Well, never really thought of heading to Europe in my life... yet. And never ever thought of it would be this early... anyway, it turns out that I need to go for a business trip to Italy for 1 week. It's so sudden that I got no idea how should I react. A rush in preparing for the winter, and there I'd already boarded the midnight flight all the way to Milan. I do transit at Amsterdam, which I believe is another nice city (well, at least the airport is nice...) but since I'd just hang around for few hours in he airport, so nothing much I can tel about it.
The moment of my arrival to Milan wasn't so impressive actually. Touch down at Malpensa International Airport, but honestly the airport looks old even though it is just about 5 years old. Maybe this is their unique design that doesn't suit my taste? Have some upset moment when dealing with a waitress in a restaurant... Anyway, met up with Marco, one of my company's distributor at the airport while waiting for my colleague from Dubai to touch down an hour later. Have a nice chat with him while trying to get myself comfortable with the new environment. Jet-lag? Well, not really. I got a whole 14 hours of time during my flight to adjust myself according to the time zone. After my colleague landed, we head to the hotel in Assago, Royal Garden Hotel.
The next day, our distributor, Mr Francesco and Ms Paula pick us up to their office for a cup of Italian Espresso. It is very aromatic, but indeed it was too heavy for me and my colleague. Italian just like to drink such a concentrated cafe. We then head on to Turin, where we will have our meetings with other dealers and technicians for the upcoming training. There's about 20 of them, and they are really some nice and friendly guy. A bit of admiring them, as they gave me the feel of "work hard, play hard, eat hard, and enjoy every moment in your life". During the five days of training, which my colleague and I were their trainer for giving them training on my company's product, I think I'd learnt a lot from them, far more than what they had learnt from me I guess. Well, it is a nice experience indeed.
After the 5 days training ended, we head back to Milan and stayed back in the same hotel. The next day was Saturday, we woke up early in the morning and checking up what we can do for the day in Milan. Francesco and Paula pick us up from the hotel and we head for San Siro Stadium, the home for AC Milan and Inter Milan Football Club. From the outside, the stadium looks huge, but when we get inside, the feeling was totally different. One may start to wonder why the stadium feels smaller when you are inside... anyway, this is perhaps something good as it means when you are watching a match in the stadium, you are much closer to the footballers. A tour around the stadium and the changing room... follow by the museum which host all the trophies and jersey... it is a nice trip, even though I'm not a die-hard-fan but still I can feel the stream of emotion running in everyone's body.
Next, we head for a very nice lunch in Milan town center. Milan, far more artistic than you can ever imagine. Every building, every street, every corner, everywhere... you can feel the sense of art, sense of history, sense of heading back to the 90's, 80's and 70's... by the time we finish our lunch, it's already past 2pm. Our distributors decided to let us free to travel around as we like, and we really appreciate it. We first entered the Duomo Church, a really holly and magnificence place which everyone shouldn't miss. The design, the statue, the lights, the prayer, the decoration... everything is just perfect inside Duomo, is like we are entering to another dimension in the world. Next stop, we head for the Galleria Vittorio Emanuele II, a shopping distinct to be precise. You can find a lot of nice shops and nice items here... but you must be able to have the money to spend as well. We went to the Via Dante next, another street for some shopping spree... and ends up at Castello Sforzesco, which is an ancient castle. Throughout the journey, we were greeted by snow... first time to see it in my life of 24 years. Well, honestly, it's not really that special. We'd been imagining too much and put a lot of fantasy in snowing... but when you are in it... it is just... snow.
Since we are no longer touring with our distributors, we have to find our ways back to our hotel. So we get our ass in the local subway which is called "Metro" and head to Famagosta, the nearest town to Assago. Then we take a bus and journey back to our hotel. The next day, we took the subway again from Famagosta to Cardona, and then we transit for Malpensa Express which ride us all the way to the Malpensa Airport. For our last few moments in the express train, we were farewelled by heavy snow... indeed it is very nice to see the whole world in white... but it is something that the local hate the most as they will have trouble getting around with their cars. Arrive at the airport, checked-in, do some last minute shopping, board the plane and ready to adjust my body-clock back to Malaysia time... by the time I leave Italy it was the evening, the sky is still bright. While the plane head towards Kuala Lumpur, I stared outside of my window... I was amazed by the scenery I saw outside. The sky is in half, a side is bright while another is dark. My flight is flying from the bright sky zone and entering the dark sky zone... slowly, slowly... the whole process last for about half an hour until the plane had finally entered totally into the night. Speechless, and I'm a little regret for not taking the pictures of it. Hope that there will be a second chance for me to do so.
Throughout the whole week in Italy, I found that Italians are very friendly towards Italians. Even if they don't know each other. I'd found that there are Italians that are very helpful to travelers who doesn't speak Italian language. And of course there are less friendly one. Italian food is simply superb. Their wine is something I believe cannot be found else where. A week stay in Italy, three hours of tour in Milan... everything just seems doesn't enough. Hopefully I'll have the chance to drop by again someday. To explore more on Italian food, to snap more pictures of the buildings, to learn more of the Italian culture...
And I'd almost forgot a very nice scene which I saw when heading to the factory back in Turin. We passed by a school everyday, not sure is it a primary school or kindergarten. It is not the type of school you'll see in Malaysia. It is a house, with a lot of windows, and everyday when I head to the factory, I can see parents are standing outside of the gate and starring at their children who were studying in the school through the windows... every time I see it, it warms my heart during the cold winter. A very nice scene that I regret for unable to snap it with my camera.
Well, that pretty much wrap up my experience of staying one week in Italy. My first stay in Europe as well, and it doesn't disappoint me, not at all. You may browse the pictures I'd taken through my
facebook. For those who are planning to head to Milan, need not to worry as travelling in Milan is very easy and convenient. And honestly I'm starting to miss the atmosphere and food right now... till then, Ciao~
