Before leaving, my sister and brother-in-law made sure that we had maps to ensure we wouldn't get lost. They also gave us suggestions on what to do in Milan as well as our next destination, Florence. For our night in Milan, they suggested this place called Z2 ("zerodue"). We've never been to Milan before, but from what I know, it's Italy's business and fashion center, and therefore doesn't have the historical importance of Florence, Venice or Rome. With no architecture or landmarks to walk by and admire, we needed something to do, so this restaurant will do.
Unfortunately, I didn't have any directions to the place. And when I asked the guy in the front, even though he did make reservations for us (I think that was nice), he didn't know either. He knew where the street was, though, so he pointed it out in our city guide. We -- well, I because I'm the only one who could understand Italian -- would then be on our/my own.
We take the clean and efficient subway (gotta love public mass transit!) to the south side of Milan, and from there, I was leading my parents by 20 feet on my way to the street where this place was.
Milan is an old city, so it doesn't have the grid system. That added another layer of confusion to what was a series of bending streets that changed names from block to block. But luckily I got to the street of this restaurant -- and now all I had to do was decide in which direction to go, left or right.
I had thought about this crossroads ever since we left the hotel. I knew that I would make the wrong decision, because I always do. So should I ignore my first instinct, or go with it, because if I doubt myself, I'll kick myself for not going on my first instinct, you know?
Through about five or ten minutes of walking through tight streets and trees, my way finally opened up to a busy intersection, Italian nightlife on display. So, here I was. Where to go? What I kept thinking about was what I finally acted upon. On the map, when I saw where we would meet up with the intersection, more of the avenue ran south than north (in other words, we were closer to the northern end of the street Z2 was on). So, logic demands that there was a greater chance that the restaurant was south of where we were. So I turned a right. And my parents, who were depending on me, followed me.
From there, we walked a good, oh, half-hour, trying to find the name, a sign, a number, something to indicate that I found the place, that I was able to navigate a foreign city with parents in tow and get us to our destination. But there was nothing.
Finally, we reached a circle. After going around one side of it, I looked up at the street sign. Even though this street was long, it changed; going further would obviously not be the right way to go. I turned right when I should have turned left. Fuck me.
I was too tired and angry with myself to say that out loud. I just turned around and started heading north, mumbling something to my parents. Mother wanted to ask somebody, but I knew where we were going, I just didn't want to tell her, which is this family's modus operandi. Also, I was acting like a man.
The stranger Mother spoke to -- and her coming out of her usual defensive, mistrustful shell while on this trip still mystifies me, because that is so totally against her nature, or at least what I know of her -- reaffirmed what I figured out: That Z2 was at the short, northern end of the street. No time to waste; we were probably about 15 minutes away from where we made the right turn, and at this point we were about 25 minutes late for our reservation.
So we go all the way up the street. We hit a dead end/roundabout. There was no sign, no sandwich board, no nothing showing us that this is where the restaurant is. Does this fucking place even exist?
After about five minutes of standing around trying to find Z2, Mother finally found a sign. It was on a sandwich board, a small one, on the pavement. It pointed us to this skinny storefront, a well-appointed place, and a lot of empty chairs.
I profusely apologized to the host for being now 45 minutes late for our appointment. Possibly because they were not busy, possibly because they are Italian, he didn't sweat it and promptly sat us.
Z2 is a fancy restaurant, with the extravagant bill to go along with it. In short, this is exactly the kind of place I like to eat from time to time whenever I can scrounge up the money to go. This is also exactly the kind of place where my parents hate to go. They think all food is good, so if that's the case, why pay so much money for it? I told my sister that they hate fancy restaurants, and here we are now.
So we sit down and look at the menu. Since this is Italian, there are many dishes for each of the several courses that "real" Italians would take full advantage of. Even though we were dead tired and our feet and legs were hurting us, we didn't feel like eating, like, fifteen courses of food. I was willing to push it to three. But I got overruled by my parents, who were visibly pissed at me for leading them so astray.
One of the many reasons why Italian, and maybe even European, restaurants serve their food so slowly is that this allows restaurantgoers to begin talking to each other, thus creating a once-in-a-lifetime experience. Those who originated what has become known these days as the Slow Food Movement probably have never met my parents, who would rather eat shit if it meant not talking to people, including me. This went beyond the disaster I took us on; they are very impatient when it comes to food. That is their goal, and they don't take their time talking. So what I had were minutes upon minutes of uncomfortable, movie-tension silence. I know they were thinking, "Where the fuck's our food?!" but nothing was coming out of their mouths except breathing, slowly progressing to a heave as they waited longer and longer. The periods of silence felt like eons.
I never venture to break the queasy stillness in the air when I'm around these two. But My Fucking Father said something about the slowness of the service (the quality of the food was something they both bitched about throughout the course of the, uh, 90-120 minutes we were there, but they always bitch about the food whenever they go out to eat, they're terrible), and I, needing to say something or else I would just die, said something to the effect of, "Well, that's because you don't eat at fancy restaurants much."
And that set My Fucking Father off. "What you talking 'bout?!" he barked back in his broken English. "We go fancy restaurant all the time in Vegas!!" He is right that there are some incredible restaurants in Vegas. But then he dares to say that "we ate at the Stratosphere!!!" The fucking Stratosphere?!?!?! Are you kidding me?!?!?! And once he said that shit, I couldn't say anything else. How could you after he admitted that he thinks the fucking Stratosphere represents top-of-the-line food? I mean, it's great that it spins, but I went there once because My Fucking Father got a comp, and it was alright, not memorable.
We bolted after two courses; they both were visibly testy when it came to getting the check and then giving them the money. We escaped Z2 (even though I thought it was a perfectly nice place) and followed the host's directions to the nearest station. Once again we were fairly lost amid the zigzagging labyrinth that is an ancient Italian city. But even though my parents were initially hesitant in following my lead yet again, I did lead us finally to the station and then our hotel.
(By the way, the hotel was the best part of our very brief stay in Milan. The customer service was excellent, our room was kind of cramped but very ornate, and best of all, when Mother forced me to ask them if we could have more of those amaretto-flavored cookies that greeted us on top of our pillows, the owner gave us a whole bag! The Hotel Berna Milano -- if you're ever in the city, I highly recommend this hotel!!!)
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