A Much Belated Milan Conclusion

Sorry it has taken so long to finish this--after getting back from our Fulbright trip Saturday evening, S and I were both exhausted, and spent most of Sunday running errands and relaxing. Without further ado, an account of our last day in Milan!

After a delicious dinner at the Eritrean restaurant Saturday evening (and it was every bit as good as Ethiopian/Eritrean--is there really a difference?--I've had in DC) and a good night's rest, we got ready for another day on the town. S had wanted to check out some of the clothes shops in the Galleria Vittorio Emmanuelle II, the large shopping arcade outside of Il Duomo, so we popped in a few stores. Milan is a major fashion capital, and in the Galleria brands like Louis Vuitton, Gucci, and Prada have stores. Needless to say, they were too rich for our blood, but it was fun to look all the same.

From there, we headed yet again to the Duomo, this time to climb the narrow staircase to the top to take some photos of the spires. While it was sunny, the topmost level of the roof was closed due to ice. Nonetheless, the view was spectacular and I even got a good pic of S. Hopefully tomorrow evening we'll get all our Milan photos organized, labelled, and online.

From the Duomo we headed to the National Museum of Science and Technology. This very impressive museum has multiple hands-on labs dealing with several aspects of technology, including bio-ethics, robotics, and holograms. Most of them weren't open, but we still got to see what for us was the main attraction--a collection of models of machines based on descriptions and blueprints by Leonardo Da Vinci. You really get an appreciation for Da Vinci's genius when, after viewing his most famous religious painting, you then observe several of his scientific breakthroughs. He really was one of the most gifted minds of the last five hundred years.

After a "quick" lunch at the Galleria (which actually took forever, although thankfully the food was better this time), we scoped out a street that supposedly offered some bargains on clothes (not according to our pocketbook!) and then went to the Palazzo Reale, a museum which had two separate visiting exhibits; one a Magritte retrospective, and the other a collections of Impressionist works. We opted for the Magritte, which I enjoyed but I think wasn't quite to S's taste.

After the museum exhibit, we walked around a bit and took pictures of a beautiful church with a tower (which wasn't mentioned in our guidebook and which unfortunately didn't have a name plaque anywhere visible), before going to dinner at a Japanese restaurant we had noticed earlier. Since it was aperitivo time, we ordered drinks--a cosmo for S and a Pimms N. 1 Cup for me. Both drinks were good, but tasted slightly off due to some different ingredients; the Pimms, for example, did not have any ginger ale. With the drinks, as per Milan custom, we received some free spring rolls and other appetizers with our dinner. S ordered a vegetable stir-fry with noodles, and I had a beef noodle curry. Both were quite tasty, although a bit salty. Oddly, a tv on the wall next to us played a Simply Red dvd the whole time we were there. Does anyone actually listen to that stuff? Anyway, after paying the bill we took an evening stroll before heading back to the hotel room, ending our last day in Milan.

After three long but very enjoyable days of sight-seeing, we left Milan with mixed feelings. We felt pretty tired from walking all over the city, and found Milan a bit expensive, but weren't necessarily ready to go back to Bucharest--but that is what we had to do. After an uneventful bus ride back to Bergamo airport (during which we got to see the Italian Alps--beautiful!), we waited for our turn to board. Bergamo is a much nicer airport than Baneasa, and lo and behold, Romanians can actually form lines when forced to, so check-in was much less chaotic. A few hours later, we were back in Bucharest, for two more days of the regular routine before the Fulbright orientation--more on that later!--B

Oh, and happy b-day Nicole!