B4 In Milan: Setting Up, Smaart School & Racing Fun
The B4 Roadshow team arrived in Milan, Italy around
1 pm, and upon figuring out that our hotel was near the famous Monza Motor Raceway, we set out on what we thought would be a quick stroll over to see it.
I should mention here that Bernie is a huge racing fan (shown here with Ferrit at a statue at the track), so for him this was more like a pilgrimage. After about and hour and a half of walking, it started to feel like Gilligan's Island to the rest of us: "A three-hour tour, a three-hour tour..."
Actually, we ended up walking though the Monza city park and it was absolutely gorgeous. We saw the Royal Palace at Monza, built by the Hapsburgs in 1777, and then, the location where the last king of Italy, Umberto I, was assasinated in 1900. We also saw some interesting art in the park that the boys promptly named "The Wicker Bundt Cake." (Pretty accurate description, according to the photo at left.)
When we reached the Monza raceway, we were thrilled to discover that there was a bike race going on that day and that the track was open. Bernie kissed the ground. I took pix. And an hour and a half later we stumbled back to our hotel, legs aching and discovered that we had walked about 10 km (6 miles), round trip.
The next morning, Jamie kicked off Smaart School for a full class of 14 people (most of them pictured here), hosted at EAW Italian distributor Exhibo's facilities in Monza. Exhibo just moved into new facilities back in November, and the new digs are really nice. The class went swimmingly and 14 more people went out into the world a little "Smaarter"... (Sorry, I'll stop.)
While Jamie was teaching, the rest of us traveled to the Alcatraz Music Island in Milan to set up for the B4 Bootcamp and Tradeshow slated the next day.
Alcatraz is a famous live music venue in downtown Milan. The facilities were great, as was the staff.
Both Ferrit and Moray had actually done gigs there back in the mid-90s with Ronnie James Dio, so they were immediately familiar with the place.
Also, this venue presented much better acoustics than our previous two stops, so there was no battling seven-second delays and the like.
In the evening, the wonderful folks from Exhibo took us out to dinner and we watched as the Milan soccer team beat Manchester United to move on to the final of the European soccer championship. And Bernie ordered a French fry pizza... Check out this photo at right - it really does exist. (The B4 Roadshow continues to work its way through Europe - click here for the schedule. And in the meantime, below are more photos of the stop in Milan.)
