Milano

We went to Milan on the weekend. It rained a lot, but we discovered that the Milanese version of happy hour (it goes for hours and comes with an endless array of delicious, free nibbly items. My favourites were these ace stuffed, crumbed, fried olives, and these zingy little spicy biscuity things) is super, that there is apparently no standardisation of coffee names (I have a hard enough time knowing what sort of coffee I want to order at the best of times, but when you can order the same thing in the same place on two separate occasions, and get something different each time, you know you are dealing with people who are out to confound you. In related news, the wackiest coffee I had was an espresso crema, which turned out to be an espresso (no surprise there) with vast quantities of hardcore foam (not the crema that I would have imagined, which I always thought was sort of brownish and scarce, but then again I'm no expert. The stuff on my coffee was the consistency and colour of beaten egg whites, though, which was odd) and some inexplicable layer of mysterious golden yellow, super-sweet (possibly boozy) stuff at the bottom. This all fitted into a wee espresso cup (well, a big-ish wee espresso cup) and I wasn't expecting it at all. It was lovely, though), and that a holiday involving no planning, organisation or expectations may well be the way to go.

It rained a lot

The place we stayed at wasn't great. It was allegedly all designy and smartypants (and cheap, thankyou very much lastminute.com), and it looked quite nice, but it was surprisingly non-functional. The soap dish in the shower had no holes in it so my soap melted. The pillows were like bricks. The towel rack made my towel dangle dangerously close to the bidet (not that anyone used the bidet because apparently we are united in the belief that they are kind of odd). The lifts, door locks and heating mechanism of the towel rack all didn't work. I think the front desk staff implied that Reto and I are incestuous siblings, because after looking at his ID and then mine they said to me "you have the same surname??" in an incredulous manner. Breakfast was great and plentiful, though, and the hotel was in a good location, so sadly I can't whine too much.

When good pot plants turn bad

In other wacky news, I saw Tilda Swinton while lurking near some old fortress/palace thing and counting stray cats (they were so cute. And surprisingly inept at stalking the pigeons), Milan has more potplants and wacky old-fangled trams than I have ever seen anywhere before, and we came across a rather excellent exhibition on Australian design and innovation at some excellent museum that we stumbled upon while wandering aimlessly.

Just call me a stalker. Or Reto, because he took the photo (after I forced him to)

Who could ask for more?