our combined kingdoms for a dryer

so our time in Milan is coming to an end; let's see what I can do to recapture it. Basically our Monday night-Thursday afternoon consisted of: meeting/seeing Pietro and his roommates, who were amazingly generous hosts; fumbling with our city map and wondering where the heck we were; this bothering me more than Joe; sleeping late; trying to dry laundry on just about any open surface in the house; taking advantage of free internet; going to a soccer game; trying to dry our clothes; scarfing down pizza; and, in one instance, taking aspirin to avoid my hand puffing up like a blowfish. Who knew?

Around town: the duomo is really big (third largest in the world) but under construction, so you can't really enjoy the facade. Its very gothic interior with a ton of stained glass was in stark contrast to the Florentine duomo. Even Joe and I could tell that. Going up to the top is cool, but it's no Sacre Coeur. We were more entertained by the clientele (thank you, old man with a cigar!) than the view. Without a guidebook, we had very little idea what else to see or how to see it, as evidenced by our failure to see The Last Supper. But we saw a very nice print in the gift shop. We also walked through the town's old castle, which was very cool, and walked down the street with all the fashion labels. I didn't see Louis Vuitton, Lisa, but I thought of you.

Laundry: Not so much with the dryers in Italy, evidently, but it was laundry time just past the midway point in the trip. So for the last two days we have been spreading out clothes all over the house and surely imposing on our gracious hosts. I think they're mostly dry; let's hope so. Also, here's making fun of Joe for never having done his own laundry ... somebody needs to get outside a 100-mile radius. (That was less fun than it was supposed to be, but while I helped him sort his whites and darks, distinctions I don't even use, I promised to publicly belittle him.)

Food: I like pizza, we know this. So I have enjoyed Italian food. We also got a great recommendation on a steak place Tuesday night. Meat being really upscale here and the place not being touristy, they were surprised to see us. The layout of the place felt like the southwest U.S. actually, definitely not as crammed as most European places are. Very good food though; and very rare; Mom, you would've been proud. But it's all about the huge lunch of pizza.

Soccer: Milan is home to one of the world's most famous stadiums, the San Siro. Originally built in the 1920s and at one point renamed officially, it continues to be known by its neighborhood name. It has been renovated many a time (read Wikipedia if you really care) and is now HUGE. Really impressive/imposing. Hosted the opening ceremonies of the 1990 World Cup, when Cameroon beat defending champions Argentina in one of soccer's most famous games. Unfortunately, it's nowhere near a Metro stop, so we faced a long walk. We went to see Inter Milan v. Roma in a Serie A game last night. Inter Milan's fans are notorious and the club was banned from having fans for four home games in European competition after they hit an opposing goalkeeper with a lit flare last year and the match was abandoned. We pretty much just saw the good side of the passion, though. Our seats were in the top row of a huge stadium, which sounds bad, but they were actually great (thank you, Luigi!) Only 10 yards off the halfway line, a spot we haven't been in much. The stadium met Joe's approval because of its enclosure, and its roof is really distinctive (www.worldstadiums.com has a decent picture until I can get mine online.)

As for the game, it had so much diving and whining and exaggerating and complaining that it reminded me why I don't actually like Serie A that much, even though it's one of the best leagues. Roma, placed 14th, opened up a 2-0 first-half lead on Inter, placed in the top four. Francesco Totti, the captain, scored the second with a sublime chip from 25 yards. He scored a second goal just after halftime on a penalty kick from a terrible dive that actually fooled the referee. The Inter fans were in shock. But their talismanic Brazilian, Adriano, came on as a sub and scored twice, once from a brilliant free kick and once on a sketchy goal where he accidentally undercut the keeper into dropping the ball). So the last 20 minutes were Inter Milan pumping long balls into the area, but they never got close to an equalizer. Alvaro Recoba and Juan Sebastian Veron were particularly disappointing. In stoppage time, Veron and Totti clashed and literally butted heads a few times before Totti went down like he was shot. In the resulting mayhem, both players were (properly) red-carded. On TV after the game, we got to see a billion slow-mo replays of all the dives, and it was just brutal.

After the game we enjoyed some local food but got rather lost trying to get back to the Metro station. We even turned around when we had been going the right direction. Dumb us. So we took a cab back.

Anyway, we're on to Nice (in France) this afternoon and then Barcelona later on. That will be our last major city before Dublin. I have put pictures from the trip through the D-Day tour online at the Yardley gallery. that's all that will be on until we get home.

Next stop: tonight, Nice, France
Next game: Sunday, La Liga, Barcelona v. Real Sociedad (Estadio Camp Nou)