The Power of Preservatives

Dear Readers,

Over the past several days I have discovered that the Italians make two things particularly well, food and people.  But as my friend Dylan would say, "Neither lasts for long because both lack preservatives," and truer words have not been spoken.  Beautiful people, but by the time they hit 40, it's downhill and fast.  And amazing food as long as you eat it the day you buy it.

The great news about this blog is that I now have the power to insert some pictures, not that you need them with my writing ability, but just in case you need a little mental handicap, I included them.  And as that old dog Napoleon said, "A picture is worth a thousand words," he was of course, an idiot, but hey he wasn't the first or last one to conquer Europe, don't know what that says about the Europeans, I'm just going to leave it at that. So here we go with a visual presentation of Italy in the relative order of how I discovered it, so the first few photos are not particularly exciting.  Below is my friend Dylan at the computer, studiously doing his school work, but as I keep telling him, "Who the hell comes to Europe to do work?"  In a few paragraphs, you will know what I mean.

Below is where I'm staying, roughly. Pretty nice from afar, but up close you get a nice view of the graffiti, which turns out to be a serious problem in outer Milan.  In the center of the city, where most of the models/designers/old stuff generally is, it's not that big of an issue.  But I guess the young, upper-middle class males like to spend their free time spraying absolutely everything down with names and words, no, it's not even interesting graffiti, but without Netflix (which doesn't work) who can blame them?

 Next is a picture of a small selection of juices. There is only one reason this picture is in here...I love juice. And in Italy, if it's a fruit, it has at least a liter juice box available for consumption.  So far my favorite is Kiwi juice or Green Apple, but the Pear juice pictured below was surprisingly good as well.  Honestly, the juice in this country is the only thing that seems to last more than a day or two...without refrigeration.

Below is the Duomo (the Dome in Italian, I think), located at the heart of Milan, the entire city is quite literally centered around it.  And no picture in this entire blog can possibly do justice to the size and grandeur of this monstrous Church.  What is seen in this picture may well account for a twelfth of the entire building.  It is, by far, the largest Cathedral I have ever seen, and it is still the largest building you will find in Milan.

Below I tried to give you a small conception of what the hundreds, if not thousands of life-sized statutes look like that surround the entire building and decorate the inside of the Church.  I have no idea how long all of them took to make or how many sculptors were involved, but it must have taken a long time considering the incredible detail that each statue has.  Of course as art history majors will know, they are all sitting on stumps because the material they were using was mostly marble I believe, which would crumble without extra support.  So all life-sized statues are built with the people awkwardly sitting on stumps.  Fun fact, it was the Romans who destroyed the Greek inventions of concrete and a  particular kind of bronze casting that would have allowed them to create statues without pedestals, typical Italians. 

This is the front of the Duomo with a good 30 or 40 feet cut from the bottom, unfortunately I didn't have a lens the size of Sicily to take a picture of all of it.  But let's look inside.

A little caveat, it was too dark inside the Church for my camera, but Dylan took several great pictures with a much better one, so I will be able to post some great shots from inside the Church later.  However, until then, I had to be extremely picky which photos I chose.  This is just a photo of one of the MANY shrines of one of the MANY Saints, who I'm sure did something great at one point or other.

Below is a picture of some of the stained glass windows you can see inside the Church, frankly it's one of the smaller displays, but it came out the best on my camera, go figure.

Below is me outside the Duomo, just in case anyone thought I was just jacking these off google images or something.  

Time to tilt your head, below is a sideways picture of one of the smaller doors at the Duomo, yes, yes I did say SMALLER door, which is still about 30 feet tall and intricately decorated on the outside.  In the above picture you can somewhat see the large door to the right, which is probably closer to 50 feet tall, and is quite a few Americans wide (and quite a few more Italians).  

But I haven't just stayed in Milan, "The Fashion Capital of the World," because let's be honest, I already have an excellent fashion sense.  And as fun as it is seeing models walk down the street with photographers at night, I just wanted something more out of Italy than lots of beautiful women (no, no I'm just kidding Dylan made me leave).    

Anyways, Dylan and I figured we would take a trip to Cinquaterri (don't look up my spelling), but it means five terraces in Italian.  Basically, five villages built into the side of a cliff near the Mediterranean Sea, and I know, I know once you've seen one village built into the coast, why see four more?  But supposedly they had great hiking, unfortunately it was cut short do to another interesting feature of this country, striking government employees.  Now for those who know me, I am about as far from the grim uncompromising conservative, my father, as possible (just kidding dad, please send me money). I'm what some might call a bleeding heart liberal and others, "a pussy."  But long story short, I care about people getting paid fair wages and not being overtaxed, etc. etc. etc.  However, Dylan and I planned this little adventure on Sunday (Sunday morning to Sunday night) and managed to wake up at 4 am, get on a tram that took us to the underground train (which apparently doesn't open till 6 forcing us to walk several miles in the heart of Milan at night), made it to the government run Trenitalia regional train (fun fact: all trains in Italy are operated by the government), which took us to Cinquaterri, where we got off the train only to hear the surprising news that the train conductors had decided to start a strike that day and that we were stuck in Cinquaterri for an indeterminate amount of time.  This would not have been such a large deal if hundreds of people were not also stranded in an area with only small, expensive hotels, and if Dylan did not have his permanent stay meeting with the Italian police the following morning.  Needless to say, it was stressful.  So, we spent a couple of hours touring one of the towns of Cinquaterri, Monterosso specifically, wondering a good portion of the time whether we would be sleeping in the train station and laughing frustratingly at how messed up the Italian Bureaucratic system is (needless to say, I've been here only 5 days, and I've already had several run-ins with a bureaucratic system that would make you weep tears of joy at the proficiency of the DMV, no joke).  However, below are a few of the shots I was able to take before Dylan and I headed to the station to wait for a train that may never come.              

