by Maureen | May 1, 2010 | Canals, Discoveries, Featured Articles, Journal, People, Photo of the Day, Photos, Quips, Shopping & Markets
The fence joints along the canal were interesting to Dad, so I had stopped to take some detail shots. One of the cyclists, Emilio, stopped to ask if I needed any help. I explained about the fence, then we stood at the canalside and continued chatting for 20 minutes or so. On this cloudy day, we covered everything under the sun.
“Do you want to ride together for a while?”, he asked.
“Sure!”
Courteously, he seemed to be letting me set the pace, so I picked it up, pushed it and we rode hard for much of the way. “Wow!”, he said. He was surprised by the pace I could keep, which he clocked at 35 kph (almost 22 mph).
What fun! Nice to have a cycling companion.
We may ride together again another day.
Grazie, Emilio! Molto piacere.
This is what 53 looks like in Italy:
by Maureen | May 1, 2010 | Canals, Featured Articles, Introspection, Journal, People, Photos, Quips
There’s a farm field along the canal, across from the Zibido Cemetery, that has piled up a rank-smelling mound of rotting straw and organic matter. Luigi sees it as prime compost for his garden and is hauling it home one bucketful at a time.
As I was riding along, I didn’t recognize him at first. Since the weather has gotten warmer, Luigi’s many-times-mended clothes have gotten more summery. (He was in a heavy jacket the last time I saw him.) As we stood there talking, I noticed that at some point in years past, he’s customized his shirt. The collar’s been removed, and careful stitches finish that edge.
We had a nice chat. Luigi told me that he grows green beans, chicory, potatoes, tomatoes, salad greens and a little bit of everything else in his garden. We talked some more about his 70-year-old bike, and some of the long-time Italian bicycle brands: Bianchi, Silvestrini, Rossignoli. Any brand markings on his bike have long since yielded to the rusty patina.
Luigi reached out and shook my hand. We said our “arrivederci” and look forward to our next conversation along the canal.
by Maureen | Apr 29, 2010 | Featured Articles, Food!, Journal, Meals, People, Photo of the Day, Photos, Quips
Boy! My two cousins come into town and a riot ensues!
Connie and Gerry arrived yesterday morning, crashed out for a nap then wandered the town for a while. I met them in the evening at their Duomo-close hotel and we goofed around the piazza for a while.
Connie succumbed to the bird food man, mistakenly opening his hand when the guy thrust corn at him. These guys offer you corn, the birds land all over you, your friends take pictures of you with the Duomo in the background and you give corn-man some money.
Our 8:00 dinner reservation was early by Italian standards, and we wanted to find a place for a little pre-dinner drink. We decided to head to the Porta Romana neighborhood and look for a place near the restaurant. Down, down, down, deep into the subway system to the yellow line. We rode 4 stops and ascended to an arch, an old wall, and one of the busy circle roads ringing the city. We walked. And walked. Nothing like a long stroll after a long plane flight. Though we passed several cafés along Monte Nero, it was a frenzied, noisy street and we had hoped for something more quiet. We didn’t find it.
We went on to Osteria La Cala (Viale Monte Nero 63) a bit early, and were the first patrons. The menu review, selection and ordering that followed was every bit the best of comedies and tragedies. Certainly, we tested the patience of the woman serving us! She and I discussed the menu items, specialties of Sardegna, and Connie was sure we had just relayed our life stories twice over.
Finally (!) a wine selection was made, and the waitress made the decision to bring us a selection of hot appetizers, plus raw scampi and prawns for each of us.
The octopus was incredibly tender. The stuffed fish roll was topped with fava beans and delicious. The scampi crudi and gamberi rossi crudi were fresh and light.
Just TRY to get these two guys to decide what to eat! After much discussion and many more “relays of life stories” (according to Connie), we decided on the pescatrice, (that funny fish with the “lure” hanging off its nose), gnocchi with truffles and shrimp, and lorighitas with calamaretti and bottarga.
Bottarga is a dried fish roe sac, often served by being thinly sliced and/or grated over pasta. There are many bottarga variations depending on the fish roe used, place of origin and style of preservation.
We closed the place down. The few other restaurant patrons had left long ago, and we were, of course, undecided about whether to have any dessert or caffé. Our wonderful waitress saved us from ourselves by bringing us a plate of little sweets, a bottle of Mirto digestif right out of the freezer, and 3 little shot glasses. I’d swear that bottle was full when she brought it to us, but there’s surely no way we could have drunk over half the bottle! Apparently, it’s bitter flavor grew on us.
