Milano on Tuesday 2-5-08

Last night we had dinner at the hotel and it was fabulous. Jan ordered a really good Italian red wine that perfectly complemented our pasta meals. Jan is Jan Hillman an Englishwomen from London who now works out of the UPS office in Brussels, Belgium and who is Heidi’s European teammate. Jan is our gourmet food and wine guide. I don’t think she’s ever not know what something was food-wise. She is well traveled and at one point flew regularly from London to Singapore for her job. At that time she was an international events planner. She told us how in the course of her job she had dinner with Princess Diana’s Father. She hob-knobbed all over Europe in the company of high society. After her son was born, she joined UPS in order to be closer to home. She was married to a journalist who also traveled early on. He died seven years ago. Jan’s son just passed the bar in England and is now a practicing attorney in London. Jan is my age so we automatically have some things in common. She is attractive, a snappy dresser, a good conversationalist, and fun to be around.
Jan and Heidi often talk business before dinner and at breakfast, so I’m learning tons about UPS. I told Heidi I’m going to call or email the bead company I order from and suggest they use UPS. I’m giving them Heidi’s name. I might be a UPSer yet.
Did I say that the breakfast is included with the room for both of us? Good news for me. So when I’m out and about I can sit at a nice outdoor café and have a cappuccino and watch the world go by and not spend money on lunch.. Usually it’s at the Café Duomo where the waiter now knows me. On Monday I told Heidi that I thought he recognized me, but couldn’t find that to be possible with the hundreds and hundreds of people that pass through, but yesterday he said hello as if we were old friends and shook my hand.
Today was castle day. This time I had to take three trains to get there. It was so worth it. Here picture-taking was allowed and I got some good shots of the amazing frescoed ceilings. The carved stone pillars and stone sculptures are beyond belief. Room after room of paintings, sculptures and other artifacts from the middle ages boggle the mind. I’ve been gathering up brochures and information printed in English so that I can look back and try to absorb all that I have seen. I think I’ve mentioned sensory overload and it continues.
On Monday night when I got back to my last train stop and had to get the bus I asked for directions to the bus stop. I was on the wrong side of the street. When I got to where I thought I was supposed to be I didn’t see signs indicating destinations so I asked an older gentleman if the 925 bus went to Milano Due. Not only did he not speak English, he was almost deaf. He did some pointing and I walked in the direction he indicated and he followed me and proceeded in very loud, animated Italian to try and convince to young ladies who were at the stop to help me. We’d already covered it before he caught up and finally he understood that I would be O.K. I indicated to the girls with sign language that I loved him because he was so cute and with lots of giggles they agreed.
That was Monday. On Tuesday night I found the stop just fine, but in the morning when I was on the bus something didn’t seem right. My stop never came up and we were sitting at a rest point and since I was the only one left on the bus the driver turned and looked at me like why are you still on the bus. He didn’t speak English so I showed him on the map where I was supposed to get off and he said this bus didn’t stop there. This bus did go to Goppa a train station three stops farther along, so I stayed on and rode all the way around and past the hotel again and on to Goppa.
So that night I was thinking maybe there were two busses at night like in the morning. It was dark and raining cats and dogs and the windows were fogged up, so I was counting stops, but since the first night they haven’t come out right. All of a sudden I saw the green neon sign of the Jolly Milano and I jumped up. I was a little late in ringing the bell and it didn‘t sound, but the driver stopped anyway because he saw me.. As I’m jumping off he said to me, “You gotta ringa!”