We’re in the Hotel Cristoforo Colombo on Corso Buenos Aires, the LONGEST shopping street in Milan. After checking in, I walked around looking for a Bancomat (ATM) to get some Euros. I walked past boutique after boutique sporting the most gorgeous clothes, and bar after bar. One big difference between American bars and their Italian counterparts is their bill of fare. These bars here offer a lot of food choices, from Panini and piedini to complete four-course meals, as well as gelati and even frozen yogurt.

I just had a simple but fabulous dinner, which I ordered in Italian! I told the waitress I wanted something with frutti di mare – literally, “fruits of the sea” (seafood). She suggested a pizza. It came with mussels and clams in the shell, along with shrimp and the most tender octopus, but also alarmingly, with bits of imitation crab. One feature I noticed is that the toppings were not distributed somewhat equally across the whole pie, as they are back home; instead, they were spread out in little groups. To go with my dinner I ordered a half liter of “l’acqua naturale” (still water, with a pH of 7.8, which should please my naturopath-observant friends.) The house red wine is 2 Euro for a quarter liter - less than a can of soda, which costs 3! O what a dilemma. My thrifty soul forces me to pick the rosso.

I ended the meal with caffe corretto – literally, “corrected coffee.” And man, how they correct it! With grappa. Mmmmm.

The next half hour was spent people watching. My favorite sight this evening: the fashionably dressed young women navigating the busy intersections on their Bianchi bicycles, while chatting on cell phones!!

We have to be up early tomorrow to see the Duomo and Da Vinci's "The Last Supper." It's almost midnight now, so time to say "buona notte."