Great food and wonderful company

Monday: Monday morning I was so exhausted from the weekend that I missed the first half of my French class – however, we always do student presentations during this time, so I really didn’t miss that much. I arrived at class right after the break at 10am. After class, Dana and I went to go some Chinese food for lunch and then around for a while trying to find a tram stop for me to take to head back home. After that, I spent a little time doing some work at home before heading over to the cooking class that Barbara had arranged for us. We had a cooking class with the same women during the orientation week and enjoyed it so much that we were able to convince Barbara to organize a second time. However, it was hard to arrange everyone’s schedules and so Dana and I ended up having our cooking class with two girls from UVA (Katherine, Janee’s friend that we had met when we met to see the Hunger Games, and another girl) as well as two other girls from Brown. Everyone was really nice and we all had a great time hanging out together. We had a great class. I love the woman who runs these classes. She is so sweet and we make such delicious food. On Monday, we made Cervelles de Canut, a Lyonnais specialty. It made with this cheese/yogurt thing, whipped cream (no sugar), chives, shallots, garlic and tarragon and we ate it with some delicious fresh bread. For the next course, we had Poulet Flambe a l’estragon (tarragon chicken). Finally for dessert we had a wonderfully light and delicious tart with marscapone and blueberries (that were reduced down in olive oil). Overall it was a delicious meal, a fabulous class, and a wonderful time. 

       

      

Tuesday: As usual, I woke up and headed to the market a la Croix-Russe. I had a little bit more success talking with clients, however, it is still quite difficult because everyone is always trying to buy stuff and move on, or sometimes with the people who aren’t, the older people at the market, sometimes their hearing is really bad and they struggle making out what I am trying to ask them, and end up giving me some pretty strange answers… After another lovely day of photographing at the market, I headed home for some lunch. After lunch I spent some time working on my presentation on the old hospital in Lyon before heading to my history of Lyon class. I had a relatively interesting class ( I really enjoy the more recent part of the history of Lyon) and then I headed back home for dinner. Following a delicious dinner of quenelles I spent the rest of the night working on my presentation.

Wednesday: Wednesday morning, I went over to Dana’s apartment because we had to watch a movie together that our professor had lent us for our French class. It was a pretty awful movie because literally nothing happened, but it was at least nice to get to watch a movie together for once. After that I went to tennis class, which was enjoyable as always since it was such a gorgeous day. After that I came back home, took a quick shower and spent the rest of the afternoon reading and working more on my presentation (it certainly takes a lot more time to prepare something like this in French than it would in English!). After that, I headed to Place Bellecour to meet up with the other students on my program for our dinner with a French family that was arranged by Lyon International. The family had a little girl named Mathilde, an 17 year old daughter and a 13 year old boy (who was away skiing). We had a fabulous night. The little girl was absolutely adorable and we had a ton of fun playing with her, drawing and playing with her 8 guinea pigs (they tried desperately to give us one of them since they had just had 5 babies about three weeks ago). For dinner we had chicken quenelles with mushrooms followed by a large cheese course and then a chocolate cake with strawberries, vanilla ice cream and whipped cream. We stayed in their house hanging out with the little girl and talking until almost one in the morning. Overall, it was a fantastic evening!!

Thursday: I woke up and my alarm didn’t go off, so I missed going to the school Thursday morning to teach English. After that I woke up and headed to meet my tutor at the library. We worked together on my presentation about the old hospital in Lyon (l’Hotel-Dieu) for over 2 hours and then I spent another hour by myself photocopying and finding books before returning back to the apartment. I had just a few hours before I had to leave to leave to go to the airport. I made some lunch, took a shower, packed, spent about half an hour discussing politics with the women who comes to help with the housework and skyped with Seth before heading over to take the Rhone Express to the airport to go to Brussels!!

