Things I love about Milan: Medieval churches

Some people -- I'm not naming names -- think there isn't anything to see in Milan. Those people are mistaken. Sure, the things aren't massively famous (except a handful of big sites, nothing compared to Rome or Venice or Paris or London), but there's still history everywhere.
Have you heard of St. Ambrose? He built a few churches around town back around 380 AD and is the patron saint of Milan. One of those churches, Sant'Ambrogio in Italian, bears his name.
The inside's pretty neat, too:
Although the church was consecrated in the fourth century, the current structure -- including that mosaic depicting Christ you can sort of see in the photo -- is from the 13th century. That's somewhat young by Italian standards, and it's why the church is considered medieval. Interestingly, the original altar was in the same location as the current one.
Allied bombing during World War II damaged a lot of the area, and I haven't researched which areas of the complex are post-war. But I think this is pretty neat regardless of when it dates from:
I think I have photos of another Ambrosian church, San Simpliciano, but I can't find them. I guess an outing is in order ...

The big adventures of Flat Michaela

Laura's friend Michaela, who lives in Montevideo, recently flattened herself to simplify sending herself through the mail.
Oh, wait, no, that isn't what happened. But we did receive a flat representation of Michaela in the mail with the assignment to show her around Milan and then to send her on her merry way to another awesome place.
So we took her to the Duomo:
And to La Scala:
And to visit Leonardo da Vinci in the piazza nearby:
She also visited the Galleria Vittorio Emanuele, but that photo didn't turn out. But never fear, we got a photo of her in Milan's second-coolest massive building interior, the Stazione Centrale:
The exterior shot wasn't all it could have been thanks to never-ending construction:
She got an up-close-and-personal view of the Elephant Parade:
She also hung out with us at Sant'Ambrogio on All Saints' Day:
Then it was time for her move on. But I didn't let her. I'm mean like that. I figured she should see Rome, too, while she was here, and our trip was rapidly approaching. There she saw the Colosseum:
And climbed the Spanish Steps:
And had a not-very-clear photo taken in front of the Pantheon:
Last but certainly not least, she crossed the river and made the trek to Vatican City, where she hung out at St. Peter's.
Flat Michaela now is making her way to Istanbul to visit our friends the Donadieus. As for us, hosting such quiet, easy-to-transport children always is a joy, so keep sending them our way.

A pre-Thanksgiving trip

Some people may remember that last year we spent Thanksgiving in Paris. This year we contemplated spending it in Rome, but instead we decided to travel a few days before and return home in time for the holiday. So here's a little about our trip ...
Obviously one of the big draws of Rome is its history. I'm always struck by the sheer OLDNESS (no, that's not actually a word) of everything there. This photo puts it in perspective, I think, from the Forum (at the bottom, where we were standing) up through the ages to the Vittorio Emanuele monument (at the top).
The Capitoline Museum actually has much better views of the Forum than does the Forum itself. Such as this:
The Capitoline also has an important statue of Marcus Aurelius. Outside you see this:
and you might think, Hey, there's an important statue! But silly person, you'd be wrong. That's just a copy! The real thing is inside:
We also went to the Colosseum. You've seen it before. But this time we happened upon a napping cat there. (OK, I'm overstating it a bit by suggesting we happened upon it. We actually were alerted to its presence by the very loud meowing of someone else's child. It's always nice to realize one's own children aren't the only loud ones around.)
Of course a visit to Rome isn't complete without a visit to the Pantheon. We went inside once:
and walked by a few times:
Our visit to the Vatican Museums was my first since Study Abroad in 1993. It's amazing everything there is to see there. The map hall still is one of my favorite parts:
Of course, its ceiling is pretty amazing, too:
Afterward I accidently took an illegal photo of the Sistine Chapel. It really was an accident, which was just as well since it doesn't show much:
We didn't go inside St. Peter's this trip -- grumpy toddlers and long lines don't mix -- but we did admire it from numerous angles:
It was fun and all, but I'm glad we're home. And that our building has an elevator, as the apartment we rented there didn't.

The joy that is Thanksgiving

We have so many things to be thankful for. A few that were mentioned at our dinner table today: Family. Friends. Being together. The Internet. Having the opportunity to spread the gospel. Being Americans and all of the rights and privledges that come with that.
Our guests were the sister missionaries from our ward and our friend Cary, who works in Milan (and Saudi Arabia and Singapore and South Korea and Poland and ...) but whose family is in Montana.
Of course there was turkey. And dressing. And mashed potatoes. And gravy. And macaroni and cheese. And green beans. And rolls. And pies.
I was all about the pies.
It was very sad to miss various family gatherings around the U.S., but Thanksgiving overseas does have its perks. Some of you should join us next year ...

