Il Duomo Milan

After we made it to Milan, we caught the train and rode into the Centrale train station, then walked a few blocks to our hotel.  After learning that you have to put the card for your door in a reader on the wall to have the lights turn on, we unpacked a bit, took showers, then headed out to the city center to see a few sights, have lunch, and meet Dave's class on the steps of Il Duomo for his second company meeting.

Dave and I were struck each place that we visited by the attention to detail and the age of the buildings.  We were also saddened by all of the graffiti we saw.

Each city's principal church is called "Il Duomo."  Milan's Duomo is impressive.  A concert was being held in the piazza at the church.

After a lunch in a restaurant in the Galleria adjacent to the Duomo, we walked through the Duomo before Dave met up with his class.  I chatted with a few of the girls as the group walked through the city to Hotel Bosco for a company visit.  While they toured the hotel, I did a bit of shopping.  There were many stores in Milan that are found in the US (H&M, Timberland, Dolce & Gabbana, Coach), but the most interesting store I went into was a department store.  It was at least 8 stories.  The first floor was home to cosmetic counters, very similar to what you see in the US.  The second floor was home to purses.  Each designer had a "store" that opened onto the square that housed the escalators.  The clothing was the same way.  There would be a "store" area that housed all of the clothes by that designer.  There was a floor with home goods; the top floor housed a restaurant and specialty foods. 

After window shopping a bit, I headed back to the piazza at Il Duomo, where I purchased my first of many cups of gelato to eat while I waited for Dave to finish his work.

Back at the hotel, we took a quick power nap then wandered down to the lobby, where we met other students from TCU.  We joined them for a tram ride down to a canal area of the city.  Once there, we chose a Greek restaurant for dinner.  The owner was very accommodating of our group of ten.  He spoke no English.  He did bring us a menu written in English so we could order.  He had one kind of beer in stock, Vergina, so we drank this Greek lager with our dolmathes and roasted lamb skewers.  Afterwards, we had another gelato for dessert!

Even the doors are intricately carved.

We're Back

From atop the Duomo in Florence

We used our passports and traveled to Italy this month.  The occasion? One of Dave's graduate classes.  I was lucky enough to get to tag along, and we were both lucky enough for the grandmas to agree to come to Texas to watch Gavin while we traveled.

We had a bit of an issue getting out, since yours truly decided that about 100 feet from the gate was the perfect place and time to have a fainting spell.  I was taken from the airplane, which was already 3 hours delayed due to weather.  We went to the ER; I was checked out.  Nothing wrong.  We were able to get rebooked and left on Sunday.  We had to fly into Laguardia and take a cab to JFK before heading across the Atlantic to Milan.

Dave missed his first company visit and his Italian language quiz.  We both missed seeing The Last Supper; I had purchased tickets in advance.  Oh well.  We made it.  We had a great time.  We saw lots.  We missed Gavin.

I'll work on getting posts up.

 

At Ponte Vecchio in Florence

Zoo

On Good Friday, Gavin and I went to the zoo.  I uploaded pictures at some point, but never added a story.  I just found this when I started working on posts from our trip to Italy.  Ooopsie.

Gavin and I had a fun trip--just the two of us.  Since it was just us, I allowed him to look at each animal as long as he wanted to before moving on to see another animal.  

One of Gavin's favorite was the bear because he was pacing back and forth.  

You can't go wrong with an Icee on a warm day.  Since we packed our lunch, we had an Icee and some blue cotton candy.  Gavin didn't know what to call the cotton candy when he spotted it, so he asked for "some of that blue messy stuff."  An apt description.

 

As much as Gavin enjoyed watching the bear, by far his favorite spot was this aquarium.  

The weather is warming up, so we'll wait until fall for our next Mama-Gavin date at the zoo.

This is What Happens When Dave Take Gavin to School

TCU Baseball Game

We had planning on going to see the Rangers play last weekend, but they were sold out and tickets were going for way more than we were willing to pay.  So we did the next best thing - we went to watch TCU play baseball.  It was fun, and cheap too.  Tickets were $8 for Miranda and Gavin, and I got in free since I am a student.  

 Miranda and I decided that TCU has the cutest and smallest bat boy in existence.

We had fun, Gavin watched the game for a little while, and then he got bored and wanted to walk around.  He quickly spied a grassy hill where all the kids were playing.  The kids were sliding down the hill on cardboard.  Gavin tried to do the same a few times, but couldn't figure out how to hold onto the cardboard long enough to get a good slide.  So instead he rolled down the hill and was just overall very silly.

 G was one tire little squirt on the drive home.  He had his eyes closed and was still stuffing popcorn into his mount for several minutes.