We exchanged handshakes, grazie and much laughter with the restaurant owner, our dear waitress and the kitchen staff. Just outside the front door, we waited for the cable car tram with the intention of riding it to a location near my apartment so the guys could see where I live.
.
It was the wrong tram. We ended up back at the Duomo, just as honking cars, canned fog horns and delirious fans started streaming in from all directions and clustered in the Piazza del Duomo, Milan’s living room. We were caught in the middle of it all. Milan’s Inter soccer team had just won against Barcelona and there was some serious celebration to be done. The local polizia hung back at the edge of the crowd to keep an eye on things. At the height of it all, Gerry and I lost Connie, consumed in the crowd.
.
.
We called him, found him and all headed back to their hotel room to get their better cameras. They wanted to come back out and shoot more serious shots, but got bogged down by their technology tethers.
.
Connie did his ode to Sir Isaac Newton.
It was fast approaching 1:00 in the morning and I hustled these guys out of their room to walk me to the subway stop at the Duomo. Good thing I did! I caught the LAST westbound red line run before they closed it for the night. I transferred to the green line, got off at Romolo and exited as a guy was standing there ready to lock the gate for the night!
I tell ya, those twins are trouble!
by Maureen | Apr 13, 2010 | Canals, Discoveries, Featured Articles, Introspection, Journal, People, Photos
Running parallel to the Naviglio Pavese canal, between the bike path and the highway, is a drainage ditch overgrown by a tangle of brush and trees in every state of growth or death. Luigi knows this. The 82-year-old man rides his 70-year-old bike along the canal and stops to cut deadwood.
Today he worked on one particularly good dead tree, much like an alder, with plenty of big wood. Knuckles bloodied from hard work in the brush, Luigi spent his time gathering the arm-sized and smaller sticks. With his bow saw, he made half cuts in the wood, then cracked the branches across his knee to break them.
His bike is what stopped me. I don’t think I’ve seen a bike so uniformly coated with such a mist of rust from end-to-end. Think about it. He’s been riding this same bike since he was 12. It has only one speed: however fast his legs are capable of that day.
Luigi and I chatted for a little while, and he allowed me to take a few photos as we talked and he worked. I didn’t understand everything he said, but we enjoyed the meeting. I said goodbye, then walked back to my bike 20 feet away while Luigi finished loading his bike. Then I heard the bike fall and the wood tumble. It had all been out of balance and spilled.
I walked back, and held the bike for Luigi while he reloaded the wood. He excused himself, wanting me to be out of the way as he swiftly raised his curved machete, and thrust the tip down into one of the larger logs for the ride home. He bound it all with heavy string that stretched across the bow saw blade laying flat on top of the woodpile. (In my mind, I questioned that, but who am I to tell him how to tie down his firewood!?) He pushed his bike to the other side of the trail where there’s a canalside railing. I didn’t quite understand what he was explaining, but I soon understood by watching him.
Luigi’s legs are bad. He propped himself and his bike against the railing. I then held the bike while he used his hands to lift his right leg up and over the top bar. He asked me if anyone was approaching from behind, and I steadied him on his bike as he propelled himself into motion. I ran ahead to make sure that my own bike was well out of his way.
As I followed along behind him, I wondered how in the world he was going to stop where the path meets the road up ahead. And how was he going to get started again?! I too stopped at the path end, and Luigi was stalled there, half-straddling his bike. Another cyclist stopped to offer help. I finally realized that Luigi wanted me to hold the bike still while he manually lifted his leg off. He walked the bike to the crosswalk, and declined any further assistance. I watched him as he walked his dear old bike and his load of wood across the street and down a narrow alley toward home.
He’ll be back tomorrow for the logs.
– – –
It doesn’t matter what kind of day I’m having, or what I’m preoccupied with, but a brief, chance encounter like this with Luigi leaves me smiling and bright. These are the moments they don’t advertise in the travel brochures, but they are the highlights of my time here.
by Maureen | Apr 10, 2010 | Introspection, Journal
Journal Entry – 10 Aprile 2010
Really, I’ve kept my world very small. There are some that would rush to assure me otherwise, but when I honestly scan the content and structure of my life, my relationships are one-on-one and my focus is on small details. I’m not a “Grand, Big Picture” thinker.
