Christmas Appearing

I came home this week to find the Christmas decorations set up in the lobby of my apartment building. Yay!



Same ones as last year, but I am still excited.

Carrefour Groceries

This week I hit up Carrefour... there are two Carrefours near my office at ITIA. They have nicer groceries than Penny, but of course it's more expensive. The selection is great at the larger Carrefour... You know me, I love artichokes!



I got Brussels sprouts and this funghi fantasia mix to make a yummy sauteed side.



And these store brand chocolate biscuits were cute and tasted great too.



It takes a little too much planning to get my groceries there regularly, but I do enjoy my treats from there!

Rain Rain Go Away

It's been really rainy and grey around here... I don't have too many exciting photos from the last few days because of this! I've been spending a lot of time at ITIA lately, so here's a snapshot of the cafeteria...



The food there is dirt cheap. (My risotto and slice of fruit tart totalled to 1.80 Euros!) It's a little hit or miss. The squash risotto was one of the best things I've had there.

Hopefully I will have something more exciting for you in the next few days. I've been crazy busy at work getting the lab together, and in a few days, my sister arrives for vacation! Yay! OK, I will definitely have photos to share then.

A Purchase This Weekend

I bought this painting in Brera on Sunday. (It caught my eye on Saturday... I'm happy I decided to go back on Sunday and look for it!) The painter is Claudio Di Costanzo. His wife was the one selling the pictures! Anyway, I wanted something to remind me of Milan when I go home.



This is a small painting, maybe 16 by 8 inches or so. If I had more room in my luggage... The larger paintings were really lovely too. I picked this one out of the smaller ones on display because I love the trams here, and there's just the hint of the Duomo in the background. Ah, Milano...

Sunday with Stan

Yesterday, Stan and I headed to the Science and Technology Museum. The place is huge, I feel like I always see something new. This time I had the nerve to head into the train cabs.



And there was a new young designers exhibit near the telecommunications area. The projects were mostly electronics focused.



And I noticed that these radios had fasces on the grill, whoa. Talk about propaganda!



We had a quick lunch in the Centrale area before Stan had to head off to get his bus to Malpensa... he's in Provence at this point!

Dracula

Been having a good, busy weekend. My friend Stan was here for just one night, in the middle of a trip. (He's already in Provence at this point!) We had a quick visit yesterday and today. Stan's been here in Milan a lot before, he actually lived here a few years as a kid and has come back for visits every few years, so we didn't have to do the "typical" sights. After having lunch in Brera, we headed over to the Triennale. The latest special exhibit is on Dracula. It's a bit of an odd exhibit, not completely dedicated to one aspect of Dracula, but not quite a themed art show.

The first section was about the history and myth of Dracula and vampires, building up to how Bram Stoker broke through by connecting Vlad the Impaler to vampirism. This part had lots of informative text, and historic artifacts including old books on Vlad, on vampires, vampire charms, and Ottoman arms and armor. It talked about Stoker's research, portrayals of vampires in his day, and ended with the first edition copy he gifted to his mom. So that was a very factual (in the sense it explained where the fiction came from) part.

Next, some mixed media video installations. A "peephole" vampires' kiss montage, a vampire home with descriptive video, and a large multi-screen installation with a history of vampire movies.

Then, an exhibit on vampire costumes. This had an original Francis Ford Coppola Dracula armor set, and a pretty good video on the costume design of the movie with a lot of direct commentary from the designer herself, Eiko Ishioka.



This was followed by costumes for female "vamps" from theater, opera, and screen. There was also an odd exhibit of comic panels by a famous Italian comic artist that he had done for his own private collection of one of his famous heroines meeting Dracula.

I liked the exhibit overall, but I had expected more of a straight contemporary art show... After we walked around the castle.



We headed in toward the Duomo, and had a little shopping and light dinner at La Rinascente. Cioccolati Italiani for dessert!

Explain This One To Me...

So I was hanging out with one of my friends in her office on campus. Because of the difficulty in locating stairs, you always have to take the elevator in her building. I noticed these buttons in the elevator.



One set of doors, two "door open" buttons? She pushed the door closed button when we got in, and it stayed lit until the doors closed, but I didn't have the nerve to press the rest of the buttons just to see what the difference was between them. Huh.

First Big Christmas Decorations

Last night I saw this first big public Christmas decoration in my neighborhood. It wasn't turned on yet... but they must have put it in yesterday because it wasn't up the night before! The stores have their Christmas displays up in Piazza Bausan...



I am excited to go downtown and see the big Christmas stuff down there, and for these lights to get turned on! (For those who don't speak Italian, the sign says auguri, which is basically "best wishes" in Italian. It's a phrase you use for people's birthdays, too, not just for Christmas.)

Happy Thanksgiving!

Happy Thanksgiving everyone!

