It’s raining buckets! The thunderstorm warning we kept getting only to have sunny days came home to roost with plenty of thunder and rain to make up the difference. We waited for the rain to let out a little before embarking on the 30-minute walk to the station. It was pretty much the only time where Venice being a pedestrian city turned out not to be the best. With good weather it’s easy to enjoy walking everywhere and discover new little squares, alleys and canals. Under pouring rain, not so much.
We arrived at the station two hours ahead of our train. With little to do we hunted for breakfast and places to sit. In the end, we had to embody hobbits and we have our two breakfasts there. The first breakfast came standing up at the surprisingly good foccaceria in the station. It was the only location we could at least get a counter to put our stuff into and hang our rain coats to dry while the rest of the station’s few benches were occupied by weary travellers ready to defend their seats with their lives. As good hobbits, we were not about to displace people. As we finished our first breakfast, Karine headed to the ladies room and found, tucked in the corner of the station, a sit down pizzeria with plenty of room. Why did they had so much room available? Because they require you to order food in order to be allowed to obtain a coveted seat. We dug deep, channeled our inner hobbit and had a second breakfast of pizza.
Quite sustained, with as many meals as hours spent at the station, we boarded our train to Milan just as the rain stopped in Venice. The weather radar had good news for the people in the city as the rain had finally ended and the system bringing the rain kept on its way east leaving the city under partially cloudy skies for the rest of the day. For us however, no such good news: we were heading for the middle of the torrential rain that had just arrived over Milano.
If karma was a thing, we would have good karma. We arrived in Milano right as the rain ended. We made our way to the apartment we are renting for the next few days, got a key set with a giant number of keys from the lockbox and checked ourselves in. We had planned for doing laundry today as we had rain in the forecast and did just that.
Laundry done, we headed out to dinner. Before heading, out we wanted to make sure we knew how to get back in. The apartment we’re in is on top of a small shopping mall with a movie theatre and a couple of offices in the building. During office hours, all the doors but our apartment doors are kept opened. As the business day end, some of the doors are closed and locked. First the offices, then the appartment section, and the last door closes after the movie theatre around 1:00. That’s why we have a giant key set. For each of the access door that closes, there is a different key.
So, as we left, we tested each of the keys to ensure we could get back in. Normally we would not have done that but this time the instructions talked about using a red key for a door and there’s no red key on the key ring. There’s also a broken blue key on the ring not mentioned anywhere in the instructions. Adopting a trust but verify approach seemed prudent. The first door we try our keys on, none of them fit. Turns out it’s the door the broken key opens. While the door is indeed now closed the lock has been jammed to stay unlocked, so we assumed it will be so when we come back. Getting to the second barrier on our way out we find a key that fits. Wanting to be damn sure one of us stays inside while the other goes outside to test out the key. The second we use that key to unlock the door it snaps. I do not know what these people do to their keys: out of five keys, six if you count the already broken one, we’re at a 33% failure rate. While we’re not NASA where the risk tolerance is more in the single digits, we’re not Boeing either where “probably fine” is a passable grade. We chose to get back into our apartment and reach out to the host to make sure we could get a replacement key.
About ten minutes later, we were back out, with the promise that the replacement key would be in the lockbox by the time we got back from the dinner. Choosing to have faith, we went out.
Dinner was a bit of a surprise. Karine has been dreaming of osso bucco and rissotto, a staple of milanese cuisine. I assumed she picked our next meals in Milan with an eye on the best places to have one or both dishes. For our first night it was essentially a wine bar that serves food tapas style (all small dishes to share). All that we had was excellent but as we got talking about the contrast between where we’re having dinner and my expectation, a slight panic showed on Karine’s face. She booked our next meals with restaurants with small menus and local…ish ingredients but not based on the iconic dishes she’s been craving. I must admit I would have found it very funny. A mad scramble to review our next two bookings in the city confirmed that the two next restaurants do serve (and specialize in) the local cuisine and the staples of the Milanese cuisine. There was one relieved woman at the table after that!