I think I have good design thinking. And yet here I am in Milano, a world capital of design, and I have not set foot into it. I have not immersed myself by meeting who’s who and participating in local projects. I haven’t consumed the buzz of either design refinement or innovation, though opportunities overflow the city.
What have thrilled me most while here have been the fleeting encounters with people along the way: Mary at the Cemetery with her traditional handwriting; Angelo giving me a history lesson as we rode bikes through the farmland; elderly Signor Conforti in his bookshop in Florence and his handshake goodbye; the old woman in fleece pants on New Year’s Day that chatted with me about handkerchiefs and big buttons. These little meetings have been many and they’ve always left me beaming for the day.
Very informally I have been an observer and recorder of the visual lushness around me, whether it’s architecture and sculpture, garbage cans and curb cuts, or simply odd juxtapositions that tease my eye.
All of this is very telling about my priorities, desires, strengths, values and direction. Though I believe very deeply in the power of design to change the world, and though design absolutely permeates my day and my thinking, my greater joy is in personally touching one life at a time, in the smallest ways. Reality is, design fills and textures my life, but is not the focus of my life’s efforts.
I’m a “good” designer, not a “great” designer. I am unknown in the design world, amongst other designers. (Which is fine with me.) Have I “wasted” my talent? Design gives me a good living and I have assisted many clients with their goals. Is that sufficient?
– – – – –
(All of these musings help to form a plan for my direction during the remainder of my time here and once I return to the U.S. I’ve certainly had a lot of time to think!)
by Maureen | Apr 10, 2010 | Discoveries, Food!, Introspection, Journal, Shopping & Markets
THIS is the time to be in Milano. The temperature is warm enough (75 degrees) to be comfortable in light linen and cotton, and enjoyable having the windows open to fresh air, but not so warm that there’s any thought yet of air conditioning.
I had a wandering, leisurely ride through the farmland exploring roads I hadn’t tried before. Then I showered, changed and took off walking up along Corso San Gottardo. When I need a variety of miscellanea, this is the local area I frequent.
Last September, my local Bartell’s hadn’t given me enough of a thyroid medication. It’s a pretty simple and standard thing, but necessary. I needed to buy a month’s supply and expected the process to be complicated. (International prescription refill?!) I took the bottles into a local Farmacia, they looked up the chemical component of my prescription online and walked over to a drawer for a braille-embossed box of 50 pills for 2.90 euro, about $3.90. (Hmm. At that price, maybe I should stock up before I return to Seattle? Isn’t it about $33 for a month’s supply back at home?)
There’s also this notion in my head about buying some “cool” eyeglasses to take home as my “souvenir”…Glasses that you’d never find in the U.S.…Glasses that say “somewhere else”. On San Gottardo, I stepped into a centro ottico – optic center – that I had been in before. After looking around for a while, the man that owns the shop said that he remembered me. He wasn’t just flirting. He recalled the glasses I brought in two years ago when the little screw had fallen out of the hinge. In the summer of 2008 he had replaced that little screw at no charge, and simply gave me the glasses back with a smile. (To be here in a foreign country, a big city, and be remembered from two years previous…Remarkable and touching!)
There’s something about the Italians and lingerie and hosiery. They do them well. With the warmer weather, I wanted some lightweight, little socks, just enough to provide a lining, but also interesting enough with lace and fishnet and other fun patterns. I’ve scoured shops in the Seattle area and just don’t find the selection there. (Yeah. In Seattle we’re usually bundling up, not going lightweight.) I bought several pairs of socks and hose (and will have to consider stocking up on those, too, before returning to Seattle!)
The whole street was filled with people walking their kids, their dogs and their lovers. People were seated and sipping caffé, vino or Campari. It was the time of the passeggiata, the evening stroll, and the weather had offered up a time so conducive to the ritual.
As I walked back home, I stopped at the little corner bakery that has my favorite trancio pizza – pizza that is cut to the size you want and charged by weight – and bought a piece with prosciutto, mushrooms and artichokes.
Across the street, at the corner flower vendor, I selected one fragrant lily stem and carried it toward home.
(What can’t I find along San Gottardo?!)