This is my second Thanksgiving in Italy, and I am celebrating the same way as I did last year... by going to work! So I don't have any current Thanksgiving pictures to share. Here's what I wish I was having:



While I am thankful I had the chance to spend this year in Italy, I am also thankful that I will be back with my family and friends soon. Hope you are having a good holiday!

Purses

I stopped by the purse outlet store in Piazza Bausan this week. There's one brand of purses that always makes me laugh, Braccialini. These are actually pretty expensive purses, though with all the appliques these look pretty goofy for an adult woman to carry around. (That said, Italian women can go for some whimsical stuff. It seems out of character.)



Some of them are actually quite cute, like this one of Romeo and Juliet, but I am still not sure I could carry one as a bag on the regular. If it were a throw pillow, I could go for it.



Of course, I probably shouldn't go into the purse store, because it's just temptation to buy stuff. I did work very hard over the last couple weeks, so a cheap cute purse was not an outrageous treat. I had been admiring this pattern of Coccinelle since the summer, when they had big beach totes with the flower pattern, both in this same plastic and printed on denim. I love this pattern, but nothing had struck me quite enough to get me to buy one.



However, this little pochette with the flower cut-out sides was perfect for me. It was tough to pick a color, between the purple and the teal, but I went with my old standby!

Lampadine

When the light-bulb in my bathroom burnt out, I stopped in to the small hardware store in Piazza Bausan for the first time. Everything here seems to be halogen bulbs. They didn't even have incandescent bulbs in this normal size at the hardware store!



The lamp was also quite difficult to get open, since it's high above the sink, but in the end I had success. I can read in the bathtub again!

Food Round-Up

I've been so busy that I haven't had the chance to post my usual boring food pictures! Even with all the excitement of late, I still have to buy food. And now there's additional excitement at the grocery store since the holiday food is starting appear! In the middle of that pile of groceries is a box of gingerbread cookies!



I am not sure how late in the year the farmers' street market will keep going, so until it closes for the winter, I'll keep using it to supplement my Penny purchases. The artichokes are out in force, and the green fractal cauliflowers are back as a regular thing in the stalls. Clementines are becoming a favorite for me.



I should not have bought that caramel corn, it was too good.



Oh, and I decided to give those pomegranates I picked in the courtyard a shot. The little one was a bit spoiled, so I tossed it, but the larger one was pretty good. A little tart. I plucked out the arils, and used them in a salad.



I think there might be a few more of those on the pomegranate trees in the courtyard, but most of them have already split and are too far up out of my reach, anyway. Gotta investigate...

Zincs for the Memories!

Sorry for the bad pun! I had one photo left from the Science and Technology Museum that I didn't manage to share before.



As we were getting off the submarine, I noticed that there were zincs on it! The guide was excited that we noticed them and knew what they did. I just thought it was funny that they stuck zincs on submarines, but I guess submarines are big steel things and need rust protection! It really was a fun tour.

Monday Night

Monday I had to go to work. Boo. Well, I guess that's normal, right? Heather and Konrad headed to the Duomo to head up on the roof. I still wanna see their pictures from that! They were super brave and took the stairs... I've always taken the elevator! They had a lot of snacks and did a lot of shopping before I met them by the castle. We headed toward Corso Como to get dinner. We saw a lot of weird window displays!



We ended up going to Ganas, a Mexican restaurant. We were there early enough for aperitivo. Wow, it was a hit for us! They had great frozen drinks. I had two frozen passion fruit margaritas. Usually I only have one drink at aperitivo (because you only have to buy one to get the free food, but they do give you a slight break on the second drink), but the first one was so good that I wanted another! And, also the aperitivo was good enough that we wanted to sit and eat more. The selection wasn't huge, but it was pretty good. My favorites were the fresh tortilla chips, and the smokey chipotle salsa. The food was actually spicy! I might head there for aperitivo another night, since the food was so different from typical aperitivo. OK, it wasn't "real" Mexican, but it was good!

On our way home we checked out the display for the Nautical Design Awards there in Corso Como. Heather and I geeked out about winches and movable keels while Konrad humored us. It was a good night!

At The Science Museum!

On Sunday we had a relaxed morning, then headed out to Museo Nazionale della Scienza e della Tecnologia "Leonardo da Vinci". We headed in to buy tickets and were able to get reservations for the submarine tour! Before entering the museum we had a quick lunch.

The museum was a hit with all three of us. I had been once before, but it's such a huge museum that there's always more to see. I always love the astronomical instruments. This telescope came from the observatory in Brera! It's hard to believe there used to be an observatory right in the center of Milan.



The telecommunications section is one of the best. There're interactive exhibits on radio transmission and lots of cool old equipment.