Weekend in Lyon – aka the market and the Van Heeswyck’s

I had an absolutely fabulous weekend. I had originally planned to spend some time with my host family and try to get a lot of work done. I certainly spent a lot of time with my host family, but I unfortunately got pretty much nothing done in terms of school work….

Friday: I had a leisurely morning and woke up in time to have a late breakfast/early lunch. Afterwards, I met up with Dana, Janee and a few of Janee’s friends to go see the Hunger Games. At a lot of the theaters in France they have showings of American movies in VO (version original) and VF (version Français), so we were able to see the Hunger Games in English the same day that it came out in the states. Unfortunately, I haven’t yet had the chance to read the books, but Dana and Janee convinced me to join them and I am very happy that I did. I was blown away by the movie and I can’t wait to read the second and third books when I get back home this summer! I can’t believe I have been missing out on this great series for all this time. After the movie, Dana and I walked around a bit looking for some flats for her to buy. By that time, it was almost time for dinner and I headed back home. I had a fabulous meal because basically all of the Van Heeswyck family was in Lyon. I met Delphine who lives in London, who was the only family member I hadn’t met yet. After dinner we hung out for a bit before I went to bed.

 

     

     






 

Saturday: It was such a beautiful morning that I decided to wake up early and go for a short run. After taking a quick shower, I headed over to the market a la Croix-Russe. This was my first time going to the market on the weekend. Saturdays are the busiest and most important days at the market and I was really excited to get to experience it. Also, on Saturdays, at the top of the market there is a smaller organic market. It was really interesting to see the differences in the people shopping there, the vendors and the products in the organic market than the rest of the market. Also, I was surprised because I expected to see only producers at the organic market, but there were certainly a few resellers as well. I spent a good four hours in the market taking pictures, talking to vendors, and beginning to discuss to other clients in the markets. I took almost 400 pictures Saturday at the market!! While I love taking pictures and talking to the vendors, I was definitely a little bit anxious about talking to the other clients and it was certainly much harder than talking to the vendors. Also, normally I do some weekly shopping at the market when I go, but all the vendors (and even one old man doing his shopping) were so generous that I did some shopping without spending even a cent. I cam home with a huge baguette, a bag of coconut cookies and about 20 varieties of apples. Once the market starts to die down, I usually  head home. However, on Saturday, I stayed to watch what happens as it closes. There are laws in France that allow anyone to come take food that is left over at the end of the market. It was really interesting to watch and take some pictures of the food that is left and the people who come to scavenge through the boxes that the vendors leave. Overall it was a really fabulous day at the market.

    

I had told my host mom in the morning that I wouldn’t make it home in time for lunch, however, when I arrived home a little after 2pm, the family was just having dessert. They had saved me some of the lasagna that they had for lunch and I came to join them to have some lunch. At this point, my host family was talking about their plans for the rest of the day and they invited me to join them to go on an excursion to an abbey in Bourg-en-Bresse (about 60km north of Lyon). We all (my host mom Martine, host dad Marc, host brothers Thibaut, Francois and Edouard, and my host sisters Delphine and Aude – and her husband Gregoire) piled into 2 cars and headed out. However, after about 5 minutes of driving along the Rhone, the traffic was at a standstill. The autoroute we needed to take to head to Bourg-en-Bresse was closed, and we basically had to sit in the car waiting for the traffic to move for almost an hour. By that point, we realized that we were not going to be able to go where we were originally planning to go. So, we changed plans and headed to a lake/park called Miribel just outside Lyon. It was a beautiful sunny day and a perfect day to spend in a park. We played a game where we all put two names of well-known people in a hat and then the first round we had to get people to guess the names by explaining them. The next round we only got to say one word to get the others to guess the person, and the final round we had to mime in order to explain the person. It was a hilariously funny game. At one point I had to mime and I managed to get them to guess three names by pointing to me to mean people who came from the states and pointing to Delphine to explain Margaret Thatcher since Delphine lives in London. So ridiculous. Next we played a game where we broke into two teams and each person was assigned a number. Then we put a shoe in the middle and Gregoire (the cripple) took turns calling out numbers. The goal was to grab the shoe and run back to your side without being touched by the other team. It got pretty crazy at some points, but I won the last point of the game for my team! After that, we got back home and my host family went to Mass for half an hour while I took a shower and got ready for my party. Once they got home, we had a little champagne aperitif and then had a great dinner all together.