Veering off of Gottardo, and just blocks away from home, I saw my favorite, local bartender, Robbie, in the window of the Mayflower Pub and stopped to say “hello” and give him that European two-cheek kiss. We chatted for a moment. (“Favorite Bartender”? It sounds like I’m at the bar all the time. Actually, very rarely. But both NABA and Scuola Leonardo Language School have their student social nights there so I’ve seen Robbie enough to stop and say hello. He’s a sweet guy.)
I floated the rest of the way home. At almost ten months, I actually know people here, and am recognized by people here. I can wave at people as I walk past their shop windows or they stop me on the sidewalk to talk.
This is an indescribable and stunning time… I marvel at it all.
by Maureen | Apr 9, 2010 | Featured Articles, Introspection, Journal
One month ago I wrote this entry in my journal, and am now ready to post it, announcing that I’ve decided to move back to Seattle at the end of July. I now have less than 4 months remaining here, and that perspective is very much affecting my time and my outlook. Sometimes I catch myself already “projecting forward” to Seattle and have to remind myself not to “leave” yet. I want to remain present for as long as I’m here.
– – – – – – –
Journal Entry:
March 9. Near midnight…
I’m going home.
I’ve decided firmly to move back to Seattle and just tonight bought my plane ticket for July 31. (I have another 2 week visit there in May). It feels right, and I’m ready to think of Seattle as “home” again.
I miss my people and my communities. I miss my pastimes of sewing, cooking, gardening. I miss the activities that supported my health and fitness: regular gym time (!!), walking the Indian Trail, sleeping well and without such interruptions. I miss the sense of feeling rooted. I miss sleeping with the window open and walking on the street without holding my breath. I miss the ready fresh air. I miss green and water and private space.
My life was well-wrought, solid, hand-crafted, enviable. I shook it up, and now will return to a fresh slate, keeping, from before, what I most treasure, tweaking what I’m ready to loosen my grip on, and returning to my wonderful home with clear eyes and freshness. I will not simply pick up where I left off!
I will return to Seattle and be very deliberate, very conscious about what goes back into my house and into my days. I won’t be “starting over”, but rather honing, refining, sharpening the character of my life. And I have gathered a great wealth of sensorial texture to carry with me and flavor my direction. It all feels so delicious and full of possibility!
I want to return to Seattle and see my birthplace with the eyes of a newcomer. One friend has offered a walking tour of “100 Things I’ve Never Seen Before in Seattle.” I welcome the visit to “The Wall of Bubblegum,” among the other bizarre and heart-warming treasures on the list.
How will I integrate? I don’t know. I don’t need to know right now. I will have opportunities to express, and ponder, and share, and a greater purpose and sense of things will take shape as I settle back in.
In the meantime, I still have four and a half months here! That’s vastly more than most people will ever have in their lifetime! And I am going to milk this for everything possible. I intend to explore, gather, see, visit, travel, eat, meet, query, savor, learn and relish this great gift of time and place. I am going to fill…my…self…UP!
On Saturday I will attend a textile printing class in which we will use historic wooden printing blocks (1700s and 1800s) from the Zucchi Collection to print/create fabric for future projects! (I love the Zucchi designs from the late 1900s!) I am thrusting myself into design experiences as fodder for my future.
I am photographing with a fervor and dedication known only to the mad, the crazed, the off-the-wall. I want to bring as much of this home with me as possible in digital or tangible or ethereal form. This time will inspire more than I can imagine for the rest of my days, however long they may be.
I feel full and blessed and wondrous. To have “THIS”, when many never do, is beyond my understanding. The greatness is not lost on me; it burrows deep.
In coming here, I stated that: I wanted to live in a foreign country as an adult, with an adult’s perspective; I wanted to have relationships with people; and I wanted to learn another language. I have done all of that, and more than I can possibly describe.
by Maureen | Apr 7, 2010 | Canals, Cheese, Discoveries, Featured Articles, Food!, Journal, Photo of the Day, Photos, Shopping & Markets
Wednesday is “ricotta day”, the day they make fresh ricotta at the Cascina Femegro.
Even though I had just been there yesterday, a sunny afternoon and the thought of hours-fresh ricotta on some nice bread easily convinced me to hop on my bike. I headed south along the canal, and turned west into the farmland.
There are old, stone troughs spanning the drainage ditches that wind through the farmland.
The one-lane road is cyclists’ heaven. Add sunshine overhead on a spring day, and it’s perfection.
