Italian hand gestures...and manners. - Milan

I woke up on the plane to Milan to the voice of an apologetic flight attendant over the intercom. "We're very sorry for the inconvenience, and the delay, and we'll be landing at Lenate instead of Malpensa shortly." My eyes quickly darted to the Italian men sitting to either side of me, the younger one on the left looked irritated, the one on the right quite calm. I inwardly giggled thinking that Michelle had to be as confused as I was, also sitting between two strangers at least 6 rows behind. Then relieved because we didn't have any plans that day anyway, so an adventure was in order. I grabbed my little handy notebook, given to me a couple years ago by my Auntie Kay and finally being put to good use, and tried looking up "Where are we?" on my copied down page of "most used" Italian phrases. Unfortunately the writers of that webpage thought tourists would already have a map, and have some idea of where they were. I turned to the less anxious man on my right. "Lenate." I pointed to a spot on the headrest in front of me. "Milan?" I shrugged, with questioning eyes. "Half an hour," he responded, amusedly. Ah. English. I grinned. "Thanks."
The confusion that followed included a vicious Italian argument between the two men I was between, which I, highly entertained,  watched like a tennis match, a very angry French woman yelling at the flight attendant after being loaded on and off a shuttlebus and through an unmarked door into the airport, and wrong directions to get our luggage, which we eventually found. I realized nobody was wanting to take their free shuttle to the other airport (from whence I knew how to get to the city centre). After discovering Lenate was actually 40 minutes closer to the city than Malpensa, Michelle and I happily found the no.14 bus and scuttled off to see some Italy.

The Canals

After hours of purposeless strolling through the beautiful streets of Milan with our carry-ons slowly following us, we found ourselves in a beautiful gelato cafe. We had an hour or so before meeting our couchsurfing host, so we got cozy n put our feet up. I vaguely noticed a waiter staring at me and I quickly put my feet down without thinking. Then he sauntered over, glaring at Michelle, and wagged his finger in the direction of her sneakers. "No, no, no." he warned. She stared back. "Your feet," I hissed. He walked away.  We exchanged terrified looks. Apparently the casual American demeanor wasn't welcomed in Milan...This happened twice more to us. Once in an outdoor cafe, where I had my foot up on an black iron chair on which I was perched, and then in the train on the way back to the airport three days later. Needless to say, Michelle and I were very cautious with foot placement after this leg of the trip.

We quickly escaped the cafe of godly manners to find ourselves immediately drenched. So. Flashfloods are a universal thing. Jumping back into the cafe, to the disdained looks of the staff, we stood dripping with 4 or so other weather escapees. After a few minutes of chatter of taxis and a woman "never having seen hail in Milan before", we went for it and ran to the bus.

A bit blurry, but concert stage is on the right, & Duomo Cathedral

The Italian election, unknown to us before we arrived, was actually taking place that weekend, so the first night included an all-out city centre riot/concert/chant chaos. Patriotism at its best (worst?), I had no idea what the yelling was about, but Guilliano was definitely not anyone's favorite.
The Gothic Duomo Cathedral took over 6 centuries to build, is the 4th largest in Europe and the largest in Italy (thank you, Wikipedia).



On Sunday the Giro D'Italia came through Milan for the finale, again through city centre. Seeing the bikers was fabulous, although made me miss my own bike at home.




And of course, I can't leave out the shopping. Milan...one of the hotspots of world fashion. The last evening, we walked down the road Via Monte Napoleone, which is, as the website says, the most chic in Milan, and one of the most sophisticated in all Europe (which could probably be expanded to the world, I'm guessing). I felt a bit sloppy in my flip-flops and mock gucci purse, and glad the street was all but abandoned at 11pm.  You'll have to ask me for the lesson on Italian hand gestures. That's just something I have to explain in person.