italian life is very vocal, everyone is yelling, shouting or pushing...
(limited access to internet on borrowed laptop time at my friend's place, i'll try to get this blog post first and upload pictures another time)
in any case, i shadowed them in silent awe around the market... but the cheap prices and amble fresh veg and fruits took me by surprise...
the most intimidating and interesting were the fish stalls... 90% of the customers were men, and with good reason. being a woman, however vocal, just don't get you enough attention at these stalls... i witness 2 women with their children yelling at each other and cursing because one got service with her baby in hand and the other was yelling it was unfair because she had a child too (her child was like 10 years old).
we also walked by the tuscan wine shop where for 2.90 euros, one can get a whole bottle refilled with Tuscan wine - good drinking wine too.
dropped off groceries at home, we realized we were hungry, so we went to restaurant Gusto and had a panino. this place was vetted by my friends as the best panino place in Milano, and I tried the Turfuto panino, which consisted of prociutto, tomatoes, spinach, brie and truffle oils - it was delicious. the portion was small enough i wolfed down my own panino - in california, i never finish a sandwich of my own at Whole Foods...
we came back to the house and The Wife needed a nap (she had been putting in long hours at school the whole week) so the plan was for The Husband to show me around for a bit.
(ok, I'm going to use abbreviations TW as The Wife and TH as The Husband to save me typing and time).
TH said he has tummyache, so i told them not to worry, i remember the way to the Duomo from last night's long walk, and i would fill in some shopping in there and keep myself occupied. i'd be back by 5 or 6pm and have dinner with them - we bought fish at the farmers' market so TH was going to cook us a nice meal.
i took myself to the Duomo, both frustrating and challenging but also fun to figure out how to retrace the route from last night. Growing up in Montreal, i had learned to love exploring a walkable city (as supposed to a drivable one like san jose or san francisco), so it brings back memories of summer days strolling downtown Montreal.
i did some shopping, i walked into the main downtown church (the Duomo), i even found my way back to the best gelato place - Grom and had apple, lemon and cream di grom gelato. stood there and watched a protest parade that gathered in the middle of the piazza right in front of the Duomo and saw the riot police on guard watching it unfold from afar (apparently they always get into riot gear and almost never does it actually become a riot of any kind).
tired, but without any tickets for the tram back (and forgotten the word for 'ticket' which you can only buy at the Tabacchis which are not everywhere and opens also at odd hours) - I managed to push myself to walk all the way back home after 5 hours of mostly walking. (i only sat when inside the church, feet already hurting in the morning from the unadjusted amount of walking the night before).
a) i had to walk off my 3 scoops of gelato
b) i hadn't mustered up enough courage to go attempt to buy 'tickets' for the tram yet
c) i also forgot which tram line goes straight to the house
when i got to the building about to ring the doorbell i saw a note to "Amy" stuck on by tape there...
turns out TW left me a note saying "TH had surgery, call me when you get this message"
turns out TH's stomach pain needed emergency surgery after they consulted an american doctor and went to the ER of a reputable hospital.
they took out his appendix, his wife was worried although she understood italian, she didn't really speak enough, plus this all happened within the hour after i left the house - they got to the ER, checked him in, talked to the specialist, they readied him for surgery.
now, my debit card was stuck in the house - it being the first full day i was in town, we had not yet covered emergency protocols between us and i didn't have the extra set of keys. i had 20 euros for the cab, if it had cost more i didn't know how i would've gotten to the hospital.
Anyways, i got there, TW was understandably worried but ok overall, and within 10 minutes, TH came out of surgery
we visited him for 15 minutes, then had to leave... this was saturday night, TH was supposed to be able to come home Tuesday...
Sunday day time the hospital thought TH could be released monday instead, Sunday night TH had 100 degree fever, and Monday night he still has a fever, so today is tuesday and he's still there. ETA for release is tomorrow.
I've been home with TW and surprisingly she's held together pretty well. there's an underlying sense of unrest because he's not home yet but we're doing well here...
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