Wedding Carla & Inema in Milano

What a weekend - in Milano!
It started extreeeemely early and with my birthday and ended with a lovely weeding of Carla and Inema.

On Friday 27th of September, my birthday, we got up pretty early to catch our flight at 9 a.m. from Oslo Torp(!) to Milan, which meant we had to leave the house and to take the shuttle bus to the airport at around 4:15 a.m.
By the time we had landed in Bergamo and had made our way to Milano city it was already early afternoon. For the weekend we would be staying over at a friend of Marco, Pietro, who studied and lives/works in Milano. However, he was still at work when we arrived so we left our luggage at the storage of the central station and did some sightseeing.

Very classical: Piazza del Duomo with "Il Duomo di Milano".

Right next to it, the Galleria Vittorio Emanuele II - beautiful, but not the right place for our wallets.

But just in a parallel street of it, Marco knew a super nice ristorante/pizzeria where Marco invited me for a pizza lunch for my birthday :-)

After that we picked up our luggage again and went to Pietro's place to "check in". After a little rest and some chatting we went out for dinner in town. Marco took me to a very good Roman osteria close to Porta Romana, called "Giulio Pane e Ojo". A place absolutely to be recommended. Here we met also Jana and Helder who had also arrived in Milano for the wedding.

So together with Marco, his friend Pietro, Jana, Helder and - a lot of - good food and wine we celebrated my 31st birthday. The evening ended with a surprise cake :-)

I guess it wasn't too late that we went back home to Pietro's place as the wedding was on the programme for the next day.

Saturday 28th of September 2013 - THE day for Carla and Inema. The wedding ceremony took place at the Basilica Sant'Ambrogio, right in the city centre of Milano. Here we met also with Jana and Helder before the ceremony started.

  

 

 

Jana and me...

 

 ...and our men :-)

 

 

The groom and his witness.

"Yes, I will!" :-)

 

LOL - Carla, what has been passing your mind when putting on that expression?

 

 

 

For the wedding reception they had chosen a beautiful kind of agriturismo some 30 minutes drive outside Milano. The place seemed perfect, with the garden around and the great food they offered.

 

 

 

 

Time to start with the aperitivo. 

   

Special guest :-)

The "Norwegians" - at least the friends from Carla's and Inema's time in Oslo.

Lunch time!

The seating was arranged at tables named after typical Kenyan/African animals. Marco and I were - unfortunately not with the others from Norway - at the Italian table of the "Ngiri".

The wedding cake - in bright African colours! And after the lunch a rather pleasantly light dessert instead of an even more filling cream gateau.

"Confetti" - a typical Italian custom which I  will not further explain here.

Party time!

 

What a nice wedding party this was!!! Carla and Inema, a wonderful couple, a great day in perfect locations, delicious food (and not too much as it is usually the case on Italian weddings when you just feel like exploding after being over-stuffed with food). The wedding was certainly big, but not at all anonymous. Simply a memorable day, for us and I hope and assume also for the married couple.

Some background information at this point:
We (that is basically Jana and I) met Carla and Inema in Norway and became friends with them especially when they had moved to Oslo. Inema was already friends with Helder when living up in the north of Norway in Tromsø for several years. When I met Carla then for the first time on a visit in Tromsø I'd say we were on the same length right away :-)
Some time later both of them moved down to Oslo; the far north wasn't made for Carla with her southern roots (Italy) :-) So the two gave it a try with Oslo. And with Jana and me they already had two people there they knew :-)
Unfortunately the life they had started together in Oslo didn't last too long. For some stupid, bureaucratic immigration reasons, Inema's visa wasn't prolonged and he was thus sent back to where his roots are: to Kenya. Difficult times on distance followed for them until they could both start over again in Italy and get married :-)
Carla and Inema are a lovely couple and I wish them all the best for their life together!

After the wedding we still had most of the Sunday 29th of September in town which we used for some more sightseeing. I had been to Milano before, but I hadn't visited the Castello Sforzesco before.

 

 

 

 

Parco Sempione

Arco della Pace

Later on we joint Jana and Helder in some pizzeria which we were recommended by an Italian, i.e. Milanese friend of them. Because of this friend being Italian, I couldn't understand how he could recommend such a crappy place. This was a "fast food" pizzeria (in terms of pizza quality as well as location atmosphere), with pizza by the piece. American style. Maybe if that recommendation came from a foreigner I could manage to understand and excuse, but how an Italian could ever consider such place an absolute MUST, I simply don't get it!

Nevertheless, we had some lunch among friends before each of us had to head off in different directions again: Jana and Helder for some holidays in Germany (if I remember well) and Marco and I back to Oslo.

It was quite late on that Sunday night that we were actually back in Oslo. But it wouldn't even take a week until I was going to be in Milano again, then for work. Beginning of October I needed to attend a workshop there, but that's another story (but not worth a post).