Castello Museums

After the aquarium, I headed to the castle, a few minutes away, to hit up the free museum stuff there. I've been a few times, but it's such a large place that I haven't seen everything yet. I headed first to the underground section to see the archaeological museum.



One section focuses on neolithic and bronze age Italy. I liked a lot of the bronze artifacts. These bracelets actually looked very modern to me. If they were plastic, they'd totally fit in.



I thought these little fish-shaped pendants were really cute, too!

Visiting the Aquarium

This weekend, I had to go get my Permesso at the police station on Saturday. It went quite easily, but I was wiped out and feeling lazy after, so I just did some chores and watched the Olympics.

I decided to get out yesterday, despite the heat. First I went to the Acquario Civico Milano. The building is older with lots of cool decorations. This hippo fountain is at the entrance that faces the street.



Each little spot had a different ocean motif.



The aquarium itself isn't that big. I ended up spending just a half an hour there, but it was totally worth it because it's free. The scheme of the aquarium is the waters of Italy, from mountain streams to the Mediterranean. There's even a Lake Como tank, which is one of the larger ones. This one with the tunnel is one of the shallow ocean ones.



The coolest exhibit might have been this temporary exhibit of shark eggs...



These nursehounds appear ready to hatch! I was taken aback when I saw this one really wiggling!

Olympics Continued

• Men's 200 M Medley
• Women's 100 M Freestyle
• Men's Light 60 kg Boxing ITA vs. GBR
• Men's Team Sabre
• Women's 100 M Sprint
• Women's Discus
• Women's Shotput
• Women's 200 M Backstroke
• Men's 100 M Butterfly
• Women's 800 M Freesyle
• Men's Long Jump
• Men's Shotput
• Women's Heptathalon
• Women's 10 Km
• Men's 100 M Sprint
• Women's Pole Vault
• Women's Beach Volleyball ESP vs. ITA
• Individual Equestrian Jumping
• Men's Coxless Four Rowing
• Women's 3 M Springboard Diving
• Women's Trap
• Men's Indoor Volleyball AUS vs. ITA
• Men's 20 Km Walk
• Men's Omnium (Cycling)
• Men's 400 M Hurdles
• Women's 50 M Freestyle
• Women's 100 M Sprint
• Men's 4 x 100 Medley Relay
• Men's 10 Km
• Women's Water Polo: USA vs. ITA
• Men's Foil Team
• Women's Triple Jump
• Women's 400 M Sprint
• Men's High Jump
• Men's 400 M Sprint
• Men's Hammer
• Men's 3000 M Steeplechase

Some of my favorite moments have been noticing the funny names of the athletes, like Gemma Spofforth and Liam Tancock, how much more British can you get? The Italian fencer who bleached "God save the Queen" into the back of his hair, and seeing the athletes mouth obscenities in the slo-mo replays (I first noticed this with the German shot-putter). Can I say that no-one looks good speed walking?

My conclusion about Italians from watching the Olympics so far is that they are good at shooting stuff and stabbing stuff.

Too Darn Hot

OK, it's not as hot as my thermometer is pretending it is. It's just complaining about being in direct sunlight! But it has been pretty terribly hot this week. For the first time this summer, I have been having a little trouble sleeping at night because of the heat!



I get why everyone leaves in August, it's pretty unbearable! My landlord tells me that when he was young, truly everyone left in August, and that for the middle two weeks of the month, Milan was like a ghost town. Now, it's just noticeably less crowded, with reduced store hours and the like.

So Many Groceries

On Wednesday I hit the street market, and yesterday, the grocery store. At the market, I resisted buying clothes, shoes, and purses, and stuck to more necessary things. There's one regular stall at the market that sells cleaning products. My apartment came well stocked with most supplies, including doubles of a few, but I was almost out of floor cleaner. I did actually use this cleaner already! I mopped my whole apartment this week...



I couldn't resist the onion rope. The pineapples were only a Euro, so I figured why not. The guy selling the pineapples asks when you want to eat it, and gives you one of appropriate ripeness. He was a pretty good judge, I asked to have mine for the weekend and it's looking just about right for tomorrow... The melons are getting there too. It will be a fruity weekend.

I bought toothpaste! "Whitedent" brand. I am not sure if it is an Italian brand or what, but it was a lot cheaper than the Colgate, so I thought I'd give it a shot. I put those gnocchi in the freezer, as I think it improves the texture of the filled ones. I think they're too soft usually, though the flavor is lovely!

Watchin' Olympics

I really don't use the TV in my apartment that much. I don't have the TV listings really figured out, and I really don't care that much for "appointment" TV. But this week I've been watching up an Olympic storm! Rai 2 and Rai Sport alternate coverage of the Olympics. They're not on live all the time, but they are on in the evenings, when I come home from work and want to watch!

Unfortunately since I am watching the games live, mostly I am getting indoor events, like swimming. Since it's Italian TV, they have highlighted the sports where Italians are seriously competing, like fencing. Here's my "viewed event" list so far. I'm only including events I've seen real footage of, so not including daily highlights or news stuff. I haven't seen the whole of all these events, but have gotten at least a heat or two:

• Opening Ceremonies
• Men's Quadruple Sculls
• Women's Foil
• Men's 400 M Medley
• Men's Team Gymnastics
• Women's 200 M Freestyle
• Men's 200 M Freestyle
• Women's 100 M Backstroke
• Men's 100 M Backstroke
• Women's 100 M Breaststroke
• Men's 200 M Butterfly
• Women's 200 M Medley
• Women's Water Polo: ITA vs. AUS
• Women's Team Gymnastics
• Men's Water Polo: GRE vs. ITA
• Men's Foil
• Men's 100 M Freestyle
• Women's 200 M Freestyle
• Women's 200 M Butterfly
• Men's 200 M Breaststroke
• Men's 200 M Butterfly
• Women's 200 M Medley
• Men's 4 x 200 M Freestyle Relay
• Women's 10 M Platform Synchronized Diving
• Men's Individual All Around Gymnastics
• Men's Super Heavyweight Boxing: ITA vs. ECU
• Women's Indoor Volleyball: ITA vs. GBR
• Men's Individual Tennis: JPN vs. ESP
• Men's 200 M Breaststroke
• Women's 100 M Freestyle

That's a lot of events! I have been heading out of work on the earlier side and I guess I've been chilling out in front of the cable whenever I have the chance. I hope I can keep catching random events.

Going to the Beach!

On our way home from Bellagio we stopped at Faggeto Lario to go to the beach! It's a pretty cute town. The bus stop is up on the high road, so you have to tromp down to the lake side. The lake side part of the town is quite pretty actually.



There are a few tiny beaches in the town. To get to the uncrowded, free one, we walked down this little stream-let.



The beach itself was rocky (they all are unless they have dumped sand), but still rather pretty. Here's Kal on one side of the tiny beach, with the public park on the right.



And here's the bulk of the beach! Seriously tiny.



We had a great swim, the water was actually a perfect temperature for me, even though Anteneh thought it was too cold. Apparently this year is the cleanest in 10 years on the lake, too. And truly, the only bits of flotsam I saw in the lake were leaves and lake grass.

We headed home after an hour and a half. The bus on the way back was insane. Here's a picture of the bus on our way from Bellagio to Faggeto Lario. Barely anyone, right?



I don't have a picture from our way back because I was literally pressed up against the bus windshield holding on for my life. On Sundays they have very limited bus service, and this one left Bellagio around five-ish, right when lots of people would be heading out... so it was packed. I would think that during the summer when they have special non-stop trains from Milan to Como, they would have adequate bus service! Ah well, at least we made it home in one piece!