Milano

February 16, 2014

We went two Saturdays in a row with out touring and posting to the blog. Sorry, but sometimes life happens.    The 1st week I was still quite busy with end of the month duties. It has also been rainy and perhaps we were a bit lazy. But work in the office is becoming more routine.  New situations do not surprise us.  We are able to perform our duties quicker.  However this past several weeks we have be quite busy closing 7 apartments. It is quite involved not only getting the missionaries moved out, but to get the apartment cleaned up, and fixing the things that we can fix.  Then meeting with the landlord and negotiating about our security deposit and other items that they claim. We have also been working close with the Burgers on opening 7 new apartments.   We need 5 apartments for next group of missionaries that arrive next week.  We are getting 19 new missionaries on Wednesday - 11 of them sisters.

Saturday we decided to explore a different part of Milano.  We 1st drove to a Chinese buffet that the elders were bragging about.  We parked on the roof of the grocery store next door.  This was not like any Chinese buffet in the States.  It was large, interesting, OK, but we probably wont go there again.  It wasn't really Chinese food like we are used to.

We then hopped on the Metro across the street, changed trains twice and got out near Sant' Ambrogio.

St. Ambose is Milano's patron Saint. They say he was so eloquent that bees would fly into his mouth. attracted to his honey tongue   The church was 1st built in 379 AD but today is mostly 10th century, over 1000 years old.

The front door was marvelous but it was protected by glass.

Here you can see some of the carving on the door.

And here are the old knockers! 

 It was a very nice church inside.

 Under the pulpit is Saint Ambrose himself!  Not sure who the other guy is.

 Fabulous mosaics above the pulpit.

 They had this pillar with a snake on top in the main nave.

There was a nice court yard in front of the church.

This guy looks to be my height

  Here is a door in front of the court yard of Saint Ambrose

 We then wandered down the street to find the next destination.

 A door with the ring of the knocker removed.

 Here is the whole door.  Just after I took this picture several people walked out of this door.  not the big door but the door with in the door.  See the lower right hand square and the lines that go down through the kick plate?  This little door is about 6 feet tall.

 Yes, there is graffiti on a a wonderful door.  How sad!

 These blooming trees were a real surprise to me.  This is our 1st sign of spring here in Italy.  For the past 3 months it has been wet and it will freeze about 2 days each week..  I have seen no buds on any trees yet.  These trees must be in some micro climate where the sun heats and reflects off the building behind them.

How about this door and the sculpture above it?

Across the street was this children's toy store with this little guy out front.  I think he is a LEGO Pirate.

 We then found San Lorenzo Maggiore a church built in the 4th century.

 Next door was this enormous Japanese painting above a restaurant.  The eatery is OLD WILD WEST which is a franchise steak house that I have seen in the mall and many other places.  We have not tried it yet.

 The old 4th century ruins lined up alongside the new modern building and billboards were a real contrast.

 Here is part of the old city wall

 San Lorenzo Maggiore is an octagonal church.  Very different that all the others built on the plan of a cross.

 We then walked north to find the Metro station.  Here is another neat church. We did not go in.

 The streets were very crowed with people. Everyone out for the day window shopping.  Across the street was this store.It is not a music store like expected with a name like that.  But a clothing store.  About 50 miles South east is the town of Cremora where Strdivarius lived and built his Violins.  We will go there soon.

Another interesting church.  In the round?

We walked a very long ways and ended up at the Duomo, One metro stop past where I expected to find the Metro.  But it was all very interesting.  We hopped on the Metro and went back to where we parked.  Went grocery shopping and then rode the elevator up to the roof and got our car.  It was a great day.

Milano - Archaeology Musem

January 26, 2014

This week was getting back to the normal busy schedule.  Monday morning we took Riley and Summer to the airport and were back in the office by 8:30 am.  Tuesday was new missionary training.  Wednesday morning was a special housing meeting with the President.  We have a new increase of 6 sister missionaries coming next month.  This means we need 3 mew apartments in 4 weeks.  The Burgers have found 2 of them, but they all need contracts finalized and to be furnished.

A week ago we went to an American doctor.  While walking from the Metro to Doctor's office, we saw this sign with a Bufana.

In previous posts I have shown pictures of the Bufana (Christmas Witch) that brings gifts to Italian children on Epiphany (when the wise men came to visit the Christ Child).  Here is a Bufana with some chocolate bars.  She says "Good for me, Coal for you."

Saturday we wanted to stay around Milano so we went to the Archaeological Museum.  Here is a big door I saw as we walked from the metro to the museum.

The museum was great.  It was in an old court yard of a long defunct monastery   And the monastery was built along side of two towers from an ancient Roman cCircus where they held chariot races like in Bun Hur.

