Milan

“Ok I think we’ve done enough sightseeing. Let’s go for lunch and a glass of red wine”. It was about 1 o‘clock in the afternoon and Koen, Luijkx and I had just walked from our apartment, via a great breakfast place with even better breakfast, to the centre of Milan, where we stood gazing at the Duomo. Well, gazing.. we were talking about other buildings in other countries that the Duomo reminded us of. Like the duomo in Firenze, and that Firenze really was too touristy. And the Jesus statue in Brazil, and how hungover Luijkx had been visiting that icon. Our yearning for a good get-together with loads of catching up obviously exceeded our appetite for a day of sightseeing in the business capital of Italy. Which isn’t to say that we abstained from any sort of cultural exposure. Oh no, unless you would classify a ballet performance of Romeo and Juliet at La Scala as something not cultural. But then you know as much about culture, or La Scala for that matter, as an Irishman about snow.

The bottle of great Sicilian wine nourished shortly afterwards wasn’t  the first drink to celebrate our weekend together. Technically speaking, not even of the day, as it was after midnight that Friday when we finally got to raise our glasses. The venue, a karaoke bar full of chanting teenagers, might have been a little ill chosen, but that didn’t suppress our joyful mood. It felt as if only a few days had passed since that last bucket of 10 ice cold beers that sunny Sunday afternoon last October in Madrid.  And of course the weekend was too short, much too short. The better hours of Friday night (or Saturday morning), a full Saturday minus the morning spent asleep in our stylish apartment in the middle of town, and a few hours on Sunday before I had to board the bus back to the airport (in Bergamo!).  Too little time but all the more cherished. A weekend filled with pasta, wine, cocktails, hot Italian girls, rain, great food, ballet, Italian speaking taxi drivers, English speaking waiters, wine-spilling waiters, did I say great food?, espresso, fresh orange juices, and promises for the next get-together to be sooner. And longer.

Apart from enjoying the excellent company of two of my best friends, I also enjoyed Milan. To be more precise, I felt elevated. I was enthralled, captivated, alternately energised by gushes of adrenaline and dreamy moments of reminiscence. The old world, with the typical architecture found in central / southern Europe, exhaling history at every street corner, with the facades of 5 storey houses with their omnipresent balconies, elegant lamp posts and cobbled streets, the vibe that moves cities like Budapest and Vienna and Milan forward, that very vibe carried me on for the whole weekend. Pretty girls in elegant attire looking you in the eyes in the street, rather than staring away or at the ground. Ancient churches casually hidden behind trees or apartments, squares filled with people, fancy stores exhibiting stylish garb. And as on many a trip, I could imagine myself living there, descending the staircase of one of those old apartments, boarding the passing tram in the morning, grabbing an espresso on the way to work… Weekends like these cost energy in a way, from the hours of travelling to the loads of drinking. But they definitely energise as well, and leave me with inspiration for future adventures.