Ancora Qui (Still Here)

Due to a mix-up with Orbitz and Alitalia, we are still here in Italy. Unfortunately, this isn't as grand as it sounds. While we're grateful for the additional time with my husband's family, the last two days we've been chained to the house while my husband calls (and is often put on hold for 30 minutes at a time) Orbitz, Alitalia, and Virgin airlines. Each passes us to the next company, eschewing responsibilty. Apparently, our original flight for Sunday was canceled altogether and Orbitz (or Alitalia, we're not exactly sure which) rescheduled us (without notifying us) for an *earlier* flight. Needless to say, we missed it and it's been a circus ever since.

At any rate, despite the bad weather of the last week, we managed two quick trips (afternoon only) to Como and Milano and stash acquisition was achieved.

First, we went to Milano where I visited the Centro della Lana again and got my skeins of Principessa. They are of a heavier weight than I remember (sport vs. fingering), but I think they'll still make a nice cardigan. Here they are languishing in the sun in my mother in law's garden:

We didn't do too much in Milano, but we did go up on the roof of the Duomo - an imposing, gothic-style church full of intricate details (life size statues encased in wrought spires, etc). My favorite feature is the repetitive motifs (it appeals to the physicist in me) evocative of the delicate branches of a fractal. I tried to capture it in the below photo, but I wasn't too successful I think:


The day after that we went to Como, but I'll save that for another post. Suffice to say, Como is a lovely city. Previously, I had only seen it at night, and I will definitely drag the poor husband out there again in the future (especially since it's only 20 miles away from his town and parking along the lake is cheap - 1 euro for 4 hours!)