Italian F1 Grand Prix

A couple weekends ago I checked off another of my must-do's from The List. Friday after work I high-tailed it home, threw some clothes into a piece of carry-on, and headed for the airport. After a very short layover in Amsterdam I was on my way to Milan, Italy.



Saturday was a free day, so I took the metro train to the city center for a day of wandering. The desk clerk at the hotel told me to get off the metro when I saw a church on the left. According to him, "You couldn't miss it." So when I saw the "church" I got off to check it out. It was impressive. What I would only come to realize later in the day I had gotten off at the wrong "church". While the church I initially saw was impressive, the real church, the Duomo, was unbelievable. Most impressive was the color. Surrounded by dark, old buildings, this cathedral and its near white color seemed to glow. Easily the most impressive cathedral I've seen so far. I guess that shouldn't be surprising since I wasn't too far from the center of the Catholic universe. As it turned out I was there in time for the Saturday evening service. So I stayed and sat in on the service. The rest of downtown Milan was very cool. I spent some time in what is their Central Park. Not too far away is a huge, thousand-year-old fortress. And of course the shopping options are never ending. For those of you who don't know, Milan is the fashion world's ground zero. For the women reading this post, specifically my sisters-in-law, you would have thought you had died and gone to heaven. I'm thinking all credit cards would have been maxed out by lunch.

Now to the reason for the weekend's trip, the Italian F1 Grand Prix. I woke up Sunday morning with no idea how I was going to get to the track. So I decided I would wait in the lobby and ask he first person I saw that looked like they were headed to the race for a ride. As it turned out, the first two to exit the elevator were two Polish brothers. My day was about to get interesting.

The first could not speak English so he pointed me to his brother who could speak just enough for us to have a difficult conversation. Even then I had to motion with my hands that I was looking for a ride. His response was the English equivalent to, "Why not." Turns out they were in a larger group of about 7 friends, all from Poland. When I saw their car I knew I had hit the jackpot. We drove to the race in a Mercedes Benz CL 600. This is a V12, 500hp near $200,000 car. To top it off he said, "My other car's a Lamborghini." (And he wasn't kidding. In the back seat were Lamborghini hats). Despite the language barrier, before reaching the track I was one of the gang and they were buying me drinks. At the track we split ways, but arranged a place for meeting after the race so I could get a ride back to the hotel.

Despite the light rain, the race was great. My general admission seats were marginal, but I decided that you don't go to an F1 race for the action on the track. For the most part these races are 200mph parades. You go for the sounds. I'm convinced the sound of these cars is one of the greatest sounds on Earth. I couldn't have been more than 50 feet from the track and the sound was so loud. It is nearly painful to your ears, uncomfortable to your teeth, but exhilarating to your heart... well worth the price of admission.