chestnuts!

I celebrated Halloween this year by getting out of the city. This was my first trip to the Alps without a native guide driving their car. Therefore I opted to head to the same town from which I commended my last alpine adventure. It turns out that one can catch a train there from the train station in the Milan city center, not the big Milan Centrale station from which one catches trains to some of the other Alpine communities. clovis_t and I had planned to head out for the adventure with some friends, but we'd originally planned to meet Saturday morning at the Centrale station, and it was Friday evening before we looked up "how to get to Canzo" on line and determined that we needed to be at the Cardona station instead. Since I still didn't have a local mobile phone number and my office phone wouldn't let me call our friends (he's got a mobile from another country, since we know him through couchsurfing) so I sent him a message via the couchsurfing web page, and another via facebook and hoped that he'd see it on time. There still wasn't a reply when time to depart in the morning arrived, so we weren't surprised when he didn't meet us at the station. The journey to Canzo takes 1.5 hours by that train (there are a lot of stations between here and there), so we started our adventure at 10:30, first wandering through the town of Canzo, and then heading up the low end of the ridge to the north of town, heading eastwards up the hill.

Very soon after reaching the forested part of the trail I started noticing chestnuts on the ground.



Not being one to pass up free food, I started pausing in my accent to put them into my pocket. Even just limiting myself to only picking up the ones which were directly in my path and either completely free or mostly free of their dangerous, prickly, exteriors my pocket was soon full. So I moved some of the food I'd brought along to much on whilst walking from its bag to share another bag with some other items and emptied my pocket into the bag. Onwards, and upwards. Trying not to pick up any more nuts. But there were so many of them! I added "only the really plump, tempting looking ones" to the list of restrictions, and still my pocket was soon full again. I hadn't reached the high point of the ridge by the time the amount of collected nuts filled the bag, and there was literally no room left in my backpack. From then on I managed to resist collecting any, and my progress up the hill became faster, but it was so hard to just walk past so much free food, just lying on the ground like that.

Since I was hiking with clovis_t, who only agreed to come along because he was looking forward to hanging out with our friends, we did only a modest hike up the ridge to the first trail back down to town, and then back to the train station. At the train station the automatic ticket machine refused to accept my bank-card, despite the screen stating that it was an option. I had no cash, and we hadn't passed any banks in town, but clovis_t had a 50 euro note. Alas, the ticket machine isn't willing to make more than 9 euro in change, and we weren't willing to donate 32.90, so we went back into town, where we found one open cafe. We bought one creampuff and two cookies for 1.50, which really underscores the difference between Milan and the smaller towns in northern Italy. In Milan I think they would have wanted the 1.50 for just one of the items. Cash obtained we purchased our ticket and were soon wending our way back to Milan.

It was so good for me to get out of town! There is nothing like country air and the sight of mountain ridges, pretty rocks, and more vegetation than fits in a window box to make me happy! I was in such a good mood after the trip that I was willing to do a bit of shopping in the city center when we got back. We finally checked out the American Book Store. Their Sci Fi/Fantasy section is reasonable, but didn't contain anything on my "don't have; must obtain" list, so we wandered into the basement, where they keep the really old, pretty, leather bound books. We wound up buying clovis_t a copy of Ovid whcih has the Latin on the left and the translation on the right. From there we found a store from which were were able to obtain local SIM cards for our mobile phones. Yes, that is correct, after 16 1/2 weeks in Milan, it is *finally* possible to reach me when I'm *not* in my office! The cards were priced at two for 20 Euros, or three for 15. So I bought three. This means that not only do he and I each have local numbers, it will now be possible to lend the spare to visitors who bring a phone, so that they can do local calls at local rates, should they so desire. (My number is available on my Facebook info page, should you need it. I've also got more photos from my hike in an album there.)

After we got back home I noticed that my index finger hurt a bit, particularly when typing. There was a tiny red dot on it, so I guessed that I must have acquired a splinter of chestnut spine. Therefore I went own to the lab to use the binocular microscope to see if I could see it. Yes, indeed, that was the problem, so I took my smallest sewing needle and attempted to extract it. This task was complicated by several factors. The needle, which looks sharp to the naked eye, looks rather blunt under the 'scope, and is a fair bit larger than the embedded spine. The afflicted part of the finger couldn't be rotated into focus without twisting my arm at a very funny angle. The angle of entry was such that it was needful to cross my left arm over my right in order to get the needle at the correct angle at which to work. The spine was very deep (compared to its size) and stubborn. So I worked at it a bit, then took a break looking for, finding, and removing, a few other spines which were more superficial and hadn't hurt at all, before returning to the problem spine. Eventually I managed to dig deep enough to release a tiny bit of blood into the wound, after whcih it was a simple matter to remove the spine, which, while very, very tiny, was still many times longer than it was wide. This morning my finger is much happier, though I can still see the spot upon which the surgery was performed.

I hope to do a bit of Uni work today, and my Italian homework. I may join clovis_t and the couchsurfers he's hosting today on their adventures in the afternoon/evening.

Nine more days till my boxes arrive from Australia!

chestnuts!

