Italians love Starbucks and The Milan Expo (or How to Cram 250,000 People in a Tiny Area...)

250,000 people who have no idea what a line is.  People who don't understand that second hand smoke is a really horrible thing and you probably shouldn't be holding your cigarette at the same height as most children's faces or blowing that smoke behind you into those said children's same faces.

Ryan and Emily on the train

I would love to say that the Expo was awesome.  I was totally prepared to be awed and inspired.  I didn't mind forking over 80€ to see this amazing ode to all things green, environmentally conscious, and of course all the food.

Sadly, we didn't get there until after noon.  Part of that was having to ride the train and the subway to get there rather than having the car, and part of it is having two kids and being happy to be out of the house, dressed, before 9:30.  By the time we got there, we were starving, the kids were hungry (aka cranky and whiny) and we knew we had to get food first.  The geniuses of the Expo put 3 whole tiny food stalls right at the entrance.  So after standing in line for 30 minutes while Aaron entertained the children, we finally got a couple Piadinas (tortillas with meat inside), some french fries and some (admittedly delicious) fried onion strips for 30€ (read mediocre food for way too  much money.  Yay for captive audiences).

Ireland Pavilion

Finally, after everyone was fed, we began our journey into the Expo.  At first it didn't seem so crowded.  We walked through the Ireland pavilion relatively quickly.  We had been told to bring our strollers with the children in them in order to get ushered past the long queues and into the express lines.  Unfortunately, many others had been alerted to that trick as well and as we progressed down the boulevard, the "express" lines were sometimes as long as the regular lines and I couldn't find the end of them to even stand in.  According to a friend when the line for the Japanese pavilion was upwards of 8 hours, they finally closed it.  For a country where standing in line is something they don't seem to understand, having an 8 hour queue is mind boggling.

Belgium Pavilion

The expo was organized as one long "road" with the pavilions on either side.  Some smaller countries were grouped together for the coffee display, the fruits and legumes display, the chocolate display and other products.  I managed to take pictures of some of the interesting country pavilions.  Italy had the largest pavilion, but I don't think we even made it there before I turned to Aaron and said we should just leave.  I don't mind crowds when they are well organized and have a flow to them.  This crowd was insane.  People were walking up and down the main avenue on the left and the right.  They were crossing it to get to the pavilions for food and treats or bathrooms.  They were pushing aside our strollers.  At one point, I turned to take a picture of a pavilion, looked back ahead of me and Aaron had been swallowed by the crowd.

Vietnam Pavilion

Map of the Expo 

I wish I could tell you more about the Expo.  But all we saw was the entrance, some cool fountains, the Ireland pavilion and people.  So many people.  I am less dissapointed by the waste of a ticket than I am that I got to see nothing of this once in a lifetime (for an American) chance.  The Expo people should have conferred with Disney or some other company that knows how to manage huge crowds in tiny spaces.

Milan's Open Subway Trains

We did however get to ride the Milan subway and they have these amazing open trains.  You could see all the way down from one end to the other.  It made things much easier to traverse.

The line at Arnold's Coffee was out the door.
If you enlarge the picture, you can see all the
same Starbucks drinks you adore on the menu
at Arnold's.  

We also went to Arnold's Coffee Shop which is an American style coffee shop, basically Starbucks in Italy.  Italy doesn't have Starbucks yet, but it has been all abuzz for the past week as the owner of one of the soccer teams here has promised Italians that he will be bringing Starbucks here.  I cannot tell you how excited people are.  I had a chance to talk to an Italian who has done a fair bit of travelling and he said the novelty of Starbucks has people excited.  We decided that it is less about considering Starbucks coffee (we also decided that people won't give up their normal Italian coffee) and more about the drinks Starbucks creates that happen to have coffee in them.  If Arnold's is any indication, Starbucks is missing out on a HUGE opportunity here.

All in all, it was another opportunity to see Milan.  It's nice to get out of Bergamo and see new things.  Also, here's a cute picture of Emily sleeping.

