Milan makes any sentence sound better.
After spending an entire day luxuriating in a fancy Swiss grocery store, stocking up on snacks for Camille's dorm room on Saturday, we awoke to no plans beyond croissants and hot chocolate on Sunday. So we left Lugano and hit the autostrade in our hilariously tiny Fiat. An hour later, the Duomo impressed, then we ate lunch. Then we bought tea and chocolates. Seriously, does it get any better? Yes it does, "We bought tea and chocolate in Milan."
At the restaurant in our hotel, I held up four American fingers — which to the Italian waiter means five. "Cinque?" he asked. "Patru," I said, which means four in Romanian. "Quatro?" he asked. "Da," I said. I don't speak Romanian or Italian and I can't even count on my fingers.
We stacked Camille's dorm room with crackers, dried apples, pistachios and pretzels. We ate the predictably but none-the-less-incredible gelato – I mean, liquid chocolate poured into the cone? Really?
Stefan ate pizza every. single. night and we didn't complain because the shrimp/avo/caprese salad and steak went very well with the wine. We all agreed that the optimum number of anchovies per any pizza tops out at four.
Camille suffered the devastating loss of her baby: her iphone. But after a 24-hour period of disasterizing, we found it again miraculously right where she had left it! I got a new tea pot. The kids drank sips of prosecco with us while we watched the Maxfield Parrish sunset from the roof. Then it got cold and we had to go in. In the night, the rain sounded like city traffic and the next night the wind howled. We saw a poodle in a dress.
We went to a reception for parents at the school's founder's house and admired the 18th century paintings that came with the villa while drinking champagne.
Stefan wore his sweatshirt with holes in the pockets. In Milan.
twenty-something years of "what have you been up to?" 