Milano

The space key onthis keyboard is broken, I'll likely have some problems with words sticking together.

Was in Venice the last two days, first one alone and the second with Liz Kays and her friends. First day I made the mistake of walking around at 2:30... hottest time of the day. spent a few hours walking around, then found my hotel back on the mainland in Mestre. Met Liz the next morning at breakfast, then we were going to go to church in St.Marks, but they wouldn't let me in with my bag. So, I waited around outside and practiced speed-shooting pictures with my camera. It's remarkably hard to take a zoomed picture of a pidgeon in midair, you have to find one that's flying, zoom in and track it at the same time. I got a few good ones.

Then had lunch at an old seafoodplace, had shrimp scampi and calamari. Quite good. Spent a few hours walking around the city talking and eating gelato together, saw a sting of street vendors. This time they were caught and the police got all of their stuff. Then I left, three hour train ride to Milan. Arrived around 21:30, got to my hostel about 22:30. Hostel is in a planned community, which is kinda cool. Designed for about 5000 inhabitants, it's meant to provide a relaxing, enviromentally sound place to live. Lots of green, but what fascinating me was that every street, besides a few main ones, was a dead end. The goal is to cut down on traffic, and encourage walkways for pedestrians. It worked... great place to be.

Played Munchkin Impossible with some Asian travelers, which proved very difficult as none of them spoke English, two only spoke Japanese and one spoke Korean. We had to use a sheet of paper to right everything down in numbers to do all the events. Great fun, though.


Monday wasthe wrongday to come to Milan - everything closes down, museum wise. Also, it's raining. Fortunately a really cool museum was still open - Museo d'Arte e Scienza. It showcased a lot of Da Vinci's creations and artwork, as well as different types of art from around the world. Wasn't big, unfortunately, but had a really cool focus on showing you how do determine true antiques from fakes. I got to play with fire when one hands-on activitiy let me use a blowtorch to heat a screwdriver tip to be red hot and poke it into two identical objects, one made of ivory and the other of plastic. The ivory just left a small black mark while the plastic gave way and let off a bad smell. They also talked about identifying originals of everything from paintings to books to rugs to watches to guns to glass. Never really seen much of this stuff before, and it was a lot of fun to learn about.

Love Milan. Great city - wide open streets, lots of green areas to walk, smart, polite, professional citizens. Milan is the business & economical capital of Italy, and it shows. The upscale shops are incredible, some display nothing in their windows and won't let you in unless you've been invited to shop there.

Now I'm in an internet cafe spending way more than usual per hour, which seems typical for everything in Milan. American radio is playing, and I need to figure out how to burn the 6 hours in a rainy city between now and my flight to Dublin. I should get another book,I think.

Can't wait to be in an English speaking country...