The Mosquitos of Milan

After a nice and quick two days in Florence, we went to church Sunday morning (getting lost again) then drove to Bologna. I assumed that this was the place where bologna (pronounced boloney by the uneducated American public) was created. Not something I would want to be known for. We arrived quite early at the hostel on the edge of town and they told us how to drive into town. It was Sunday and this was cheaper than the bus since parking was free. So we drove in, parked, and wandered. Bologna is actually very well known for their culinary expertise, so we eventually sat down in one of the few open cafés and ate a two plate meal. We each had two courses. Stuffed is a word to describe it. During this trip I have started to feel sick with the amount of food. I usually graze through the day, so meals, especially large meals is something my body is not used to. We had just planned on wandering around town and skipping dinner. But that was before we met up with Ricky. Ricky lives in Bologna and is a friend of Leti, Kitz's best friend. So he walked us around and we did get some amazing gelato and ended up in the Modern Art Museum of Bologna. Ricky works in fashion and specializes in pattern making. He and Kitz hit it off like a rocket. We spent most of the day talking and walking.

A quick break to mention how awesome the modern art museum was. It was quite amazing and I may have that opinion since I love modern and classical art. One of my favorite exhibits was this room of large panels done by Mossimo Kaufmann. He uses an eyedropper to administer the paint to the panel and I loved it. Some of them looked like magically enchanted computer boards and some looked like twinkling stars. It was a beautiful museum. After that visit, Ricky tried to find us a restaurant he recommended, but we went to three and none were open. So eventually we found a supermarket that was about to close and ran in for some ingredients that we took back to Ricky's flat and he made us dinner. I was not ready for it. After lunch I would have been fine fasting for the rest of the day. But I ate more, enough to make me feel sick. It was good, but too much food is too much.

So we returned to the hostel and slept before the drive to Milan where I met the mosquitos. We drove and arrived in Milan early enough to still go out and do things like see the Doma. We drive to Leti's apartment and dropped off our stuff then hit the town. We had already done some shopping in Florence, but now we got even more. With Leti and her friend Aida, we hit the town. Aida was crazy, and even more so than usual because she just had an amazing job offer while we were standing with her. So we shopped then had aperitifs. In Milan the way aperitif goes is you pay for your drink then help yourself to an all you can eat buffet. It was good food but nothing spectacular and since I don't drink alcohol, I got this drink that was the most subtly flavored milkshake I have ever had. I can't even remember what it was, but it was amazing.

A break to talk about ice cream or gelato in Italy. When we first got to Florence, we both got gelatos. But we were used to the small servings we had been given in France. Small but tasty. Now we were given enormous amounts of gelato in hot weather. Kitz got a cone, but I got a cup. Nevertheless our arms were both covered in melted gelato by the end. While we got a small serving of gelato the next day and some excellent gelato in Bologne, we were still cautious after the first gelato adventure. We ended up pouring water from my water bottle over our arms to clean up. But after that milkshake and the gelato we had in Crema two days later, Italy satisfied my ice cream needs. We did have some gelato in Milan the next day, but it wasn't anything that blew me away. We met Leti's sister for aperitifs that night after doing laundry and wandering. We went to this small vegetarian restaurant and the buffet had amazing food. By this point I counted my mosquito bites. Sixteen on one leg and twelve on another. The total eventually reached 33 and I was wearing insect repellant this whole time. The first day we were there we all sat it some grass because we were in a park, but after this short sit-down, the mosquitos followed us and never left me. I've never had so many close friends.

Our final day in Milan, we actually left and went to Crema, where Leti grew up. We got up a bit late and then drove to Crema, had lunch and took naps. Kitz slep for most of the afternoon which was good since she was going to be driving most of that night. We finally got outside and had some amazing gelato and then saw an old church. We got back to Milan just in time to meet Leti's brother and sister for a Napolese pizza dinner. The pizza was amazing even for a 4 am breakfast and it was our final goodbye to Milan before we started to drive back to Paris that night.