I bought 4 tubs of cheese: 1 for me, and 3 to give away to friends. I had no idea at the time that “friends” would include 9 cats in a lazy-but-playful huddle at another farm along the way home. They very cautiously came over to me as I crouched at the road side, did the “kitty squeak” and rubbed my fingers together trying to entice them. I’ve seen them there before, either on or under the roof of the small outbuilding at this historic building. The most affectionate was the tabby mamma cat that wallowed in the attention.
“OK”, I thought, “The ricotta was cheap. These kitties would enjoy it so much.” Yes. I unwrapped a domed mound of ricotta and split it up into several locations, allowing the timid cats to have a bite to eat away from the more dominant cats. After eating ’til their bellies were full, each found a spot in the sun and did their contented cat preening.
It was nice to get my “kitty fix” since I’m catless here in Milano (and since my kitty, Laddie, has died back in Seattle during my absence).
I wonder what the farmer will think when he finds the empty ricotta tub, and some remnants of cheese…
by Maureen | Mar 21, 2010 | Cheese, Discoveries, Featured Articles, Food!, Introspection, Journal, Meals, People, Photo of the Day, Photos
Would you let 30 random strangers eat off your plate? Would you, in turn, eat off the plates of those 30 strangers?
The Uovo Performing Arts Festival included one “performance” yesterday of 30 individuals, by reservation only. “Mangia che ti fa bene”, “Eat that you will feel well.” For 10 euro, or about $13.50, I walked into the room to a very long table with 30 place settings, and a variety of ingredients:
- bread
- water
- eggs
- grana cheese
- cabbage
- parsley
- apples
- beets
- sesame seeds
- pumpkin seeds
- fennel
- olive oil
- garlic
- spices
- cooked peas
- oats
- radicchio
- spinach
- fresh ginger
- lemon
- leeks
- carrots
- walnuts
- fresh herbs
We were given limited, very loose guidelines.
We each grabbed a plastic apron from the group taped to the window.
Our project was to gather whatever combination of ingredients we desired, blend them and put the mix into a paper-lined, 3″ x 5″ foil pan. The 30 of us were elbow-to-elbow at the table and we were being filmed. We had graters, sieves, knives, bowls, half-moons and cutting boards at our disposal. Notes were provided about the health-inducing properties of each food item.
We asked for ingredients to be passed. We reached across the table. We laughed and chatted and mixed with our hands until our concoctions looked just right to us. Some pressed the ingredients through sieves for a uniform consistency. Others left chunks for spikes of flavor. Some formed loaf-like logs, while others patted their mix into flat casseroles. We bound up our creations in oven paper, scrawled our names on the wrap and sent the little tins off to be baked for 30-45 minutes.
While our dinners were baking, we were served lemon-slice salad, celery sticks with honey, and braised celeriac root. For our 10 euro, we also got a glass of red wine and some herb tea.
Trays of foil tins emerged from the oven, and the hostess called out names. One-by-one, the “performers”, the dinner guests, opened and tasted their creations. There were 30 recipes at the table. Like a groundswell, the sampling started. People reached over with their forks and sampled their neighbors’ meals, and everyone started passing their dish around for others to taste. It was remarkable the range of culinary directions we had each taken. I realized later that I could have gone in the sweet direction and combined bread, egg, apple, ginger, lemon and arrived at a dessert to contrast with all the savory gratins at the table.
I looked around, tickled, chuckling and amazed. Would this happen in the U.S.? Could it? How could I bring this experience to Seattle? To Burien? I easily tallied that the 30 people at 10 euros each only brought in 300 euros. And I looked at all the food, and the utensils, and the wine and thought that surely this was not a money-making proposition. In the U.S., liability insurance alone for a one-day event of this nature would probably be prohibitive.
And would people in the U.S. be willing to pass their dish for their unknown neighbor to sample from, and then fork a bite from their neighbor’s plate and relish the combination of ingredients different from their own?
This does give me ideas for an uncommon Thanksgiving dinner… but many in my family would likely balk at the idea. (But they wouldn’t be random strangers.)