After that, I met up with my friend Gregoire who is a medical student in Lyon to go to the Medicine Gala. It is an annual big formal party for all the medical students. Luckily he had a car so we didn’t have to worry about getting on the shuttle buses with everyone else. The Gala was about 20 kilometers outside of Lyon. So I was in charge of the GPS and giving the directions. The place for the Gala was honestly in the middle of nowhere. At one point we were driving along tiny little residential roads with no street lights. Gregoire kept asking me are you sure we’re going in the right direction, and I kept insisting that I had no idea but that is what the GPS was showing. Luckily, we eventually made it there. It was a great party. Gregoire’s friends met us there and they were all really nice. At one point, I was speaking to a friend of Gregoire’s sister and he started to try to speak to me in English. Of course I could understand him with no problem, but I actually had some difficulty responding back to him in English. I had been speaking all day in French to vendors in the market, to my host family and to other students at the party, and I just couldn’t get my mind to switch into English mode. The phrases coming out of my mouth just sounded awkward and translated and I had to embarrassingly switch back into French. Kind of exciting, but also super embarrassing and ridiculous! We had a great time dancing and listening to mostly American music (as usual). After that, another friend of his sister tried, of course unsuccessfully, to convince me to kiss him. It was hilarious how well laid out his arguments were for a rather ridiculous proposal… Then, at one point, one of Gregoire’s friends asked me if I found it annoying that I could understand all the lyrics of the songs that I listen to. I found this question so unbelievably hilarious. French kids are just so used to listening to English songs whose lyrics they don’t fully understand, that this girl couldn’t grasp why I would want to actually understand the lyrics. So funny.  At about 3 in the morning, we decided we really needed to leave despite the arguments by his friends. We finally made it back to my place around 3:30am, however, due to the time change, it was actually 4:30 in the morning, so I made it to sleep around 5am.

 

Sunday: Since we had not been successful in our attempt to go to Bourg-en-Bresse on Saturday, we had made plans to reattempt our excursion at 9am on Sunday morning, therefore, I woke up at 8am (only 3 hours after going to sleep….). We headed out and got to the Brou Monastery at around 10:30am. We took a nice tour of the Church. We saw some cool tombs of Philbert de Beau – Duc de Savoie who had a normal death statue on top of the tomb and a naked- almost Crist-like representation underneath that would serve him well in heaven. Also, the crests that show the genealogy of Philbert de Beau and Margeurite d’Autriche were really quite interesting in terms of the history that they represent since they are original from when the church was built in the 15^th century (on the site of two prior churches beginning from the 10^th century). 

After that, the Monastery closed at noon for lunch, so we all headed outside for a picnic. Martine had said that we would have just a little picnic. However, it was really a rather elaborate picnic in my opinion – I mean, come on, we had at least 4 different courses. How could that be just a little picnic? After that, all the kids organized a little baseball game (I mean if you have 5 kids in the family, it’s not that hard). We played with a bat made from a stick and a ball made from the pit of an avocado. It was definitely make-shift, but it was a ton of fun. Next, we headed back inside to see the museum in the monastery. They had some beautiful 16^th-18^th century pieces, that were contrasted with some interesting modern pieces that were not received all that well by my host family. After that, Martine and Marc left to take Delphine to the airport, and the rest of us hung out for a while longer playing baseball and sunbathing. It was just such a gorgeous day that it was hard to leave. We eventually rounded everyone up and headed back to the house. By this time, I was so exhausted because of how little I had slept the night before that I had to take a nap before dinner. We had a nice refreshing salad with pine nuts (among other things) for dinner. After that, I did a little bit of work (for the first time all weekend) before heading to bed. 

