Day 1 and 2: Flight and Milano

Ciao! We made it here safely and just had an awesome first day here in Milan. The flight was fine, although we only slept maybe 1 or 2 hours. But we did drink our fill of some good wine so that probably didn`t help too much. As we approached Milan to land, one of the flight attendants handed us a bottle of dessert wine, saying something about not wanting to count it on their liquor sheet and wanting us to have a warm welcome to our Europe adventure. How sweet! This is the second time they`ve done that to us on a flight to Europe!

After landing, we took a 40 minute train ride from the Malpensa airport to the Milano Nord station and walked about 20 minutes to our hotel. It`s perfect, in a great neighborhood area, and a solid 3 star budget traveler hotel. At some points it reminds me of the Upper West Side of NYC with all the families and old ladies walking dogs...but then you see the Milano side of things. People of all gender and ages racing motorcycles down tight streets with streetcars/trams clanging by and small economical cars pushing through. Then, old men riding bikes through a quiet park with huge statues of some king here and Napoleon there.

On the sightseeing list today was Castle Szorza, a beautiful 1300 military fortress which was amazing to behold. We loved seeing the feral cats running through the grassy now-dry moat.

Next, we walked down Via Dante, a pedestrian zone that was carved out of a medieval bunch of streets to celebrate Italian unification, and ended up in front of the impressive Duomo. It seriously is a sight to behold...130 spires and thousands of statues. Got to even creep into the crypt and see an old, dead cardinal encased in silver.

Afterwards, we hit the Galleria Vittorio Emanuele, which is something out of the movies. It is a glass-domed arcade lined with shops, four stories tall, built around 1870. We stopped for a cappuchino (yeah yeah yeah I know it`s a breakfast drink around here but it was 11:30 so I think we were ok) and some biscuits before moving on.

Milan is the fashion capital of the world, so we did the obligatory sidewalk stroll of Via Montenapoleone. The Italians are so well-dressed here, beautiful fashion, neat hair, great style. The other awesome thing is we really feel like the only Americans and not everyone speaks English, which is keeping us on our toes and making us feel a bit ill prepared.

Later, we saw the actual The Last Supper fresco in a tiny church...you walk through a series of chambers that takes you to the right humidity since they took 21 years to restore 500 years of grime and touchups. It was an amazing, if not simple, sight. After that, we ate very Milanese food at Cecco. I had Risotto Milanese, a risotto with saffron, along with Tagliate, which is thin strips of beef lightly seared and sprinkled with rosemary. Ryan had Bolognese (oohhh yeahhh it was amazing) and then a Margerita Pizza, which was quite different from U.S. style...thin homemade crust as always but tomato sauce and sprinkled mozz cheese and only one leaf of basil.

Oh and we started that whole feast off with Parma Ham and fresh Mozzerella cheese - two kinds, one that was more formed and the other more runny. Both were deliciouso!

It`s almost 22:00 (10 p.m.) which is my breaking point for staying awake. I`m enjoying one more glass of red wine (it is sooo cheap here! my gosh) and then off to bed. Wakeup call at 7, train at 9, Venice by 12 to see Silvia. We checked with her today and she`s all setup to see us!

A truly amazing start to a fantastic adventure.

Unique moments of the day:

- Again not knowing if service is included in the bill and probably overpaying.
- Going to dinner at 7 and feeling like old early birds since we were the first people in the restaurant. They go for drinks until about 8 or 8:30 and then go to dinner. By the time we left at 9 the place was packed.
- Ordering the house wine in a carafe and experiencing the best tasting italian wine I have tasted.
- Speaking German to bums who are trying to sell things...they can speak italian and english, but German shuts them up.
- Speaking German when I think I am speaking Italian. Not a good idea.
- Trying to type on an Italian keyboard...even more confusing than a german keyboard but less umlauts

That is all - thanks for the well wishes and we are also happy to hear that Sandy and Rich are making out great with the kids back in Austin!

Ciao and Tschuess!!