 Here is a square tower - still standing.  And on the right is a 24 sided tower that they are restoring. Just amazing that this history is still standing.

 Here are some bells on top of the old monastery.

 Inside the monastery is a wonderful chapel with fantastic paintings.  Here is one of Noah and the arc.

 The church is divided into two ends.  This end is where the organ and monks sat and sang.  The nuns were not allowed to come in here.  They could only look through the window at the end of the hall.

 Nice pipe organ

 Painting of Jesus washing the apostles feet.

 We then wandered down the street towards the Duomo.  Of course I saw some more interesting doors.  I am also into knockers now.  This door knocker was about 8 feet high.  I don't think the little Italians could reach it.  I don't think anyone would want to get close to this guy.  He look very mean and angry!

 This is the Church of the portal.  Yes! The church of the doors!

We had been told by some of the missionaries of this place near the Duomo that sold Panzarotti, deep fried calzone made with bread simliar to Indian Fry bread.  We walked thru the Galleria, saw some folks eating panzarotti and asked them for directions - just around the corner.  We walked that way and the line was a block long!

The panzarotti shop had two doors each with their own long line.

 Here is a picture of a neat dog that was in line in front of us.

We only had to wait about 30 minutes.  We bought our lunch and walked towards the Duomo looking for a place to sit down and eat.

We sat on this bench next to a gal, a street performer that was playing Jazz Flute.  She was great!  It was a wonderful lunch to sit there watching people, listing to some great Jazz and eating some great Italian food.

When done I threw a few coins into her box and we walked down the street where there were several more street performers. Two of them were American Pan Flute players.  They were in full American head dress and these beads that hung down and completely covered their faces.  I don't think they were American Indians.  When we got to the next metro stop we bought a ticket and went home.

Novara

January 4, 2014

Happy New Year!  Buon Anno!

This was an easy week.  I am afraid that the slower pace and will catch up to me next week.  Tuesday was New Years Eve.  We picked up the Burgers after their trip to southern Italy so she could see her mother in a nursing home.  Peg made some wonderful soup for everyone and then we played games with the office elders.  It was very fun.  About 9 pm the fire crackers and bombs began to go off.  Our neighbors above the office were having a party and had an endless supply of fire works.  Most of them were what I would call cherry bombs and M-80s  They were dropping them down in from of the office windows and it was as if we were under attack. About 11 pm I decided to go upstairs and go to bed. Ha! what a joke.  About 11:30 they really turned fireworks and they were non stop for at least another hour.  It was impossible to go to sleep!  I am certain that many of these were much more than just M-80s.  Wednesday morning I slept in until about 6:30.  I got up had a wonderful breakfast of eggs with Smoked scarmotsa cheese on a tortilla  along with fresh Italian bread, butter and raspberry jam washed down with Arancia Rossa (blood orange) juice.  I then went on a very long walk around town.  I was the only one out and about.  The only place on my long walk I found the tell tale signs of exploded fire works was in font of the mission office and the mission home. We are at ground zero of the party.  WOW!

Saturday was raining and we decided to go to Novara.  A city about 40 miles west.  It was great!

 Here is a Christmas tree decorated with sun flowers!

 Here is the Duomo!

 We walked around the block.  Lots of arcades (covered walkways) along the streets.

 We came to this glassed in monument that about 300 AD was a tower

 We came around and found the front door to the duomo.  This door is about 20 feet high.

 Here is closeup of one of the panels

 On the other side of the courtyard was a very nice nativity set up.

Inside the Duomo was very impressive.  Here is painting of the last supper in one of the side chapels.

A very nice pipe organ.  There were lots of paintings and tapestries, but the clock had just struck noon and the priests come out and let us out to lock up for lunch.

Here is the building across the street from the Duomo

And the one facing the front of the Duomo

We began to wander around and found this well in a hidden piazza

Through the clouds we saw another large church.

We wandered around several blocks to find the front of the church

Inside was very dark.  my pictures did not turn out.  It quite nice, dark and we were the only ones we saw.

Here are the main front doors that are swung in to reveil the next set of doors.  These were well over 20 feet tall.

Front of the church

The side street with the Church bell tower and the immense dome

Bell tower

Back side of the church dome and bell tower.

Next we came to the museum of Natural history and a little stegosaurus

Here is newer church that was very interesting

Front door

Italians talk about the Bufana (the Christmas witch) that comes to visit bad girls and boys.  Many of the store windows had bufanas.  Here is a very large on in a gift shop.

And a great one in a pastry shop

In this candy shop they had Buffanas everywhere.  Lots of them coming down in parachutes!

We saw this fantastic court yard / restaurant.

The fort and moat

And the hero Vitorioa Emanuele