Another great week in Lyon

Sunday: After getting home from my fabulous trip to Milan I unpacked and took a shower. I was sitting in my room just working on some stuff for class and I saw such a fabulously beautiful sunset. The colors were spectacular, but it was more the way the light reflected off of the luminously puffy clouds that was so great. I whipped out my camera and tried to capture at least a little of the scene. After that, I made some hamentaschen dough since I planned to make them for my host family to try and to bring to Monday night dinner. We had a delicious lasagna for dinner and then I skyped a bit and did a little work before going to sleep.

Monday: Monday morning I woke up early as usual for SLM. After class, Dana and I found a Chinese place for lunch. We had been craving Asian food forever, but it seems like everything is always closed Mondays, which is unfortunately when we always go to get lunch, so we were pretty happy to find a place and were quite happy that the food was very good and not too expensive. After lunch, went home to get some work done and to make hamentaschen for Monday night dinner. I know that I was about a week and a half behind, but it’s been busy and I wanted my host family and everyone at Monday night dinner to learn a little bit about Jewish culture and I figured that Purim was a fun holiday to introduce them to. Monday night dinner was very fun and everyone really enjoyed the hamentaschen.

Tuesday: Rather than waking up at the crack of dawn to go to the market, I decided to explore the end of the market and so I was able to sleep in for the first time in almost 2 weeks which I was pretty excited about. After a late breakfast, I headed over to the market. I had a very successful day: took tons of pictures (at least a few of them were good…), talked to a bunch more vendors and bought some delicious strawberries and apples. I always enjoy the ambiance of the market and it was really interesting to see the differences as the market is ending. After that, I stopped back at home to grab a small lunch before heading over to class. In class on Tuesday, it was the first day of student presentations and it was really helpful for me to see what the other students did and to hear what the teacher thought of these presentations to better understand what is expected of me for my oral presentation in a few weeks (which I really need to work on now!). After class, I actually came home and successfully worked on my project and edited some of my market photos before dinner.

Wednesday: Wednesday morning I woke up late again (really enjoying being able to sleep in!) before heading over to my tennis class. It was a gorgeous day and I had a wonderful day of playing outside. After class, I felt really good and was really excited about the beautiful weather, so I decided to go for a short run once I got back home. I guess most people here just run along the river, but since I wasn’t running that far, I just ran from my house down to the river, so I definitely got quite a few stares from people…. After my wonderful run, I took a shower and met up with everyone else on my program for a quick dinner. Jose had decided to take us all out to dinner to apologize for the joke he played on us. He had convinced us all on Tuesday that he was being sent home from France due to various issues including getting in a bar fight. We were all freaking out and worried and he felt awful for carrying it on for so long, so we all went to grab dinner. I wasn’t all that hungry so I decided to try to convince the waiter to let me get the kid’s menu. I tried to say that I was about the size of a 12 year old, so he really should let me. While eventually this was unsuccessful, he did agree to make me just a small pizza, so that was good. After dinner, we all headed over to the wine and cheese tasting that Barbara was hosting for us as well as the French students who are going to be studying abroad at Penn next year. We tried a white wine, 2 reds (including the well-known St. Joseph from the Rhone region) as well as a Muscat that was delicious. We had a great night and all the French students seem really nice. Hopefully, we’ll be able to arrange an event for them next fall at Penn!

