6 June contd.

Our first hotel, small and hidden on a side street with a variety of flags hanging out from the front.

We took a train from Malpensa (the airport) to Milano, and everything looks like Japan (or at least it did until we got into downtown Milan). I have already spoken to quite a few people, one in French and the rest in butchered Italian. A few kind ladies on the tram (called trolleys or streetcars in San Francisco) helped us find our stop. There was much motioning, pleasant disagreement and finally agreement when the oldest of them (wearing purple eyeshadow) agreed that the best plan would be to let the girl whose stop was right before ours tell us when to get off. There were about seven women involved in the conversation at one point.

The way here (to Milano) was lined with patchwork plots of land with small ancient houses of two stories or more, some with windows entirely missing, others with two or more towers attached to the sides. All had haphazard but tidy gardens with driftwood-ish sticks as stalks for the plants; a few rows of this, a few rows of that; tangled green and the bright washing hanging out.
Here in the city I have already seen three obelisk-like statues, monuments with lions, naked women, crying women, or a combination of all three. One was to Giuseppe Garibaldi and I feel that I should know him but I do not. It makes me wonder if anyone really does: imagine a whole city of people and a traveler who wants to know who Giuseppe is but nobody can tell him.