.”
by Maureen | Jun 1, 2010 | Canals, Discoveries, Featured Articles, Introspection, Journal, People, Photo of the Day, Photos
Two “fashion” trends persist for men around here: orange-colored pants and the Milanese “man purse”, a sleeker, chic-er version of the multi-pocketed, safari vest. U.S. travel outfitters sell them as “travel vests”, but here in Milano, they are daily wear for the 60-80 set. Now that winter has gone, these functional garments have come out of the closets to populate the streets.
Yes, the term “man purse” has been used to describe the over-the-shoulder messenger bag and all its variations in which men carry cell phones, keys, PDAs, cameras, laptops, chargers, files, books and everything else they’re tethered to for the day. But man-purse-as-vest distributes the load, leaving men hands-free yet porting all of their necessaries.
As seen around Milano, the man purse vest comes in many colors, in both light and heavy weight fabrics, with zippered, buttoned or snapped pockets. They are either bulky or streamline, pared-down-basic or over-pocketed.
Along the Naviglio Grande on Sunday, after a long day at the antiques market, I stepped into an osteria for a bite to eat. I perched at a window table and set my camera for stealth photography of the steady parade of men in vests. It was a concentrated show of vest styles and their wearers. These surreptitious photos joined those that I began shooting last summer.
Who started this trend? When, where and how did this begin? Does it extend throughout Italy, or only here in the north? Will it go away any time soon? (Doubtful.)
Double jackpot! Man Purse plus orange (or yellow) pants! Yes!
(I’d like to see the yellow vest with the orange pants.)
by Maureen | May 30, 2010 | Canals, Discoveries, Journal, Photo of the Day, Photos, Shopping & Markets
Another day at the Antiques Market along the Naviglio Grande. Summer is in full swing and tourists have found this hot spot. It’s “the” place to be on the last Sunday of the month for anyone wanting a very diverse selection of some pretty choice items. “Antique” in Italy covers a broader range than “antique” in the U.S.!
The sellers know full well what they’ve got and the high demand for what they’re offering and they’re not giving any of it away for cheap! Sometimes I wonder what I’m doing there. I have no budget for this stuff! But I remind myself that there’s value in simply SEEING it. Tools and instruments. A world atlas from the 1700s. Household goods and fixtures. Old nuns’ handwritten devotional cards in hand-stitched envelopes. Embroidered linens. Letterpress printed prayerbooks of handmade paper bound in hide. Maps and etchings of former cityscapes. The historical reference alone makes it worth spending a day gently handling 300-year-old book pages.
I find the very old and the very curious. (A Lamborghini wooden rowing machine?!) I look around for hours until I’m mentally saturated and physically hungry, unable to really appreciate any more. By then I’m going home with a few little trinkets that are affordable and packable, and a mind full of imagery I hope to never forget.
.
.
At right (below) are leather-working knives.
by Maureen | May 30, 2010 | Featured Articles, Journal, People, Photos, Quips
I liked his smile.
I liked his black and white striped hat and the color of his violin.
I liked his playing.
So I smiled back and pitched some money in his box.
He smiled again.
by Maureen | May 26, 2010 | Journal, Photo of the Day, Photos, Quips
12:20 a.m. Why go to bed when they’re just outside my bedroom window pressure washing the streets and sidewalks? (At 12:20 in the morning!? Hey! They’re early tonight! It’s usually at quarter to one!)
Might as well wait, rather than lying there watching the pattern of their flashing orange lights and the patterns they make as they shine through the metal filagree bars in front of my window. It makes quite a light show.
LATER: 12:50 a.m. One wouldn’t think they’d need to make 5 passes on a one-block, dead-end street! I can go to bed now. Buona notte.
by Maureen | May 23, 2010 | Canals, Featured Articles, Journal, People, Photo of the Day, Photos
What to do when the temperature is in the 80s on a Saturday afternoon, post jet-lag? Go for a bike ride with a cyclist friend, start along the canal, ride through the farmland to a little lake, get and fix a flat tire and make like a sculpture.
Cyclist Emilio and I rode out west of Assago (south of Milano) to the Villaggio Santa Maria. They have a man-made lake, a pool, a path around the lake shore, and grass to lounge on. It was a nice afternoon of chatting on winding farm roads, climbing overpasses, and seeing new bike routes.
Grazie, Emilio.
.
Sometimes when I meet people here, I tell them my name is “Maria”. They can handle that. Or I do tell them my name is Maureen, and that “Maureen” is like “Maria” in that they both mean “Mary”.
