My Milanese Mozzarella Stories

Ah Milano, I heart you! And I heart Italy!

One whirlwind weekend away with the best Italian tour guide ever and the best shopping buddy was just what Jen needed. I am now fully recharged and SO pumped about life and coffee and food and Christmas just around the corner!~

To be totally honest, I had no idea how this trip was going to go. My crazy (but awesome!) tour guide was basically some dude I met at a random bar in Stockholm just a few weekends ago. He seemed pretty normal and managed to convince me that I needed to visit Milan during my time here. I then convinced Lis to come with me and we even decided to stay at his place with him instead of booking a hostel like most other normal people would have done. Crazy right? We were slightly concerned that he might hostel our sorry behinds but decided to go with our gut feeling anyway. And voila! This made for the most awesome weekend yet! =P

Nico picked me up from the train station and it's like he knew me already because we went eating immediately after dropping off my luggage. We had something called a piadena which was a flatbread from the Bologne region of Italy. The bread was light and thin and could be filled with a variety of ingredients tailored to your liking. I chose the Pippo which was filled with rucola, stracchino cheese and proscuitto ham....YUMMERS. The cafe was really cute but the picture doesn't really capture it well. It just looks like someone's kitchen but take my word for it. It was cute!

Next up was my first macchiato shot! And I have to say here that Starbucks you are WRONG. All that coffee education you supposedly gave me as a barista-in-training got me laughed at in Italy. Macchiato does NOT mean you pour the espresso shot in the milk instead of the other way around. The correct form of a macchiato is just a shot of espresso with an equivalent amount of milk poured in after it. All coffees in Europe I've found to be of a significantly smaller portion than in North America. What's with all the venti sizing?? That's why people pee so much at home!

Anyway, this drink was delicious and it was my first time drinking a shot, erm sorry. That should be 'sipping' a shot of macchiato right up at the bar. It was actually quite nice. =) Also unlike what they told me at SBucks, an espresso shot does not expire or die within 10 seconds of it having been pulled from the machine unless you mix it with something else. Or maybe that's just the crappy machines SBucks has. At any rate, our espresso was enjoyed at an easygoing pace, first sipping the foam then the actual espresso with the small spoons they gave you. Mmm.

We left the cafe and headed on a short walking tour of central Milan before picking up Lis at the other airport. I saw some very pretty and some very interesting sights along the way. Not to mention the delicious double scoop of gelato! Omg I love Italy!!

No I didn't get to eat all of this - it was just window shopping!

The three rivers that are built for Milan make quite the pretty sight!

Old School washing stations

Maybe the best.....but then again....maybe not...hmmm

Inside of a non-top-ten church....still beautiful tho a bit fuzzy

Interesting ad campaign on the shopping streets consisting of people dressed as breasts and phalluses....

Apparently it was for a clothing company called Malibu?

Yes Yes and YES!!

One of the top-ten churches in Milan - San Lorenzo

Cool grafittied wall

What does this mean?? It's all over Europe!

After we picked up Lis we headed for a snack called an Apertivo - which was like a happy hour in most North American bars, except happier. You buy a drink, any drink, for something like 9 Euros and then you get the drink and an all you can eat buffet of small dishes like fries, pasta, polente, pizza pockets (yes - they are a real thing in Italy!! Not just a McCain creation!!), salad, olives, nachos, etc. It was great! The apertivo lasts from 1700 - 2100 hrs so we sat and loaded up on snacks until time was up. And then (you guessed it!) we headed for dinner!! =P

Nico had forewarned me to prepare myself for the best pizza I've ever had in my life. So I had pretty much been getting pumped since I got off my flight in the early afternoon. Dinner happened at 2300 and it was at a chain well-known for their Napoli cuisine (that's where pizza originated!) called FLB (Fratelli la Bufala). It pains me to say this, but the pizza did not really meet the expectations for the title of 'Best Pizza of Jen's Life.' (If you're reading this Nico I'm sorry!! I can't lie to my readership lols =) But I have to say it may have been my fault - I may have ordered the wrong thing. I literally just picked something off the menu because I wanted to eat it so bad. So after I had asked the waiter what a carciofocci was and he mumbled something incoherent 3 consecutive times after I 'what-ed' him, I gave up and said ok, just give me the pizza.

As things turn out, carciofocci is artichoke and while I love artichokes, it was a bit watery and made the centre of my pizza soggy. This was my fault. I totally should have been smarter and ordered something super classic like a margherita. Sigh, I guess you're right Nico. This DOES mean I have to come back!

