day 2...

i'm borrowing one of the singer's laptops while they are off to do a sound check for tonight's show. Internet cafes around these parts actually don't seem to exist, and the hotel has a PC avail for use but the rates are pretty steep so i guess i'm going to be more limited in online time. perhaps there are worse things than being off-line ;)

weather is still pretty dreary...very humid, in the upper 60s, kinda off & on rainy, but still got in my first run of the trip today with Kim (who happens to be just about 5 feet tall and of Hawaiian/Japanese American lineage, so the 2 of us running the streets of Italy together is almost comical in our height difference :) Did 4.5 miles around town (having the Garmin is a godsend!), just to learn some of the parts of Legnano. Found an old castle; found some amazing ducks near a pond that were very high fashion with amazing colors and plumage! And some ginormous birds that look like ravens in size but have a lot of white on their wings and front. I know American birds pretty well, but European birds i have no idea about....We also saw a good handful of male runners on our jaunt, but haven'ts seen a single girl runner yet. No idea why. Maybe they're too into fashion & smoking here to run...

hotel is good...the Norwegians showed up a little while ago....so we have more folks on our wing now that are not Rose Ensemble singers. The group from Norway is an Oslo Chamber Choir....The choral festival is apparently a big thing here, and the group's first gig is tonight.

All of our meals are paid for (well the singers are; I'll have to reimburse the group at the end of the trip for my meal tickets) and i have managed twice now to screw up taking too much food in the buffet line and end up owing some euro. we're allowed 1 first course item, 1 second course item, & 1 vegetable. I manage to keep picking TWO vegetables. Which is fine but you gotta pay a little. I think I finally have it down now...and the problem has been the fries. who thinks of french fries as *vegetables* anyway??? (but they're damn good and one luxury i'm part taking in so far)....

The men here really do ooggle at women often, everyone seems to be wearing skinny jeans (well everyone is skinny and smokes it appears), and high fashion really does seem everywhere. the man purse here is a big deal. the coffee is good but not as good as in spain. the wine is as good as i expected, and yep, cheap! gelato too is a must at least now and then. last night my flavor of choice was limoncello/puffo. (puffo was the blue stuff that looked and tasted like a mild cotton candy flavor :) and speaking of blue, Smurfs are in here. They're called "Puffi".

I believe tomorrow we get to go to another town for the performance in the evening, so we'll get to see more of this part of the country then. Lisa & Carol, I'm still looking for George Clooney and hoping we can hit Lake Como by sometime early next week. Rumor has it it's not that far from here....

so have a great weekend everyone, and next time i can score a laptop, i'll check in with more from Italia...~jd