well, we asked for an adventure...

When C & I got up for our run at 8am, it was already in the mid-80s outside in Milano - yech. It never got any cooler all day long..

We had breakfast as a group, checked out of the hotel, and headed over to the La Scala museum. We only had a few minutes to spend in there, but we did get to go inside the concert hall, which was a treat - so much great music was performed inside - the room reverberated with musical genius.

Shortly after noon, we picked up the rental car, loaded it up, and packed ourselves off to Civenna, our resort town on Lake Como. The drive should have taken about 90 minutes, but 60 minutes into the trip, as soon as we got off of level roads and into the hills, the car started smoking and we lost every gear except first. We pulled over to the side of the road and turned the car off to let it cool down. We weren't sure what happened - we knew it could be anything from a blown transmission to overheating. Once we got going again, it took us less than a mile to hit the exact same problem, but worse. C pulled the van over to the side of the road by a lake. By this point, the clutch pedal was stuck to the floorboard of the car. C called the rental car company and the woman who was supposed to meet us at the villa. The rental car company sent a tow truck for the car, and the woman who was supposed to meet us organized a shuttle service. Along the day, a few things of ours got left in the van as it got towed off. Including my iPad. Crap.

Waiting for the broken car...

The house here is lovely. A great living space, a pool, a marvelous view of the lake. It's beautiful, but we're going to have to strategize how to deal with the heat. Highs in the mid-80s, no a/c, and the air is super-still right now. The house, for all of its all-inclusive-ness, is missing a lot of things that one might expect. Like extra toilet paper. Or fans. Or condiments in the kitchen.

Dinner tonight was lovely. C & D hired a chef to come in and cook for us. We had a saffron risotto, veal scaloppini with truffles, fried summer veggies, wine, and sorbet with limoncello.  Excellent!  Then, we watched dusk hit the lake.

And now, we're watching Italy get its butt kicked in the European Football Final.  Spain is trouncing Italia. It ain't even funny.

The internet is super-slow here, so I'll be limited in how many photos I post...