Wednesday, December 19, 2007

Paullo, Milano, Chiavari, Conscenti

December 16, 2007

So I am one week away from leaving my beautiful homeland…sad but exciting at the same time. Heres whats been goin on the past couple days

I stayed with my grandma’s cousins for 4 days in Paullo, Italy…bout 30 minutes outside of Milan, that is without the traffic. It was a great time. Stayed in a very nice house and the family took great care of me. Vittorio, my cousin, is a legend, just like all my cousins, they seriously seem to know everybody and everybody seems to know them. Vittorio probably drives one of the nicest cars in italy, a Mercedes, and gets looks as he drives thru the small congested streets of Italia. Being the Paullo does not offer very much we killed some time by going to Vittorios good friends toy company factory…this company makes small scaled versions of popular cars for kids to ride around in…the electric ones u see at toys r us. Pretty cool, just to see how they are made and stuff and the amount that they sell, specially for xmas.


That after noon, Vittorios daughters husband got off of work early to take me for a ride to the nearby town of Lodi…this was a nice little town that had tons of churches and a phat Christmas market goin on in the town center. It was fun, glad I made it there.

The next day, Thursday (13th), Guglielmo (Vittorios daughter Romina’s husband) took the day of work to do a day trip with me into Milan. Milan was great, pros and cons.

Short digression: First of all I believe it is the biggest industrial area of Italy…and the 3 days I was there, there was a strike where truckers refused to transport…big surprise as there is seriously some type of strike in italy every damn week. So since the truckers would not work, all gas stations were closed due to no gas for 2 days, and all the grocery stores lacked merchandise…also Italy has a huge traffic problem, never imagined it..there is traffic everywhere you go. Once these trucks got back on the road, it was even worse…bottom line: I did not think italy had so much traffic and that they have strikes all the time

So to Milan, since traffic is terrible we parched at the metro station 15 minutes outside the city, and took the metro in. The metro took us right to Piazza del Duomo. So we first visited the Duomo, and I can say with confidence this was/is my favorite duomo ive seen the entire trip..truly magnificent and beautiful. We took the elevator to the top and got to overlook the entire city and get a view of the cathedral from the top. The inside was spectacular as well with the stained glass windows

After this, walked thru the galleria and looked from the outside of the Scala, world popular theater. We then went to eat lunch at Peck, guess thers one in New York as well. There we met Guglielmos wife Romina and her sister Olivia (my cousins). The food was fabulous. After that Romina and Olivia headed back to work as they work in Milan. Me and Guglielmo continued perusing the streets of Milan, and made r way into a park, then the castello di fortezca…vecchio…and what trip to a big city of Italy would be complete without finding a statue of Giuseppe Garibaldi. After that, we started headin back

Thoughts on Milan:

- beautiful as far as art, churches, etc.

- Dirty as hell, I did not like the metro, the Albanians, and Africans, selling countless illegal merchandise

- Did not like the traffic

- Duomo was amazing

- Polluted and dirty, big downside and one thing i did not like

That pretty much concludes my stay with my relatives from Paullo, good times with family and they, like all other family, took great care of me.

Picture of me and the relatives

Moving on:

So Friday the 14th, went in to milano centrale station and hopped on a train to Chiavari..train was great, no ticket problems, no delays, perfect..got into Chiavari to meet Sergio waitin for me at the station. Bit to early for dinner, so Sergio took a ride to the town of Zoagli. Small nice coast town, basically just took a stroll long the water. Reminded me of cinque terre. After that headed back to Concenti to sergios house and had a great home made meal. Yesterday, Saturday the 15, Sergio and I headed back to Zerli (hopefully u remember my escapades there last time) if u don’t it is where my grandpa grew up. We went back to my cousins restaurant called Ca’ di Gosita. Giuseppe and Zia Inus prepared some bomb ravioli and canoli for us. After that some beef and potatoes as well as a personal Italian favorite: frasoula(don’t know how to spell it). From that I was stuffed, we then headed down the hill to meet my other cousins, benedetto, Gabriella, and Agnes. They r the son and daughters of one of my grandpas brothers for any of u out there that care. It was nice meetin them and we shared some good family memories.

Zia Inus, Me, Giuseppe at ther restaurant


Relatives again, doesnt get more italian than this

Today Sergio took me to Genoa. Really enjoyed it despite the 35 degree weather..damn it is cold here. Our first stop in Genoa was the acquarium…although Ive always felt acquariums r gay and for kids, I thoroughly enjoyed my time today, maybe because I haven’t been to an aquarium in about 6 years. Either way I got a kick out of the dolpins, penguins, and those savage sharks.

After the acquarium we headed into central Genoa. Saw some cathedrals, palaces, gypsys, African merchants, it was fun. Tons of commercial stores hungry for customers…xmas season is huge for Italians, there were some big crowds today. We then made r way to the house of Christopher Columbus…yes that is right..hes Italian, not Spanish. After while walkin the streets, we of course ran into a ginormous statue of Giuseppe Garibaldi. Genoa claims him, but the real Italians know hes from Conscenti” says my cousin Sergio in Italian. I am pretty sure this is true as garibaldis dad had a house in conscenti and I believe now it is converted into a museum. The Ducale also had a huge exhibit on Garibaldi but we did not have time or the patience to see it. It was cold and dark, so we called it a day.

Sergios Dog Nina

Chiavari at night

more to come...if u read all of this and ur not my parents, you have no life

1 comment:

  1. Screw you! You know your cus is always interested and have read all of them. BLowing it by missing the last niner game see you new years eve

    ReplyDelete