The highlight was our tour on the Enrico Toti submarine! Our guide said that he didn't speak much English, but he was pretty great! The sub is a diesel sub, and is a "pocket" sub. Quite tiny, really! I couldn't fathom working on there as part of a full crew of 23 or so. No elbow room at all.



We got to see the whole thing, from the electric motor in the tail, through the engine room, command center, kitchen, and up to the bunk area and torpedo tubes. We got to look through the periscope!



It was an awesome tour! We spent a good 5 hours in the museum. After, we headed over to BhangraBar for aperitivo, and boy did we stuff ourselves.

Saturday with Heather and Konrad

Heather and Konrad came to visit me from Firenze last weekend. They took the train up Saturday morning. After dropping off their bags at my place, we headed to the center. First we headed to get snacks, passing through the Galleria on the way. Heather spun for luck!



There are new displays at the Louis Vuitton store!



We were on our way to Luini's and Cioccolati Italiani to grab quick and delicious snacks before heading into the Duomo. (I tried a new flavor of panzerotto, with onions, olives, and tomatoes, yum!)



After the Duomo, we headed to La Rinascente to shop and dine. We spent a long time in the basement Design Super Market.



Konrad let Heather and I shop our hearts out. We had dinner up at Obika, the mozzarella bar on the 7th floor. We split a really good apple and fig salad and the mozzarella sampler for two. Yum!



We headed back to my house a little early, since the rain was still falling and trying to melt us!

Last Weekend was a Doozie

I had a good but crazy weekend last weekend. Friday was a long work day! Marcello and I visited Ecomondo, the 16th International Trade Fair of Material & Energy Recovery and Sustainable Development. Marcello went for two days, but I caught the early train Friday morning. After sitting in on the session on Rare Earths recycling and recovery, I had a short time to see the trade show floor, which included lots of large pieces of equipment!



After snacks and the quick spin on the floor, we headed out to visit a local recycler. I don't want to give anything away, but it was a cool visit.



Getting home took quite a while, I wasn't back at my place until after 10pm. I was exhausted!

Oh, and this week, I finally grabbed some pomegranates off the trees in my courtyard. These ones are runty, the larger ones split a lot earlier. I wasn't sure when I was supposed to pick them, and I think I may have missed out on the window. But they never turned that red...



Ah well, at least I got my fill of pomegranate juice in Turkey.

Istanbul Odds and Ends

I still have a few Istanbul things I want to share! First off, the evil eye. At our hotel, there were protecting eyes on the elevator plaques.



I bought a glass eye bracelet, to wear with my Rome bracelet! Linda, is yours still in one piece?



This is a simit, sort of like a sesame bagel. A popular street food in Istanbul.



Istanbul is full of cats and dogs. They don't seem to fight. The cats seemed particularly calm and confident. I saw this cat just sleeping in a shop window.



I also liked the ever-present ablution taps.



I think I am finally finished talking about Istanbul. I really enjoyed the city, and would definitely recommend it as a destination!

Topkapi

Saturday afternoon I headed to Topkapi Palace, the seat of the Ottoman Empire. These gates are the entrance to the museum area.



A lot of the palace is open to see, along with different collections of treasures. This part is the Divan, where the sultan's advisors would confer. There's a little hidden window that the sultan could use to peek in at.



The palace is full of lovely decorations. Tiles, of course, are prevalent.



I loved the atmosphere and the decorations, but some of the collections were just amazing. The collection of arms and armor had some amazing pieces. Many of the swords are known properties of different sultans. The swords of the sultans were particularly amazing. Many of them have engraved blades with calligraphy inlaid in gold and hilts with jewels. There's also the true treasure collection, with huge diamonds and emeralds, thrones, and the famous Topkapi dagger.



The sunset was beautiful from the palace.

Saturday with the Students

Saturday I relaxed in the morning. I took my time at the breakfast buffet. I met up with Markus, Anne, and Kai at breakfast, so we could all go out sightseeing. We headed down to the Sultanahmet district. Some older tourists asked us to take their picture, and enthusiastically wanted to take ours for us! This is in front of the second gate of Topkapi Palace.



We were on our way to the Blue Mosque. I thought it was quite beautiful, but I must admit I had thought it would be bluer!



Since it's still a house of worship, you must remove your shoes and women must cover their hair.



The mosque is in great shape, it doesn't look 400 years old. The interior designs are amazing. It would be cool to be able read all the calligraphy. Most of the mosque is blocked off for worshipers, so we just sat on the carpet and admired the interior from one vantage. We started walking back toward Hagia Sophia and Topkapi, and got distracted by this candy-maker.



I treated Kai to a candy. Mine was kiwi and sour cherry. The candy doesn't harden, it's halfway between a hard candy and molasses in texture.



We sat down in the square and had a little lunch snack, before we parted ways, them for Hagia Sophia, and me for Topkapi...