Milano

The flight over was uneventful. Lufthansa was great, but I still didn't sleep for more than half an hour. I normally don't like to drink alcohol when flying (and risk feeling even more parched and headache-y than normal), but I tried to beat myself into sleep with a few glasses of wine. To no avail. When we landed at Malpensa around 9:00 the next morning, everyone on our team was exhausted. Fortunately there were no meetings scheduled for that day, so we checked into our hotel and I took a 2-hour power nap. One experienced traveler among us said that napping was the worst thing you could do. The way he said it, you'd think I'd said I was going to go skin and eat a puppy. I ignored him and took a nap anyway!

After a little rest and a shower, another teammate and I took the Metro 3 stops to the Duomo. Something surreal happened on the way to the Metro...near Central Station we heard a car horn playing "Dixie" a la "The Dukes of Hazzard"! The driver honked his horn 3 separate times, so we were able to identify the source as a white late-model Mercedes. Huh. Anyway I was disappointed to find the front of the Duomo was still under renovation. I managed to get a picture of the side, but I couldn't get very far from it--the buildings on the opposite side of the street don't allow you to put much distance between you and the cathedral. I was struck by how cold it was inside. Outside, it was in the 70s, but inside was easily 10-15 degrees cooler. If I were some ancient Milanese person, I totally would have taken up being really devout just to beat the summer heat!

I had panini or pasta for lunch everyday, and we had some good Italian dinners on our first and last nights in town. The other two nights, we just had heavy hors d'oeuvres in the Hilton's "Executive Lounge" (okay, we had free booze and heavy hors d'oeuvres there every night). Two other teammate chicas and I followed up our hors d'oeuvre meals with walks to the gellato shop. International calories don't count anyway.

Our last night we had a big 'ole time at this place ("Fratelli de Buffala", I believe) specializing in mozarella made from buffaloes (what you and I consider a yak). There was a lot of wine, as well as limoncello and grappe. The grappe tasted a lot like rubbing alcohol, so I only had 3 shots. I was fortunate to be sitting at the end of the table near our friendly and attractive Italian colleague, Maurizio. All the ladies, and one of the men, swooned over his snazzy dressing, lovely accent and blonde-haired-blue-eyed good looks. I think the highlight of the evening was saying goodbye to everyone, and Maurizio did the traditional Italian kiss-on-each cheek farewell. I swore I would never wash my cheeks again, but the advantage of being tipsy when you make such resolutions is that you forget them by the time you walk back to your hotel. All the alcohol was also a great social lubricant for our team. After a few (dozen) drinks, all of us were downright tolerable!

I hate it when restaurants have themed bathroom names. One example that comes to mind is a bar in College Station where they say "Pointers" and "Setters". That makes sense if you think about it, but imagine if you don't speak English. Same deal in the "buffalo" restaurant--they were labeled "Buffali" and "Buffale"! The Hell?!?! A passing kitchen staffer laughed at my puzzlement, but offered no help. Finally I noticed that one of the buffaloes painted on the door was wearing lipstick. I was all about breaking bathroom gender restrictions on this trip, though, so it's surprising I even bothered trying to use the right restroom at that point. At a restaurant the first night, I went in the (only) unmarked door and availed myself of the facilities. Some guy walked into the anteroom while I was washing my hands and looked perplexed and mildly embarrased that he'd evidently entered the ladies room. I said "Don't worry, I think it's coed", which of course he didn't understand because he didn't speak English. So I smiled and waved him towards a stall. He went in, but I don't think he really believed me. Later that week we were at a municipal building for a meeting. I found a bathroom that had a common sink, but separate men's and ladies' water closets. The ladies' door was locked (and nobody was in there), but the men's was open. It was the end of the day, and few people were around so I just ducked into the men's room. Apparently the reason the ladies aren't supposed to use that one is because of the semi-pornographic pictorial instructions on proper toilet use posted in there. Of couse, I took a picture. It's in this group of photos(You'll know it when you see it).

You know, I was in Milan for 5 days and didn't buy a single piece of couture for myself! I got Zach a Missoni tie, but that was it. We didn't have time to make it out to the designers' outlets (which I hear are great), so I decided I could pay full price for something at home without worrying about carrying it home and paying the VAT and whatnot.