Another Rainy Italian Day

We woke up to another rainy day in Vedano al Lambro. Its supposed to hit 15c (60 degrees) today.

I walked Brandon to school today because Katrina was heading into Milan with Olga for an appointment at Sportello Unico. No, she is not becoming a soccer pro. Basically, its more registration paperwork for living in Milan.

Sad news for Katrina's family. Katrina's cousin DJ and his wife Shelly have a 4 year old son Blake who has been fighting cancer for over a year. After a valiant fight and many inspiring moments of strength, he passed away last night at 4pm. Our hearts go out to our family. Its a sad time, but there is also relief in knowing that Blake is no longer suffering.

I visited Brandon's school this morning for a 4th grade presentation on recycling at school. They are hoping to persuade the school to switch over to more earth friendly tableware for lunches. The kids did a great job. I was also able to meet a couple of other parents. I'm continually amazed at how multicultural Brandon's school is. I met parents from Holland and England this morning.

I was just chatting with Katrina's brother Ryan on Facebook. He was asking me about the Ferrari museum, the Ducati museum and the Lamborgini museum. I looked them up and found that they are all about 2 hours south of Milan in an area called "The Land of Motors". If you are a fan, come visit and we'll take you there.

I learned some interesting information about Italy during the history section of our cultural training class on Sunday. The modern nation of Italy is only 150 years old. Before that Italy divided into city states, with more local power. That is one of the reasons why modern Italy suffers from so much bureaucracy. Regional governments have ruled for so much of Italian history that uniting into one nation has been a struggle. One of the biggest divisions in unity seems to be northern Italy vs southern Italy. They say that over 50% of Italy's gross national product comes from the north. Northerners put it like this, "The north works so that the south may play."

What a rainy day. I walked over to school to pickup Brandon and arrived home soaking wet. Its not raining all that hard, just a constant drizzle. I will be heading to Auchan for an umbrella tonight.

My faith in the USPS and the Italian postal service has increased a bit today. We received our first piece of forwarded mail today. Unfortunately it was a check and now we have to figure out how to deposit it.

We had tortellini with pomodoro sauce, steamed veggies and wine for dinner this evening. Last week Katrina decided that we should keep all the colorful plastic spoons that come with gelato so that we can see how much we ate in two years. Tonight I decided to do the same thing with the wine corks.

I had to drive over to Auchan this evening for an umbrella. It is pouring outside. All the streets are flooded and now we are hearing thunder. Tomorrow is supposed to be a few degrees warmer with scattered thunderstorms.

Here is an intersting story Katrina told me this evening. Jen, the girlfriend of Mike the other HP engineer, was in downtown Milan this morning visiting the piazza and Duomo. She was taking a picture of the Duomo when a man ran by and grabbed the camera out of her hands! She chased him down and he demanded e20 for its return. Katrina tells me she ended up paying him e5. How crazy is that!! Pickpocketing is a big problem in the cities, especially the tourist areas. On the other hand, Italy has one of the lowest rates of physical crime. Its just unheard of to hurt someone, but not to steal their things.