One last post from the Elephant Parade

I think all of the elephants are gone now, off to be auctioned to people with way more money and space (and allotted shipping weights for household goods) than we have. But I wanted to post this one last photo, which was one of the readers' designs ViviMilano selected to grace its pachyderm on Corso Vittorio Emanuele. Too bad Milan doesn't really have a tram shaped like an elephant ...

Kind of like being haunted by my grandparents -- in a good way

I was on the metro this morning and overheard a conversation between two older gentlemen. The younger of the two probably was around my mom's age (early 60s or so), and he was reading the news on his iPad. The older man sitting beside him -- it didn't seem like they knew each other -- was expressing amazement at everything the little machine can do. He specifically seemed to like that it's very compact so there was no need to spread out a massive newspaper (he spread his arms out wider than any newspaper I've seen in years) on the train.
It reminded me of when my grandfather bought a car that had cruise control. You would have thought he'd found the secret to happiness or something. I guess he had, at least in a very limited way.
I guess it's just because Italy is an old country (estimated median age of 45.6 vs. 38.1 for the U.S. and 33.1 for Trinidad, the other countries where I've spent the most time), but I see lots of people here who remind me of my grandparents and doing things I could imagine them doing. Well, except the speaking Italian part.

Why I had to call the Netherlands to have a British company send school pictures to Italy

I, obviously, am American. I have American credit cards with American billing addresses.
My kid goes to school in Italy, so it makes sense that her school pictures will be shipped to Italy. The school in question has online ordering of photos, which I'm all for.
The portrait company in charge of the photos is in the Netherlands. The company printing the photos is in Great Britain.
Totally confused yet?
The Dutch company uses PayPal to handle payments. I've used PayPal for years and don't have a problem with it. But have you ever tried to use a U.S. credit card to pay for something via PayPal that you want shipped to Italy?
Nope, can't happen.
But some people are nice and do their jobs -- and then some. I initially e-mailed the printing company, who immediately responded with a "We can't help you, but contact the portrait people at (fill in the blank with an e-mail address)" e-mail. I did, and their customer service woman was super-helpful and exchanged numerous e-mails with me both Friday and today. And this morning, after a phone call to her to provide credit-card information, e-mailed to say that my order had indeed gone through after some work on her end.
Yay for helpful people, wherever they are on the globe.

Marine Ball 2011

This week the U.S. Marine Corps celebrated its 236th birthday. Last night we attended our consulate Marine detachment's birthday celebration.
This year's video presentation focused on parallels between Pearl Harbor and Sept. 11 and how Marines responded to each one.
We had a good view of all of the presentations for in-person purposes but not so much for photographic purposes. You'll have to take my word for it that all of the Marines' dress blues were spotless and pressed and that all of their medals were gleaming. (This includes our detachment commander's Purple Heart, which I hadn't known about until last night.)
An unrelated detail: Miss Italy 1977 sat at our table.
Here's our "prom" photo. On my screen we kind of look like conjoined twins (he was in black, me in navy), and the clip was sliding out of my hair. But at least it gives you a general idea.

Owen launches his career as a JCPenney catalog model

Mercifully, there were only five candles on the cake

This week I turned 39.
Seriously, I really am only 39. I'm not one of those people who tries to pretend she's never going to turn 40.
I got a blender, which is just what I wanted. It's not the VitaMix that many of my Facebook friends recommended, but I'll do another post later about it (and why I don't want a VitaMix). Once I use it and all.
There was cake. There's still some cake left, in fact, so if you want to come visit us in Milan today or tomorrow, you can have some. Past then, I make no guarantees.
I tried to buy shoes. Silver ones, for the Marine Ball. It turns out neither of the Zara stores I visited actually carry these at the moment, so my plans were thwarted. I have a backup plan, but I might check at a couple of more stores. We'll see.

Laura's favorite elephant

This particular specimen in Milan's elephant parade was designed by Katy Perry. Laura seemed to think that was cool, but I think she was more impressed with its sparkliness. Who wouldn't want to discover a glittery pachyderm in the basement of Milan's fanciest department store? I had told her ahead of time we were looking for elephants, but I hadn't told her what I knew we'd find.

The gnome returns

Is Halloween over yet? Apparently two parties (one with trick-or-treating) weren't enough for us because yesterday we found ourselves trick-or-treating on Corso Garibaldi.
Of course, Owen had torn the feet off of his potato head costume -- and wouldn't have been able to wear it while sitting in the stroller anyway -- so I fished out his gnome getup from last year. It was too small, the tag and velcro in the back were bugging him something fierce, and he wouldn't keep the hat on for more than 30 seconds. Laura decided to call him Merlin.
Of course, to me the whole thing was a complete waste of time because all of the stores were handing out black licorice. Ick.
I guess now we should move on to planning our costumes for next year ...