First of all, I had another birthday. Yay! Given the alternative, I am very excited to be another year older. We celebrated with a quick day trip to Milan! I know, right? How cool is that?
We took the train to the central station in Milan:
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Gorgeous old train station building. |
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The first thing we noticed when we got off the train was that we didn't have to work our way through a crowd of people to actually exit the train and walk on the platform. In fact, the platform was empty.
We thought, huh, this is weird and very different from Swiss train stations. Then we walked a little further into the main station and found the people:
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They were all looking up... |
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...at this. |
Apparently in Italy the passengers have to stay in a front waiting area until the platform for their train is assigned on a huge schedule board - minutes before the train is supposed to leave. An example of when the Italians are more orderly than the Swiss! Go figure...
While in Milan, we wandered around the city, shopped at a huge street market and ate (Italian) food:
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Setting off on our journey. |
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Along the canals. |
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And at the street market. |
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Mo's plate of fish...a bit of a surprise, but she ate 'em! |
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Joe had to get in on the selfie action! |
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Coffee and a cuddle. |
Since the subject of this post is being of a certain age, I thought I'd share a mid-life hobby I picked up since moving to Switzerland...inline skating:
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Fabulous... |
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...paths. |
Also on the subject of the many exciting things happening around here...I got a job! It's ironic that when many in our family are retiring, I am reentering the work force full time. I am a teaching assistant in a grade 1 classroom at the international school where Maureen goes - well, actually she is at the high school campus and I will be on elementary campus. I am very excited to be back in the classroom working with little people full time. I've thoroughly enjoyed my time teaching English to kids since moving here, but it will be nice to have a full time, permanent gig. Being on the same schedule as Maureen is a huge perk as well.
Because of this life change I will now only be posting once a week, usually on the weekend, but I WILL keep posting. I still have lots of interesting Swiss stories to tell and poetry to share - not the least of which is the saga of getting my work permit. Stay tuned. And if you receive these posts via email, please click through to my blog so my Google analytics stay favorable. Thank you!
And finally, as if starting a new job wasn't exciting enough, we're moving! Next week! The fourth (and final!) living situation we've had since arriving in Switzerland - we are finally out of the temporary corporate housing. DM me for our new address...we do very much like snail mail if you are so inclined.
Here are some pics from our new digs:
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Kitchen view from dining room area. |
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Living room view from dining room area. |
appreciating life
even when it gets
inarguably chaotic
never
giving up
©2018, Bridget Magee. All Rights Reserved.