Duomo

Duomo interior and adjacent mall. Really magnificent. And the "job board" goes back to 50 A.D.

Duomo in Christmas Eve

Central Milan seems wealthy. Lots of micro cars and scooters mixed in with luxury cars. I think there's 100 pairs of shoes for sale for every person in Milan. Lots of cool stuff. People sure think about what to look like before heading out of the house. Even all the little dogs that people bring everywhere have fancy designer jackets.

We visited the Duomo, which spent 600 years in construction and is completely amazing - second largest church in the world. €2 gets one person the right to take pictures, so Cindy's iphone has all the good stuff inside.

The adjoining Galleria Vittorio Emanuele II is an architecturally blessed mall right by with covered streets and luxury shops that was fun to hang around in.

Like any big city, there's black dudes hustlin. Between some sort of color string bracelet rip off, flowers, sketchy religion books, and "information" pamphlets for local shops that get thrown on the ground by everyone a block later, there's plenty of people who don't look like they have better ways to make a living. At least the guy breakdancing with the horse head on had a creative way to busk for a buck. I think Gangnam style gave him a lot more revenue in the last month or two.

Christmas dinner was "the best pasta and best tiramisu I've ever had" says Cindy.

Check in to Milano

Note bidet, marble bathroom, makeup application chair, and chandelier like lights over the mirror. If that wasn't enough to confirm, I put on their complimentary lotion and smell like potpourri. We're in Italy!

Today didn't accomplish much. We walked around, but also slept in. I'd call it part jet lag, but also part "departing calgary and work" lag, and part illness lag. We did the same thing when we went to Chile a year or two ago, nothing for first day.

I've eaten 2 apples and two bananas since leaving, everything prior was gone.

Suboptimal vacation kickoff

Something I ate in last 24 hours has me feeling awful, spent too much time in lavatory vs sleeping in my seat. At least I made it in there in a midnight rush.

Also flight was late by an hour "because its winter". I thought Calgary would do well at managing that.

I have a headache that I realize is probably from unplanned caffeine withdrawl.

I'm a zombie in a whiteout haze in Frankfurt trying to follow Cindy to get on the next flight. The good thing is we're not flying bottom of barrel tickets, and they're as organized as it gets in Frankfurt. At least the airport lounge had showers (giant, beautiful, luxury ones).

I'm not sure, but I think Cindy didn't follow the instructions right on the sleeping chair.

Raging

Work seemed to go right to the end of the week before Christmas - actually got things done right up to 4pm on friday and went home and crashed at 7, totally unpacked yet. Why?

Thursday raged. We did reviews, then beverages at Belgo, then dinner at Trib, then a couple more stops. It was just one of those hit the accelerator, get up to speed, then hold it as long as possible nights. Guys who made it to the Road House to dance said the wall to wall university crowd 20 year olds were partying like it was the end of the world. Those nights are fun.

Saturday ended up being fuller than expected with last minute packing before leaving for Christmas holidays. We're pumped!

Bow River ride

I'm a week late, but had an awesome time riding last weekend with full winter weather in effect. Colder on Saturday kept us in town, plus with errands I had to be a bit shorter. Sunday's temps allowed more comfortable time outdoors. Craig, Kate, Cindy and I used the Bear's Paw Reservoir to make distance to Cochrane. My rim decided to give out part way through the day, but it held enough to get me home. Warm all day until the last couple of kilometers.

We had a big group dinner of 10 people with Tori's surprise pass through Calgary. Fun!

Dice

At some point the big Italian plies his trade - tips over a table, pulls out some dice, and barks - who wants in on this action...