– – – –
Here’s the official, “as advertised” description of the event:
The aftermath was a mess of a table!
by Maureen | Mar 18, 2010 | Discoveries, Featured Articles, Journal, People, Photos
Last June, just a few days after I had arrived here in Milano, I went to the Cimitero Monumentale – the Monumental Cemetery – to look around. It is, indeed, “monumental” and every bit worth an afternoon of strolling and looking. As they say, it is WAY over the top! One can study architecture, sculpture, typography and history. The structural monuments are bigger than my apartment and of every possible architectural style. Every family grave plot features a noteworthy sculpture. That cemetery provides a very concentrated study location, like none other I know.
So, back to Mary. In June, after being awestruck by the cemetery grounds themselves and feeling saturated by it all, I started toward the exit, through the main “gallery” building. I heard chanting and the monotone of prayer, and it changed my course. Around back and in the lower level is a small chapel. I approached the doorway and simply stood outside, listening to the rhythm of women saying the rosary. At the doorway was a simple stand with a listing of the names of the recently deceased, for whom the women were praying.
The handwriting stopped me! SO unlike what we learned long ago in school in the U.S. So European. So distinctive!
Lately, as I have continued to intensively “mine” Milano for design references, that very particular handwriting has pulled at me. I went back to the cemetery on Monday, to shoot the day’s page of names, however, the cemetery was closed. I went back again today and made a bee-line for the chapel front. Yes! There it was. That lovely, lyrical, not-quite-cursive pen! I photographed each of the 3 sheets posted there, then turned north for a tour of the cemetery.
Mary’s capital letter “M”:
During my slow amble, one of the cemetery workers approached me and asked if I wanted to see the Campari tomb. (This cemetery holds the remains of all the “big-name families” of Milano: Campari – the drink, Ferrari, Pirelli, Zucchi and many others. The sources of all the street names in town!) Of course I said yes, and he, Salvatore, took me to the northwest area of the grounds and to the grand tomb capped by a sculptural “Last Supper”. At it’s backside was an open vault with a beautiful mosaic covering walls and ceiling.
While Salvatore and I chatted, I showed him the pictures I had shot of the wonderful handwriting. I asked if he knew who had done it and said that I would like to meet her. (It speaks of femininity, so I assumed it was a woman.) I didn’t understand everything he said, but it was something about 3 o’clock and come back another time. (It was then about 1:30.) I thanked him for his help, said goodbye and kept looking around.
Time flies in that incredible cemetery. It would be hard to tire of that place, impossible to cease seeing something new. I saw Salvatore again and it was after 3:00. He suggested that I might be able to meet the person that wrote the pages, so he took me to the brown-cloaked priest and I explained who I was looking for. Father signaled for me to follow him, and we wrapped through the crypt-filled hallways to a nondescript door which led into the back of the chapel. He took me through a few interior halls to a room with a western window and the afternoon light… and Mary.
I told her how beautiful her handwriting is and that I couldn’t stop thinking about it lately. It’s the most beautiful and distinctive I’ve seen here. Using all the “polite” Italian I could remember, I asked her if she would kindly write out an alphabet and number set for me, with upper and lower case letters. She seemed tickled and agreed, but asked if I would come back another day to pick it up. She wanted time to do it well.
Part of today’s list of names speaks of Don Giuseppe Gervasini, a priest that lived from 1867 to 1941 and is believed to have special healing powers. Mary – pronounced more like “Mah-ree” with a light trill to the “r” – carefully shuffled some papers in a deep drawer in her office and removed a wallet-sized photo of Father Gervasini. She gave it to me and instructed me to keep it with me always, saying that Don Gervasini would keep me protected. (A mass is being held in the chapel this Saturday at 10:00 in honor of Don Giuseppe Gervasini’s “name day” – onomastico. I guess I know what I’m doing Saturday morning.)
“Mary, Salvatore told me that you’re 84 years old.” “Yes. How old are YOU?” When I answered, she said, “I thought you were 30! You look like it!” I told her she’s sweet for saying so. She gave me a kiss on each cheek goodbye and I told her I’d be back tomorrow to come pick up the alphabet. (I’ll take her some flowers and some greeting cards that I made, as a little “thank you”.)
I absolutely beamed all afternoon as I left the cemetery! To have not only seen more of the handwriting I enjoyed so much, but to MEET the woman that does it, AND to have her agree to write out a full alphabet for me, AND to have her be so sweet to chat with… And I have such fondness for elder women. It is exactly these unexpected, unplanned, never-to-be-imagined meetings that charm my time here in Milano.
