Italy Blog: Milan

Milan 5/22 – 5/24

After we checked into our Milan airport it was about 9pm and we were ravenous. Ming and I walked around the neighborhood surrounding the hotel to try to find somewhere where we could eat dinner. We stumbled upon a place called Rendez Vous and this restaurant ended up being the place we have the fondest memories of.

Rendez Vous is the neighborhood watering hole. A watering hole in Italy is not some dark, dreary, dive-like bar. Their watering holes are actually quite nice. Their patrons dress like Europeans (generally dressed in nicer attire that is a step below semi-formal.) We saw plenty of patrons who were dressed in clubbing attire but they were simply going to eat and not go to a disco (the European word of club) afterwards. People came in and out of the restaurant and it was obvious they frequented the restaurant a lot since they’d chat with the restaurant employees for a spell before leaving.

The employees of the restaurant made us feel very welcome and acted very warmly toward us. They made excellent recommendations to us for entrees and even came by our table strike up side conversations with us while we were waiting between courses. Giovanni and Luigi were the two most memorable employees who started talking to Ming about football (in America we call it soccer) and even told him that the championships were taking place the next day. After showing him the back dining and entertainment room, they even gave him a trick pen to shock him as a joke. It worked at first, but the pen seemed to break after a few shocks. Ming must have been stronger than they thought. They invited us to come back for dinner the next evening and go in the backroom to watch the football game on one of the large LCD tvs they had set up. They told us that the entire room was going to be full of football fans and that we should join them. Since we loved our meal there we agreed that we’d come back the following night and watch football with them.

The next day we explored as much of Milan as we could. We saw Da Vinci’s The Last Supper. It is truly something which you need a tour guide for. You do not realize the amount of creative genius Da Vinci had until you listen to the tour guide dissect each part of the painting and look at it from afar. It was very enlightening to see the Last Supper since I don’t know anything about art – I’m an engineer, not a liberal arts major! ^_~

We did a lot of shopping around Milan since it is one of the fashion meccas of the world. Unfortunately, we didn’t buy anything in Milan since prices were too high and I wasn’t willing to pay for any of those price tags that the designers were commanding.


Milan has a Duomo. All of the Italian cities have a Duomo which is unique. The Duomo in Milan is amazing. It is very large both in height and area. It has many intricate carvings in it and it’s something that only pictures can describe. Look at the pictures area to get a better idea of what I am talking about.

We found out that Italians, and perhaps all of Europe, are very lazy. The shops and restaurants close down for a siesta in the afternoon. I don’t know what the Italian word for siesta is so I will continue to call it a siesta until someone corrects me. They close down anywhere between 2pm-5pm. As a shopper it makes it very hard for me to do much when the city has virtually shut down. We went to a store similar to Filene’s basement (but with names like Gucci, Prada, etc) only to find it closed for its siesta. Ming and I sat on the sidewalk and had to wait for it to open up again. Coming back to it at a later time was not an option because the store was in a part of town which was completely removed from where we were staying and sight-seeing.

The whole day we tried to buy football jerseys to support the Milan team. The football championship was between Italy and Liverpool, England. The Italian team happened to be from Milan so the whole city was cheering on its home team. We tried to find a street vendor who had a Milan jersey for sale but couldn’t find any. We found a few vendors but they didn’t have any cool jerseys for sale; all of theirs were boring and had uninteresting patterns on them. Apparently most vendors come out at night, prior to the game’s start. Dejected we headed to Rendez Vous without a football jersey to cheer on the home team.

Upon arriving at Rendez Vous we found that the back dining room was indeed filled with football fans. We all ate together, cheered together, and shared great comraderie. It was my first time watching a soccer game all the way through and I find that I enjoy watching it more when I’m surrounded by passionate fans and when there aren’t annoying commercials in between plays. Italy ended up winning the championship, although the end of the game was a close one. Giovanni strolled back into the room waving a flag and wearing a jersey shouting “fuerza Milan” (roughly meaning something like Milan’s force kicks butt.) Everyone was happy and we all sucked down limoncello and port to celebrate. All and all it was really fun and we met a lot of great Italians whom we practiced our Italian on … but they kindly switched to English for us to improve the conversation flow. Giovanni even gave Ming the flag and jersey as a momento to take home so that we’d always remember that Milan kicks butt. I think that Ming may start wearing that jersey once we get back to the states. ^_^