Thursday: Thursday morning we headed back to the high school to teach English. This week the teacher asked us to have them prepare arguments and then act out scenes together. The topic was a kid trying to convince her parents to let her go to a party. It was hilarious to here the arguments the kids came up and I really enjoyed it. After that I headed over to campus to meet up with Annick to meet about my independent study. We went through my pictures and laid out a really good plan of what I need to accomplish before the next time that we meet, which was really helpful. It’s going to be a lot of work, but at least I have a plan of what I need to do. Then, before headed over to class I grabbed a quick lunch and sat outside to eat it to enjoy the beautiful weather. Class was interesting and we continued talking about the chronology of laws and policies relating to health in relation to the political history of France. After class, I came home for a bit before meeting up with Dana, Eduardo and Janee to go see Guignol. Guignol is a puppet that was created in la Croix Russe by one of the silk workers. Shows based on his character have been put on to this day and are constantly evolving. Guignol is a character with a sharp wit and most often used in satirical pieces about politics or other important issues in the day to day life of the common people. It was really interesting and very timely. They alter the show all the time and included in it stuff about the capture (and killing) of the guy who was responsible for the shooting of the Jewish School in Toulouse as well as about the garbage collectors strike that is currently in Lyon. There is currently trash all over the street since the workers have been striking for about a week at the point, hopefully that will end pretty soon. After that they had some snacks and drinks for us to enjoy. 

Who said Milan isn’t awesome???

Dana and I spent a while trying to decide where we wanted to go for this weekend. W considered Lisbon and Istanbul, but we couldn’t find any good deals. One day while searching, I found an incredible deal to go to Milan that was just too good to pass up, so we booked it. I was pretty excited, but everyone that we talked to kept asking us why we had chosen Milan and suggested we take a train from Milan to another city. However, I am quite glad that I decided not to listen to other people’s opinions because I had a fabulous time in Milan!

Friday: Friday morning I woke up and met up with Dana at Part-Dieu to take the Rhone Express to the airport. We arrived and checked in with my favorite airline – Easyjet. We walked about half an hour out to our gate (because I swear the Easyjet terminal 3 is essentially out on the tarmac). After the short 45 minute flight we landed in Milan Malpensa airport. We grabbed a bus and headed into the city. Once we got to the Central Station, we headed down to buy some metro passes. We were able to buy passes for the 48 hours we would be in Milan for almost the same price as a single trip ticket on the London tube – certainly nice to have prices back to normal after our previous weekend in London. We used our French and English and were relatively easily able to find our Hotel (Ambrosiana). We checked in and were a little surprised at just how small our bed was, but it was totally worth the price and the safety of the location. After dropping off our stuff, we headed out to do a little sightseeing. On our way back to the metro we ran across a little park full of old Italian men playing pétanque. It was a gorgeous sunny day and so everyone was out in the early afternoon. We were seriously impressed with the talent that we saw and it made for quite an exciting game to watch. After that, we headed over to the Duomo and grabbed some gelato in the plaza in front of the gelato – I had some delicious melon and raspberry gelato. I was honestly blown away by this incredible Cathedral. The inside was beautiful, but in a more simple and reserved fashion than some similarly large Cathedrals I had seen, but what was truly breathtaking was the outside. The Duomo took an incredibly long time to be built – over 5 centuries (begun in 1386), which is no shock given that it is the fourth-largest church in the world. After exploring the interior of the church, Dana and I decided to climb to the top of the church. Once at the top we wandered among the Gothic pinnacles, saintly statues and flying buttresses made of beautiful white and pink marble. I was floored by the grandeur but also by the incredible intricate details. Honestly, words can’t even do it justice, hopefully my pictures can begin to show just how amazed I was by this Church. After spending over an hour exploring and photographing the Church, we headed back down. Next we headed next door and walked through the Galleria Vittorio Emanuele II. This is Milan’s late 19^th century version of a mall. The elegant gallery filled with designer shops galore towers above with a wonderful steel and glass covered, cross-shaped arcade. The floor is a work of art and the ambiance of this open-air market is just wonderful. We wandered into this amazing second-hand bookstore with interesting trinkets under the glass floor and beautiful paintings on the ceiling. It was a great shock and Dana (the lit major) was certainly in heaven. Next we wandered through Prada and Louis Vuitton, certainly failing to pretend that we could ever buy anything in those stores. After that, we had heard about this amazing gourmet market overlooking the Duomo and we decided to check it out. We headed up 9 escalators to the top of the department store and arrived in this fantastic store. We walked in and were greeted by the unbelievable chocolate counter filled with life-size chocolate shoes, creative delights and marzipan fruit that looked too real to believe. Next we headed over to the incredible mozzarella bar. We walked around exploring the sushi place and the aisles of gourmet foods we could only dream of trying. Finally, we decided to sit down and take it all in at the fresh juice place. I had what I think was the most amazing juice I have ever had. It had fresh squeezed apple, strawberry, banana, pineapple, and acai berry. It was fantastic and the view of the Duomo behind us wasn’t bad either. After our relaxing afternoon, we headed over to get dinner. We had read about this risotto and our mouths were watering even before we arrived. This place is called Da Abele and each night they serve three different types of risotto. There was not a single other English speaking person in the restaurant and we walked into the restaurant speaking French. It was pretty awesome that everyone we met in Italy thought that we were French, though usually English was much more helpful for communication. The menus were only in Italian and despite the waiters efforts to explain the different risottos, we ended up just selecting two of them to try. Dana go one with sea bass and eggplant which was delicious, but mine with spinach, sundried tomatoes, goat cheese and a bit of love was amazing!! We couldn’t believe how lucky we were to find this place and we decided that after a wonderful day and delicious dinner, that Milan was shaping up to be a great place to visit.

