Around Northern Italy

So first fail was not charging my devices on the flight across the pond. Not much sleep, so our devices were as dead as we were. I had pre-purchased and installed an eSIM for Italy a week or so before we left, but when I switched to it, Nada, No Service.

Next fail was forgetting that our US charging blocks were worthless in Europe. So no service, and when they died, they were dead. I brought a couple of charged power blocks, but they are all USB-A and our devices mostly are USB-C. FAIL

So it's New Years day, and everything is closed, so after getting our room early, we took a short nap, which turned into 5 hours, FAIL because we all should know that we don't reset our body clock by succumbing to our need for rest. We did get a great recommendation from Lorenzo at the hotel bar, and found the place after wandering through Busto Artezio town center, and seeing some cool sights, which we weren't able to photograph because our phones were dead. It was a butcher shop with a restaurant, where you order your meat from the case, and they cook it and bring it to your table. We wandered back to the hotel and passed an ice skating rink in the town square. All of the kids were skating and holding on to these large white animals to help them skate. Of course there was a huge nativity scene that was the center of the square and a beautiful white church overlooking the square.

Leaving Busto Artezio

Tower Hotel is where we spent our first night in Busto Artezio close to the Milan Malpensa airport

I always thought I was cooler than the "Stupid Americans" that go to Europe and ask ignorant questions or don't follow customs. But there we are: the first night here, Jess drank a pitcher of wine; we slept until noon and missed our check-out time. Mark and Jess didn't know that the room key turned on the electricity, so Mark toggled the circuit breakers and bypassed the security system. The front desk lady warned us we could have burned the place down. We are butchering the Italian language and Mark wore a loud, Mint-green, Billabong sweatsuit to a 5-star hotel breakfast buffet. All heads turned to his California Olukai flip-flops. We are sooooo classy. Life is never boring with Mark Rosenthal. Also, all bets are off for losing weight on this trip. Pulpo, Branzini, Cannoli with pistachio and chocolate, Mouse au chocolate, squid ink pasta, apricot tarts, linguine and mussels, apple tarts, should I go on?