We've been in Milan for about 36 hours. We have, in those short 36 hours, caught an express train to the city center, wound our way through the streets to find our hotel, wandered the streets to explore, visited the Scienza museum (to see the Leonardo da Vinci models made from his sketches), stopped at a tiny cafe and had cappuccini and a biscotto, and visited the Milan Cathedral's rooftop.
Just for fun, here's a snapshot of my brain during 36 hours of Milan:
Is the express train actually faster than the regular train, speed-wise, or does it just not stop at as many stations? Does AppleDirections have ALL of the little alleys and walkways in a city like Milan, or just the streets that a car can fit down--because there are a LOT of alleys that no car would be able to drive, but they are ideal for walking? Why keep cobblestones on some streets but not on others? Do people actually still use bidets, and if yes, why? Do Italian restaurants give free shots of limoncello and meloncello to everyone, or just us (this has happened more than once to us)? What fruit CAN'T you ferment, and who had the unhappy task of figuring that out? What is the gelateria to people ratio in Milan? Does smoking cause as much disease in Europeans, or are they so relaxed that the statistics are completely different? How does one person (daVinci) think of so many ideas, in such detail, before any of them are even general concepts? Was daVinci a product of his time, or way ahead of his time? What could he have accomplished if he lived in a different era? Do you leave a tip in a cafe if you've sat down at a table just to have coffee? Do you tip if there is a "cuperto" (cover charge) on the bill? How do you build a cathedral (I realize that's a broad question, but come on... how DO you build a cathedral? Where do you even start?) How did the builders get the statues, which I'm sure weigh hundreds of pounds if not thousands, up to their perches? How many carvers did it take to carve all the carved things on the cathedral? Did one carver do an entire row of flowers (see picture below), or was it like an assembly line, with each carver doing his part? Is carver the correct term, or is it chiseler or sculptor? How do you replace a broken part that's way high up in the spires? How do you replace a part if it's breaking and it's load-bearing? How did people first figure out that the ugly rock is really marble if you polish it? What prompted someone to polish the rock in the first place? How did they transport literal tons of huge marble chunks hundreds/thousands of miles in the 1200's? How do you get giant sheets of marble off of a mountain? If you go up on the Cathedral ascensore (elevator), why does the elevator operator have to check your ticket for you to come down--I mean, you got up there, you have to come down, right? Does eating gelato while you are walking affect your perception of time and space, because it seems like you can go farther, faster while eating gelato? Is an Aperol spritz the ideal evening drink regardless of anything?
Sorry about that. My mind is a cluttered place.
And that's a lot of questions. I'm a curious person. I don't ever want to not be a curious person. Curiosity, to me, is a sign of an engaged mind. Engaged minds, to me, indicate life. Clearly I am full of life. Just as an aside, here's how the idea for this particular blog entry came to mind:
I was thinking to myself, as we got off the ascensore at the Cathedral, why the attendant had to check our ticket to go down when clearly we had gotten up in the first place? And by the time we had exited the elevator I had answered my own question: you don't get to ride the elevator down unless you rode the elevator up (as opposed to walking the stairs up). Which caused me to think, maybe don't ask all my questions out loud initially, because if I try, I think maybe I can sometimes figure out the answers.
So moral of the story (or the blog): Give yourself a chance to figure things out before you toss the questions out into the universe.
Taking my own advice, it turns out I didn't need to ask all of those questions. I've already solved the last one. Yes, the Aperol spritz IS the ideal evening drink regardless of anything.
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