 

 

Saturday: We got going bright and early and had a quick little breakfast at our hotel. After that we headed to try to find the Chiesa di San Lorenzo Maggiore, which is the oldest church in Milan and attests to the days when the city was the capital of the Western Roman Empire. While the structure has been altered many times over the centuries, it still has the original octagonal floor plan from the 4^th century. During one of the additions in the 16^th century, a dome was built, which is the highest surviving dome in Milan. We headed out and felt pretty confident after our successful experiences with the metro on Friday. We arrived at the stop that had been listed on the information we printed out and realized that we had no idea how to find the street that we were looking for. We tried scouring the map, but will hundreds of little streets listed, we weren’t so successful. We decided to ask a nice looking family for some help. Unfortunately, we didn’t speak Italian and they didn’t speak French or English, but they told us in Italian (luckily French is close enough that we could get the gist of what they were saying) to follow them and they would show us where to go. They brought us over to the tramway stop and found some people at the stop who spoke broken English to explain to us where to go. Then, their friend who was heading in that direction took the tram with us to the stop and pointed us in the right direction. Luckily Dana speaks some Spanish and this woman had moved to Milan from Ecuador 17 years earlier, so we were able to communicate at least a little bit. We were so lucky to have found such honestly nice people and we truly appreciated the help they gave us. We finally found the church and we just so happy that we had made it – we honestly were calculating in our heads earlier on what we would do if we were lost in the streets of Milan. We walked up to the church and there was actually a funeral that was just ending, so we waited until it was ok for us to go into the church. It was really different from any of the other gothic churches we have been seeing all over Europe. I hadn’t seen a church that was built in this octagonal shape and we spent a while trying to find the awesome remnants of n old Roman amphitheater, but with no success. After that, we headed over to the National Science Museum that featured Leonardo da Vinci. The first couple exhibits we saw about climate and conservation were pretty disappointing, but the sections on Leonardo da Vinci and all his accomplishments in so many fields was truly impressive. We also really enjoyed the sections on the history of radio broadcasting in Milan – with the history of prohibitions on owning radios from the fascist era as well as the old world globes that were on display. I still can’t get over just how much Leonardo da Vinci was able to contribute during his lifetime. By this point, we were getting pretty hungry and headed over to the city’s largest food market in Piazza Wagner. It was an indoor market and we walked around the market ogling all the food and snatching tastes from each vendor. At the first cheese vendor we stopped at, we tried this delicious cheese – it was so good we had to go back several more times to grab some more samples! After exploring the market, we walked down the street and found a great little lunch restaurant – Al Grande Cerccio. We walked in and asked for menus and found out that it was a vegetarian place, which was great since I could be assured there was no pork in the dishes, since we couldn’t exactly read the menus in Italian. We were very proud of our ability to piece together an understanding of the menu and ordered homemade pappardelle with radicchio (pappardelle futte in casa). It was heavenly and the homemade pasta was what we had been dying to try in Italy. After our wonderful lunch, we ventured over to the Castello Sforzesco. This is a fortress-like castle that was built in the 14^th