Saturday, December 5, 2009

Milan, Italy Nov'09

Twickenham. Tick. Murrayfield. Tick. Millenium. Tick. With the All Blacks tour of the Northern Hemisphere now apon us, it was time to knock over another sporting destination & what better place than Sans Siro stadium in Milan against the ever improving Italians. 16 of us flew out on the Friday night after work and returned on Sunday evening. Our day got off to the perfect start when we woke up to see playing on Italian TV the All Whites beat the well reknown giants in soccer, Bahrain to make it into the World cup. Unfortunately the rugby game was not as exciting as the soccer game & the weekend will probably be more remembered for some dodgy sausages outside the stadium pre game 'sausage factor' which resulted in several crook kiwis over the weekend!

Above- Showing our support for the mighty AB's outside Sans Siro

San Siro is typically home to the local football teams AC & Inter Milan. The game was sold out with an attendance of over 80,000 people which is the most they have ever had for a game of rugby in Italy.

Above- The crew from left to right; Jo, Juliette, Cam, Ed, Becs, Amy, Neena, Richard, Nadia, Tom, Kathryn, Hannah & Todd. Because we had bought our tickets from a company dedicated to getting ex pat kiwis AB's tickets we were sitting with a number of other Kiwis.... including a team of 20 who were there on a 30th Birthday party dressed in full body black lycra suits aptly titled the Spand (dex) Blacks- Im not sure what was more entertaining, them or the rugby!

Unfortunately we played out 'B' side for this outing- some noteable omissions from above were DC (Carter) and Hardcore (McCaw). Above- Duomo di Milano from the square

Above-Galleria Vittorio is over 130 years old it houses all the big names Prada, Vuitton etc so Nadia was allowed no where near it.


This is the building where the controvesial painting by Leonardo Davinci (The last supper) is held. People are shown through in 15 minute blocks as you are lead through no less than 3 tiny rooms which helps ensure the air in the main room is maintained to ensure minimal deteriation.