Milan: City of Conferences and of One Large Cathedral

My impressions of Milan, having spent a week or so there for a conference and stuff:

• Everything looks like it’s from the 70’s.
• Sidewalks are narrow and not flat; people walk on them slower than they need to anyway.
• They have a lot of Italian-brand cars.
• People seem to be dressed up a lot of the time.
• They actually speak Italian there.
• “Grazie” means thank you, “prego” you’re welcome and some forms of “please, and “ciento venti” means give me my room key (apparently). I learned three words of Italian and one of them was a number.
• Pizza is the only food they have.
• Well, pasta, I guess. Mostly pizza. I saw a döner place somewhere, but there were only Turks inside. Not the mechanical kind. Or maybe so — it’s hard to know.

Here are some pictures of places and things.

The Milano Duomo. It’s big inside and there are a lot of people around it most of the time.

The Galleria, which is a mall with a roof but no doors!

Il Castillo Milano. It was primarily defensive in nature and it had museums inside, but they cost money.

Porta Sempione, which is sort of in the same place as an old gate that was part of the Roman city wall. #history

San Siro, or: The most Italian thing I did in Italy.

The Duomo in nighttime Christmas trim and with the flag of Kazakhstan for some reason.

Good enough. Milan’s not a very scenic town and with the conference and the latent interview stress I didn’t have time to explore anywhere outside of the city. I kind of liked it, though. People were friendly and helpful, it felt safe, and it probably would have been interesting if I’d meant to be there for anything other than a conference (e.g., if I’d read *anything* about the place before going).

Better than Rome.

bkd

PS, Also: “prosciutto cotto” = ham (or some sort of very ham-like pork product).