Italians love street fairs and know how to do Street Fair Food

The Sunday morning crowd.

So we went to a street fair this weekend. Italians seem to love street fairs because there have been at least 4 in the time we have been here.  This one was the biggest by far, featuring food from around europe.  Gyros from Greece, pretzels from Germany and Austria, BBQ'ed meat from Brazil, Sausages and Bratwurst from Germany, Coconut puffs from Belgium and lots of other stuff.  And from the length of the lines, even at noon, (I say even at noon because usually Italians don't seem to eat lunch at noon.  It's closer to 1 or even later) Italians love foreign food.  

A Bratwurst with cabbage and mustard.

This was the crowd on Sunday.  And even though Sunday is the day to go to church, it doesn't seem like many people go.  Or perhaps if they do go, its early in the morning or late at night.  The line  for the Funicular to go up to Citta Alta was nearly a block long.  

There were stalls and stalls of cheese and salami.  Smoked meats, sweets and candies.  

The grill at the Gyro stall.  Everything was grilled fresh to order

So much meat!  Sausages, kabobs, gyro meat.

 I was lucky to be able to eat at the fair Thursday, Friday, Saturday and Sunday.  I had a German Bratwurst with homemade sauerkraut.  The saurkraut was the nice thinly shredded kind that I like.  The Bratwurst was "spicy" even though that seems to mean with spices and not hot enough to burn your lips.  I had a Greek Gyro with chicken that they sliced right off one of those big cylinders of meat.  You could choose between Pork or chicken.  They did not have one of those brownish-greyish cylinders of meat that we get in the US at the Mall Food Court Gyro place.  The Gyro came with fresh yogurt sauce, onions, tomatoes, lettuce, feta cheese and french fries.  I chose not to get the french fries on mine because that is just wierd.  French Fries stand on their own.  I don't understand this Italian predilection to put it on pizza, burgers, gyros... or anything else.

I also had a chicken burger that was OK, but the notable thing about the BBQ Burger stall was that they had real, American style bacon.  That is pretty rare to find here.  Like Cheddar cheese, the grocery store we shop at has one brand of American style bacon.  If you don't like that, you're stuck with prosciutto (which is delicious, don't get me wrong, but it doesn't crisp up like American bacon. Mmmm... Bacon).  And then today, since it was the last day, I had another Gyro.  I also tried a german pretzel, but I got a sweet one.  Technically, as Aaron said, it wasn't really a pretzel so much as a giant pretzel shaped donut.  Sprinkled with sugar, it was delicious.

Hand painted Italian ceramic vase

The other cool thing at this fair was the stalls of handmade items.  There are stalls of hand woven Italian wool ponchos, bags made from Italian leather.  There was an amazing stall that had German wooden Nutcrackers and those little things that spin around when you put a candle on them. Hand carved ornaments with Christmas scenes burned into them.

There was Sicilian pottery hand painted in bright colors.  Bags from India woven with rainbows of colors.  Cookware from France with every utensil one might need including a Madeline pan.  I finally found my spring loaded tongs at that stall.  I have searched many Italian cooking stores and only could find wimpy plastic tongs that can't grip anything.  I was so happy with my discovery, I bought two pairs of French tongs.

When we returned to Citta Alta, there were more handmade goods at little tents.  We bought Emily another handmade dress because they are just so adorable.  We found some really cool Christmas ornaments that were made out of recycled paper, plastic bottles, and cans.  There were beautiful Italian sun catchers, jewelry, carved wooden items.  There were other hand woven clothing that were really beautiful robes and full skirts, jackets and other old fashioned styled things.

All I can say is, I do not take enough pictures.

They love mayonnaise. And french fries. Together. It's an abomination.

I am terrible at blogging.  I always think I need some huge topic to discuss.  All these little bits have been going through my mind; all these little observations that I want to share with people so I'm going to just share a bunch of stuff I've observed about Italy.  Bear with me if some of it is repeated from Facebook or Instagram.

