I’ve found my place. This is not a life epiphany, this is just the best cafe I have been to, and I am meant to spend all morning here, writing, working, reading, and being happy. The cafe is warm, eclectic, artistic and modern. It’s a really classy feel for a morning breakfast, but you can tell where to go by how many Italians there are, and right now the bar is full. On the corner of the bar are pots overflowing with tomatoes, strawberries, and oranges that the signore used to make my fresh squeezed orange juice this morning. The music is jazzy, mixed with the intimateness of Brazilian artist Pahlino Moska. It was my plan to go out exploring today, but when you find something that works, why not go with it?
I am in Milano. The majority of the Italians I have talked to about being in Milano have given me this grimace, saying that it isn’t as nice as Florence, as Bologna, as Roma. Whatever, I like it here. I like the over-the-top fluffy architecture, I like that I was on a busy road, turned the corner to get away from the noise, and found this wonderful cafe. I like that the Braidense library where I worked yesterday is in the conservatory of fine arts. I like how accessible the public transportation is. This city is just as wonderful as any other in Italy, for its own unique reasons, and for all of its novelty and Milanese consumerism, if you turn that corner and get away from the bustle, it’s suddenly a marvelous place.
Fortunately my friend Benno, who also attended Middlebury’s summer Italian program
… interjection. Italian toddlers are adorable. Hearing them speak Italian is like hearing someone sing a nursery rhyme. It is nothing short than heart warming. And they are rather agile with a wine glass. A little girl maybe 4 years old just grabbed her mothers water, with her fist wrapping around the stem, and didn’t spill a drop. Italian toddlers are just too refined for sippy cups…
Anyways, it has been such a blessing having friends in Italy. Benno put me up in his super chic super fabulous Milan apartment for two nights. Tonight I will stay in a hotel in the Buenos Aires district, known for its shopping and off-beatness. It’s a little close to the train station so I’ll keep an eye out for any seedy characters.
Milan is also a marvelous place for the wonderful memory that is yesterday. It started with a half hour morning walk across the city to Biblioteca Braidense. This happens to be a lot like the university library in Bologna. Beautiful wooden book cases, tall ceilings frescoed with muses and cherubs praising the sciences and philosophy. A really great thing about this library is that it converted a lot of its manuscritti/rari books onto PDF, available to the public at any hour of the day. What a wonderful idea! So I’ve decided to down load the PDF and take the opportunity to run around Milan all day. This library, like so many of them, was founded hundreds of years ago, and to enter you have to go through a beautiful piazza where a big bronze statue stands and beautiful marble pillars line your way. It is located on Via Brera, a very Soho, Fremont kind of area, but a little more adorable and of course, very Italian (cappuccino and shoe stores galore). Then at 1230 prompt I headed to La Scala to try my luck. The show that night was Viaggio a Reims by Rossini. It was completely sold out, so naturally a scalper approached me wanted 80 euros for one ticket. No way giuseppe, I want the full experience, the excitement of having to stop everything mid day to put your name on a list, then to come back at 530 to hear your name called, push through the 200 other people trying to get a seat, and get your blue ticket with a number. Then at 6 they call the numbers and you buy your 12 euro galleria seat. So at 730 I went to the La Scala. I didn’t have time for a proper sit down dinner so I had the most expensive, and the most delicious panino I’ve had in Italy at il Marchesino: Il Ristorante alla Scala. Then at quarter till I headed up the 5 flights of stairs to sit in my seat in Galery I. You couldn’t see anything on stage. But I was completely overwhelmed by the giant chandelier, the red velvet chairs, the golden detail, the grand velvet curtain, the buzz seeing Rossini at La Scala. It was magical. I get goose bumps just remembering the twinkle of the lights. Then the curtain rose and I heard some of the best singing I have ever heard live. Since from my seat I couldn’t see anything except for the 6 tiers of opera boxes accross from me, I got up, walked to the back of the horse-shoe shaped theater and stood, in awe and in sheer joy. For the second act, 3 people did not return to their first row seats on the 5th tier, so I grabbed on of them and leaned onto the red velvet arm rests, feeling the history in the touch of the velvet, the brass bars, the acoustics, the characters that have been booed and bravoed… The singers were lively, livelier than the audience (every time I laughed one Italian lady turned around and scowled at me. Whatever lady, it’s ok to enjoy opera.) There comedic timing was perfect, the staging was minimalistic, yet intriguing. In a scene in Act II a giant puppet stage lowered from the ceiling above, and beautiful marionettes in long elegant white tutus danced on point. It was so charming.
So far Milan has been really wonderful. I am going to head to the Braidense again, just to make sure I know exactly how to access those PDFs from my computer, and then I will probably come back to this cafe, do some transcribing, and then go explore some castles.
Cheers! Miss you all!