Apparently the people that worked at FLB thought Nico & Marcino were gay and Lis and I were lesbian. Wow. I wonder what tipped them off?

We finished off the meal with my second shot of macchiato that day and Nico and Marcino had Jagermeister in champagne glasses as their apres supper 'digestif' drink. (who does that?? Ah yes Italians do!) And thus began one of the most ridiculous nights of my life. I had been told that Italians party like no one else but really, I could not have prepared for such a night of 'balls-to-the-walls' crazy happy madness. We met up with some of Nico and Marcino's friends at a bar and stood outside chatting for awhile. I was wondering when we would be able to go inside because Milan was COLD that weekend. But no, we didn't go inside that bar at all. Nor any other bar for the next 3 hours. The people of Milan like to party OUTdoors. No matter the weather. So we bought beer and stood outside drinking it and freezing our tails off.

"Give me a wuu!!" WUU!!

But it was still so fun! Nico was giving us a crash course in Italian while we were giving him the same in mandarin. Every half hour we would count to ten in Italian while Nico would count to five. Since he could only make it to five we coined the phrase 'Give me a wuu!' (five in mandarin is 'wuu'), we'd slap each other a high-five and everyone would hoot 'Wuuu!' In between all the counting that was going on, I was so hyper from the super-strong Italian espresso that I sang Daft Punk - One More Time the entire night while dancing to it on the streets. I made Lis dance to it also. Good times!!

Finally we made it to a club and danced to some electronica music for an hour or so before they closed and we piled back onto the streets. Those party animals Nico and Marcino didn't want the night to end there so they invited a bunch of (almost) randoms over to Marcino's place to continue the party. This is where some very festive hat-wearing and balloon-volleying happened. All the while, Lis' brother was worried these random Italian dudes his sister was staying with might be crazy. After we emailed him a few photos of the dorky-fun-ness as per below, I think he stopped worrying. =)

At the club celebrating my piece of junk bag!

This was the most hilarious hat I've ever seen someone pay money for
-The hands wave to you when you pull the strings down!

Sombrero!

"One more time, we're gonna celebrate...celebrate and dance so free...."

The macchiato started to wear off and so we headed to bed soon after the above photo was taken. But what an unforgettable night of pure good fun!

The next day was sight-seeing and shopping in the centre of Milan. I kick-started the day off with a smoked swordfish crostoni and a delicious Italian-style hot chocolate. O.M.G. Words cannot begin to describe the levels of deliciousness that my tastebuds were reaching. Basically, I drank a white-milk chocolate bar with a spoon. And Lis' had meringue in it!! Ohhhhhh. I am reliving it right now and drooling a little.

Yes there was bread under there!

The cool-looking cafe with our hot chocolates

Apparently it was tough for Nico to take this photo for us since he is lactose-intolerant but still drooling...

Next up was some Duomo and La Scala opera house action and some shopping along the infamous streets of The Golden Triangle. This is where we bought our boots!! woot woot!!

Duomo - Biggest gothic cathedral in Europe
It was absolutely breathtaking from the inside but no photos were allowed!

The galleria next door

A lucky bull where you had to spin around 3x on your heel

Leo Da Vinci Statue across from La Scala

Ricotta cheese and rucola ravioli - HEAVEN on earth. SO YUM.

Typical Milanese cuisine of fried veal rib with brie, artichokes and roasted walnuts - DELISH

The most expensive tiramisu and cappucini in Milano - This cost 22 Euros!

The hunt for the tiramisu was long - we walked probably close to 5km looking for this cake!

Monday morning we got up early in the hopes of seeing Leo da Vinci's painting The Last Supper except it was closed. Oops. =( So instead, we went shopping really hard to find a replacement for my piece of junk bag and then had lunch with Nico to say good bye and thank him for being so very awesome. Take a look at lunch! (This is turning into a food blog....)

Bruschetta

I...

ADORE...

PASTA.

You rock Nico! Keep being crazy!

And of course, I bid farewell to a trusted friend - the piece of junk bag. It had its humble origins on the streets of Mong Kok in Hong Kong as a 15 dollar Canadian faux leather bag and I took it with me around the world. From Calgary to Miami to Seoul to New Delhi to Copenhagen to Moscow and finally its resting place in Milano. Farewell friend! Thanks for everything!