Get to Know Milan

The first time I got to Milan, I hated it. Now, I've been living here for 5 years, and I love it. Milan is a city within a city within a city that offers you everything and wants very much to be metropolitan like New York and Paris, but does not escape from its past, nor from its future. A melting pot of cultures, Milan offers a wide array of just about anything you want except cigarettes and something to eat after 11 p.m. You have your discos, the pubs and your fashion models running around Milan if you are IN, you can only be seen at the Old Fashion and at the Hollywood, but if you're just you, you can check out the small bars, where friends and couples of all ages hang out and you can easily find seniors talking to juniors as long time friends. Milan is the capital of work and after more than 50 years of the south migrating to the north of Italy, it's very hard to find someone who actually speaks the Milanese dialect. The southern style is alive and kicking in Milan, among the tall buildings and the banks the girls still dream of a white wedding and staying at home all day to take care of the house and the guys work hard to keep up the eternal image of the Latin Lover. Milan, home of vanity, lifestyle and hard business, is also a place where friends help each other and are always there for you, if you need a plate of pasta or a bed for the night. Cars and smog are battled by the laid back mentality, which is actually not to be mistaken with not caring, its just that some things you just can't win, so you just kind of go about them.

The many faces of Milan come forth only by looking up to the sky, over the publicity posters and to the rooftops covered with plants and green, and this time of year, when the Christmas lights haven't been taken down yet, lighting up the dark afternoons. Or by taking a stroll in the park at Porta Venezia, where the white noise of the street is cut off as by magic as you enter and you find yourself in an oasis of green and mothers strolling with baby carts and grandmothers hand in hand with their grandchildren still showing off their fur coats at the end of May, when summer has already begun and you sweat just by looking at them. Or by walking in the streets before dawn, at the only hour you can actually hear the birds singing, when the sun rises and if you're lucky you can see the rose and violet colors of the sky above the Alps in the far. Or by taking a walk on Saturday afternoon in Corso Buenos Aires where young women dress up as for church (or rather not) just to go shopping and be seen, maybe with their just as fashionable beau by their side. Or by walking down the central pedestrian street, from San Babila to the Duomo on a Sunday afternoon and sit down in front of a church - I doubt anyone remembers or notices it's there- and look at the teenagers waiting for the "under 18" disco's to open and killing time walking back and forth in "the Corso" in their best disco outfits. Doing miles and miles in their Buffalo shoes, 10 cm's of rubber sole, with short, colorful jackets and wild hair, piercings and the faithful 20 by 20 cm backpacks. Maybe getting to know someone on the steps of the Duomo, and if you're lucky, she'll stroll all the way with you to the castle, or sit down with you in front of the Scala theater.

In the summer, people flock the castle grounds day and night, for the ice cream cart outside and the shows and dances at night inside the castle courts, and the best thing about it is to go beyond the castle and watch people of all ages dancing the tarantella or some old 50's pop song to the music of the live orchestra under the white tent under the trees in the castle park. The canal area "il Naviglio" becomes the beach front in Milan - in lack of larger quantities of water - and people sit outside at the pub and bar tables blocking the street, all along the canal making small talk and loud laughter until the bars and pubs close down at 3 because the people living upstairs have been complaining for years about the noise and impossibility of finding a parking space in a range of 3 kilometers. The Naviglio, that is a pearl in December, with the Christmas lights mirroring in the water, lighting up the antiques and Christmas markets and the streetcar still can't pass because somebody parked the car on the tracks as usual. And then, between the honking cars, the streetcar driver angrily whacking the bell and the people in the bars having hot chocolate inside, you know you are, as a "local" once told my mother; "in the most beautiful of a few breathing holes left in Milan"

Every Saturday, the market fills the subway with people hardly recognizable behind a load of multi-colored plastic bags and the Viale Papiniano and the left bank of the Darsena with young punks and elderly ladies side by side, while the stand owners fight the Gypsies trying to steal and shout their offers to the tight packed midday crowd, "signore! Non siate timide! Solo 30 mila lire e solo oggi!!" "Ladies! Don't be shy! Only 30 thousand lire and only for today!" I've made some of my best acquisitions at the market, and still go there every Saturday, just to hang around and look.

Nothing will ever beat the majestic silence of the Duomo and the peace of mind that wells over you, when entering, right after you scroll off the awe of the work of man. The presence of man and will is overwhelming, but stands to measure with the patience and art put into the roof of the Duomo, from where you can see through the more than 2.000 statues, all of Milan and on a good day; as far as to the Alps to the North.