century by the Visconti family and later reconstructed in 1450 by the Sforza family. We walked in and were attacked (as happened at all the touristy sites) by these African men selling little ribbons/bracelets. Their tactic is to be aggressive and if all else fails to throw the ribbon on to you and make you pay for it. Luckily, during my research about Milan, we were warned about this. The guys however, we so aggressive about it, that despite our steadfast no’s they still put ribbons on us multiple times that we had to shake off and just wouldn’t leave us alone. It was frustrating, but at least we were aware of how to deal with the situation. Next we headed inside and bought tickets to 14 small museums within the castle rooms for a steal (only 1€50). We explored Museum of decorative arts, the Museum of Ancient Art, the Picture Gallery, The Trivulziana Library and City Historical Archive, and my favorite – the Furniture Museum. In the Museum of Ancient Art, we even saw a room whose frescoes were done by Leonardo da Vinci. By this point we were getting a bit tired and just couldn’t make it through all 14 parts of this expansive Museum. After leaving the castle, we headed over to Milan’s largest street market held on Via Papiniano. There were a bunch of staples and cheap items, but there were also some nicer designer seconds, and Dana and I tried on a bunch of dresses in the vendors make-shift dressing rooms (aka the back of the vans used the transport the goods with a sheet hanging over the door. I didn’t find anything worth buying, but Dana found 2 adorable dresses and a fair of shoes all for less than 40€. Next on our agenda was to head over to Rossana Orlandi showrooms where are known for bizarre, but incredible pieces. However, we got there around 4pm and it was closed (maybe it isn’t open on the weekend). We did get a glimpse through the window, however, and it seemed like quite an interesting group of pieces. Since we weren’t successful there and were pretty tired from a long day of sightseeing, we stopped off at the piazza Duomo on our way back to our hotel to get some more gelato (we were in Italy after all). I had pistachio and hazelnut and was just in heaven. I finished mine and my immediate reply to Dana was “can I have another one.” Of course I didn’t, but it certainly was delicious enough the merit it. After that, we headed back to our hotel to take a quick rest and look up some possibilities for where to go for dinner. I had a lot of success finding some great looking places, but they were all pretty far from where we were staying. Eventually I found a place that sounded great and we had the receptionist use her Italian skills to make us a reservation. The reservation at Da Maruzzella (Piazza Oberdan) was certainly a great idea on our part, because we ended up waiting about 20 minutes for a table even with a reservation – it was just that packed. However watching them prepare fresh pizzas and the incredible smell kept us happy while we waited. I ordered homemade spaghetti with lobster. The dish was literally half a lobster served over a bed of incredibly al dente pasta with a mouthwatering tomato sauce. Such a fantastic meal. After dinner, Dana and I decided to check out the Milan’s night-life area where there are supposed to be some glowing canals. We arrived and there was a beautiful walkway, but no canals to speak of. The area that should have been the canals was completely dried up. A major disappointment, but we really enjoyed the sightseeing afforded to us as we walked past all the bars. At this point we were pretty exhausted and headed back to get some sleep.

Sunday: We woke up pretty early Sunday morning, grabbed some breakfast and headed back to the airport. It took us some time to get to the airport, but it was relatively smooth sailing and I made it back to my place in Lyon just after 2pm, which was really nice since we’ve been getting home pretty late the last couple of weeks.