Christmas Eve did not quite start merrily for me in Milan. On the
taxi from the airport to my hotel, I was rehearsing in my mind to say
"Merry Christmas" in Italian to the driver, smiling, giving him some
extra tip so that I can start my first day in Milan happily. However,
what happened was that the driver himself decided how much tip I
should pay to him which was a little more than I was going to offer,
and to make the matters worse, I obviously handed him a ridiculously
smaller amount of money than I was told; you know, there are too many
zeros on those Italian bills! By the time the matters were settled in
front of the hotel, both the driver and I were very unhappy persons.
Because of the holiday Milan was rather empty. But Duomo was always crowded. There were a couple of Santa Clauses with a fishy occupation there. They worked for photographers who would take pictures of children with a Santa so that the parents can pay for the pictures. Their mistake was that the parents would always prefer taking pictures with their own cameras. I was watching the Santas and they hardly succeeded in getting customers.
This is a picture of a Santa smoking a cigarette. The other
picture was taken inside the mall next to Duomo.
This picture was taken near Termini, the central train station in
Rome. The man was working on something using a bicycle-like
machinery. He was aware that I was taking the picture, and waved his
hand when I was done.
Rome for me was pretty much a tourist place, and I wasn't involved in any interesting activities other than seeing remains.
Or, maybe just one thing. There is a shopping mall named Cine Città
Due in suburban Rome, and there I met a boy on a wheel chair. He took
me for a Chinese (which naturally happens anywhere other than Japan),
and as he had learned Chinese language he wanted to have some
conversation with me. I did not speak Chinese but we could get along
all right. He sounded very bright.
Someone may object that Vatican should be treated as an independent
country. I agree. But he or she should also be aware that it would be
difficult to click on Vatican on the world atlas.
These pictures were all taken inside San Pietro. Although I'm not
Catholic (in fact I'm not a Christian at all - however, I was about
to be converted in Portugal), I tried
to be as obedient to the rules as I could inside the cathedral as I
had an experience of being picked on in Duomo
because I was wearing a hat inside the church.
Vatican always reminds me of Tom Robbins' "Another Roadside
Attraction." You should be glad it's not "Hudson Hawk."
This SKMT was sited in front of Stazione Centrale, or the central
station of Milan, from which I took a train for Rome. It's a huge
station and it took me half a day to purchase the train ticket,
waiting for my number to be called.
1 Some of the visitors may be interested to know that an Italian woman is one of Kenji's weaknesses. For him, the most beautiful woman on Earth is Valeria Golino.
The pictures in this page were taken with a Canon EOS 1000FN with
the built-in flash and ISO 100 - 1000 colour negative films. Click on
them to obtain full size JPEG pictures.