There is no salted butter.  You would think, no big deal right?  Except that you notice it in strange places.  Like on toast.  Also the grilled cheese tastes just a tad bit different because they don't put nearly as much salt in any of their foods, including the cheese.

Cheese.  There are only a few kinds of cheese indigenous to Italy.  Ricotta, Marscapone, Mozzarella.  I might be missing one, but I don't think so.  There is 1 kind of cheddar cheese available at the grocery store where we shop and it is so orange that a British woman I met won't eat it.  It didn't seem strange to me since most of our cheddar cheese in the US is colored.  I realized that in England most of their cheese is white.  Because its... *gasp* natural.  I forgive them for not having an abundance of cheddar cheese except when I'm craving a burger.  Also their Italian cheese is sooooooo good that it's hard to complain that its all you get.
A lot of their cheese is also lactose free.  They seem to be much more aware of allergies and intolerances here.

Salamella Mantovana, split open and grilled
 with gnocchi and green beans.

Meat.  I'm not sure exactly how to describe the meat situation here.  I don't think they eat very much of it.  Many of their cuts are very thin.  Chickens are much smaller here, which is fine, but there are not a lot of options in the store.  You can buy back quarters with bone and skin or skinless, boneless breasts.  If you want something other than that, you have to buy a whole chicken and do it yourself.  But let's talk about the sausage.  I have posted pictures of the sausage, however I mistakenly called it Salsicca.  The sausage I am in love with is the Salamella Montovana.  It's like what we think our Italian Sausage is.  Except that the only similarities are the shape and size.  This sausage is one of the most flavorful things I have ever eaten in my life.  I'm going to leave all my clothes and children's toys here and smuggle back suitcases of this sausage.
They also like veal, rabbit, turkey, and quail, and they are all available in the grocery store.  It's kind of crazy.
They love to grill their meat here.  There is an entire section of kebabs, skewers, sliced and seasoned meats that are made for the "griglia".

Pizza is everywhere.

Italians dress up to leave their house.  Except for a few teenage boys who, I think, were actually purposely dressed in sweat pants, no one is caught dead outside the house in anything but real clothes.  And shoes.  No uggs with shorts, no baggy pajama pants, no oversized sweatshirts.  Not even on the college kids who I frequently ride the bus with.  Girls wear cute tops with skinny jeans, leather jackets, tights, cute boots, blouses, sweaters, all kinds of real clothes that say, "I care what I look like".  You can tell who the tourists are because they wear yoga pants, jeans that don't fit, ugly shoes, sandals with socks (I'm certain no Italian would be caught DEAD wearing that), fanny packs, gym shorts (I'm talking to you, American Dad.  Yes, I heard you and I know you're American.  You're making us all look bad!) etc.
The men wear beautiful suits, shiny shoes, ties, button down shirts, and carry briefcases.  Even the adorable Italian Nonnas wear their suits and pantyhose to go grocery shopping.  It makes people watching really enjoyable.  It also motivates me to dress a bit better.  Although how these moms with kids find time to do their hair before they get them to school still completely escapes me.

Breakfast.  Let's talk about breakfast.  Americans have come to some weird conclusion that we should eat a huge breakfast full of protein OR... cereal.  Well, Italians say, "Just say no to boring cereal" (They might actually say "Dice non a cereal" or something like that).  They eat pastries.  Pastries filled with apricot marmalade heaven.  Or chocolate cream heaven.  Small, sweet, flaky pastries that make you close your eyes and say "Mmmmm".  And coffee.  Do you know what the secret is to getting the creamiest, smoothest cappucino?  Use whole milk.  It will change your life.  Just one day, when you go to Starbucks (I do miss you, Starbucks) don't get that Venti quad skinny half caff mocha thingie.  Just get a double tall whole milk latte.  It will change your life.  Just park further from the store if you're worried about calories.

They love mayonnaise.  And french fries.  Together.  It's an abomination.  I could go on and on, but I don't think there's really anything else that needs to be said.

Those are my bits for now.  I'll try not to let 2 months go by before posting again.