Cinquaterri is basically Italy as many perceive it, unlike Milan, which is essentially a very spread out Metropolitan district without any skyscrapers; Cinquaterri is a series of old-fashioned buildings nestled into trees and mountains with incredibly steep steps of which I never took a picture.

For those who forgot their middle school geography, Italy is in fact a peninsula, meaning it is surrounded by water on three sides.  But don't worry if you somehow forgot that because I did too, as Milan is landlocked, and the only consumable water they sell in Milan (or in all Italy for that matter) is in the grocery store in large water bottles as no tap water is accessible for drinking unless you're in the mood for schistosomiasis, malaria, or legionellosis all of which I found on the WHO (World Health Organization) website and all of which sound bad and could put a damper on your trip.  In the words of one wise Asspen ski instructor, "If you drink the tap water in Italy, you're gonna have a bad time....."  

Below is again, more proof that I am in fact visiting these places and not stealing photos online.  Coincidentally, a little tip, don't wear hats in Europe, it really is a sure fire sign that you're an American, but as I said earlier, my fashion sense is too strong to allow me to walk around with 4 am hair.  So, I went with the next best thing, a shredded baseball cap.  Some of you might be asking, am I making a fashion statement in this photo?  The answer is yes, yes I am.  I was born in farmer's town North America, and I'm bringing the hick look back, yeah I'm bringing it back baby.   

Now, back to the story, Dylan and I somehow managed to get on the only train out of Cinquaterri for the entire day, but it was going to Genoa or Genova as the Italians call it (actually the train was going to Milan, but because our tickets were for a train that left for Milan after 9 pm, when the strike ended, they wouldn't let us ride the train all the way to Milan, instead they forced us to get off in Genoa, where we had a 7 hour layover, coincidentally, when Dylan and I went back to the station after a few hours, they changed their minds and then let us board an earlier train to Milan, bureaucracy man, lame).  Another fun historical fact, Genoa is the birthplace of Christopher Columbus.  And if it wasn't for him well... somebody else not from Genoa would have discovered the Americas (you know that completely deserted land our ancestors found that was completely devoid of any previous civilization and that we give gratitude for finding every Thanksgiving).  Well anyways, below is a small snapshot of the huge city that is Genoa.  

If Genoa was a woman she would have hugeeeeeeeeee...tracks of docks.  Seriously, huge docks like some of the largest docks I've ever seen, but this picture does not do it anywhere near the justice.  I was kind of sketched out by a police officer eyeballing me while I took this picture on a dock I was probably not supposed to be on.  So I came and went.  But there were dozens of "ferries" at the dock that looked more like cruise ships.    

If you made it this far, I'm impressed.  But this is the last picture, Genoa doesn't just have a huge dock it also has hugeeeeeeeeeeee tracks of land, the largest tracks of land I have visited so far in Italy.  It is also the most "modern" or perhaps the most "American" of all the cities I have visited.  There is a huge area of the city with large skyscrapers that looks like a downtown in the states, and the city extends to both sides of the bay as you can see in the picture above.  The picture below shows the older part of the city, but directly behind me lay an enormous metropolitan district complete with skyscrapers and all, which would have put Denver to shame.  

Now to my closing statements...

As wonderful as all these pictures are because they were taken by me, the professional photographer, and with all due respect to Napoleon, they do not fully capture the essence of Italy.  Full of beautiful people, short on polite ones, especially to strangers, although the language barrier makes this understandable, it is a place that dances to the beat of its own drum.  Shops, restaurants, and grocery stores don't have open and close times.  Employees arrive when they arrive, they often shut down in the middle of the day for a few hours, and then return for a few more in the evening.  Showers are always too hot or too cold, the streets are filled with people trying to sell you random junk and are quick to conflict.  Locals are generally only willing to help you at a price, and the inefficient bureaucracy always seems to find a way to slow down or complicate some process or other.  However, the most challenging aspect of my trip so far has been the language barrier, which is a real problem.  Whoever thinks that English can get you along anywhere in Europe or anywhere in general is ignorant.  Fortunately, Dylan speaks some basic Italian which has been an absolute godsend, and I've been learning some on my own.  But I don't want to end this blog on a bad note, or suggest that Italy is some sort of Hellish waste of inefficient assholes, that's not the case. I just want to paint a balanced picture and give a more honest view of my experience, which hasn't always been great.  Some days are fun, while others are learning experiences, but it has all been worthwhile in the end.  The food alone is worth coming here for a week, let alone the sights one can see, or the different way of life you can experience.  And as it turns out, some of the days that I had the most fun were also those that were the most stressful, like traveling to Cinquaterri. In days like that, you learn a lot about your adaptability and gain a lot of confidence in taking on larger and more complicated tasks in the future.  

Next post is likely to include my trip to Rome, but in true Italian fashion I don't know exactly when it will be.  

Gratzi, Thanks for reading,

AJ      

 Post Script:  A few more pictures of the Duomo...