I celebrated Halloween this year by getting out of the city. This was my first trip to the Alps without a native guide driving their car. Therefore I opted to head to the same town from which I commended my last alpine adventure. It turns out that one can catch a train there from the train station in the Milan city center, not the big Milan Centrale station from which one catches trains to some of the other Alpine communities. clovis_t and I had planned to head out for the adventure with some friends, but we'd originally planned to meet Saturday morning at the Centrale station, and it was Friday evening before we looked up "how to get to Canzo" on line and determined that we needed to be at the Cardona station instead. Since I still didn't have a local mobile phone number and my office phone wouldn't let me call our friends (he's got a mobile from another country, since we know him through couchsurfing) so I sent him a message via the couchsurfing web page, and another via facebook and hoped that he'd see it on time. There still wasn't a reply when time to depart in the morning arrived, so we weren't surprised when he didn't meet us at the station. The journey to Canzo takes 1.5 hours by that train (there are a lot of stations between here and there), so we started our adventure at 10:30, first wandering through the town of Canzo, and then heading up the low end of the ridge to the north of town, heading eastwards up the hill.

Very soon after reaching the forested part of the trail I started noticing chestnuts on the ground.



Not being one to pass up free food, I started pausing in my accent to put them into my pocket. Even just limiting myself to only picking up the ones which were directly in my path and either completely free or mostly free of their dangerous, prickly, exteriors my pocket was soon full. So I moved some of the food I'd brought along to much on whilst walking from its bag to share another bag with some other items and emptied my pocket into the bag. Onwards, and upwards. Trying not to pick up any more nuts. But there were so many of them! I added "only the really plump, tempting looking ones" to the list of restrictions, and still my pocket was soon full again. I hadn't reached the high point of the ridge by the time the amount of collected nuts filled the bag, and there was literally no room left in my backpack. From then on I managed to resist collecting any, and my progress up the hill became faster, but it was so hard to just walk past so much free food, just lying on the ground like that.

Since I was hiking with clovis_t, who only agreed to come along because he was looking forward to hanging out with our friends, we did only a modest hike up the ridge to the first trail back down to town, and then back to the train station. At the train station the automatic ticket machine refused to accept my bank-card, despite the screen stating that it was an option. I had no cash, and we hadn't passed any banks in town, but clovis_t had a 50 euro note. Alas, the ticket machine isn't willing to make more than 9 euro in change, and we weren't willing to donate 32.90, so we went back into town, where we found one open cafe. We bought one creampuff and two cookies for 1.50, which really underscores the difference between Milan and the smaller towns in northern Italy. In Milan I think they would have wanted the 1.50 for just one of the items. Cash obtained we purchased our ticket and were soon wending our way back to Milan.

It was so good for me to get out of town! There is nothing like country air and the sight of mountain ridges, pretty rocks, and more vegetation than fits in a window box to make me happy! I was in such a good mood after the trip that I was willing to do a bit of shopping in the city center when we got back. We finally checked out the American Book Store. Their Sci Fi/Fantasy section is reasonable, but didn't contain anything on my "don't have; must obtain" list, so we wandered into the basement, where they keep the really old, pretty, leather bound books. We wound up buying clovis_t a copy of Ovid whcih has the Latin on the left and the translation on the right. From there we found a store from which were were able to obtain local SIM cards for our mobile phones. Yes, that is correct, after 16 1/2 weeks in Milan, it is *finally* possible to reach me when I'm *not* in my office! The cards were priced at two for 20 Euros, or three for 15. So I bought three. This means that not only do he and I each have local numbers, it will now be possible to lend the spare to visitors who bring a phone, so that they can do local calls at local rates, should they so desire. (My number is available on my Facebook info page, should you need it. I've also got more photos from my hike in an album there.)

After we got back home I noticed that my index finger hurt a bit, particularly when typing. There was a tiny red dot on it, so I guessed that I must have acquired a splinter of chestnut spine. Therefore I went own to the lab to use the binocular microscope to see if I could see it. Yes, indeed, that was the problem, so I took my smallest sewing needle and attempted to extract it. This task was complicated by several factors. The needle, which looks sharp to the naked eye, looks rather blunt under the 'scope, and is a fair bit larger than the embedded spine. The afflicted part of the finger couldn't be rotated into focus without twisting my arm at a very funny angle. The angle of entry was such that it was needful to cross my left arm over my right in order to get the needle at the correct angle at which to work. The spine was very deep (compared to its size) and stubborn. So I worked at it a bit, then took a break looking for, finding, and removing, a few other spines which were more superficial and hadn't hurt at all, before returning to the problem spine. Eventually I managed to dig deep enough to release a tiny bit of blood into the wound, after whcih it was a simple matter to remove the spine, which, while very, very tiny, was still many times longer than it was wide. This morning my finger is much happier, though I can still see the spot upon which the surgery was performed.

I hope to do a bit of Uni work today, and my Italian homework. I may join clovis_t and the couchsurfers he's hosting today on their adventures in the afternoon/evening.

Nine more days till my boxes arrive from Australia!