I walked to the Milan Central Station yesterday to meet clovis_t on his arrival. I'd not yet been there, before, so as I like to do on a walk to a new location, I consulted my map frequently while walking. It seemed important at the time to track my progress, since I didn't want to accidentally walk past the station without noticing it. As I neared my destination I looked at the map one final time, closed it, and thought to myself, "ok, that was the last cross street before the maze of streets that are at the station, from here I just need to look and see what I spot". The next second I stepped out from behind a building and beheld the single most impressive train station (and totally impossible to miss)that I have ever seen in my life. I particularly like the pegasi on the roof. (Note: as with so many things in this world, the photos in the links simply do not do the building justice.) It was a pleasure to wander around the grounds and inside the immense halls within whilst I waited for his train to arrive!

His train came in on time, and I led a very sunburned boy with very blistered feet back to my apartment, fed him some dinner (fresh baked bread, which he loved, and some left over lentil/curry stew, which he managed to eat more of than I expected, since he normally politely refuses my vegetarian cuisine--he meant it when he said he was hungry from not eating much while spending the day on trains and in train stations) and sat up talking till the wee hours of the morn. Since he hadn't slept much the night before in anticipation of his early morning departure, I was not surprised when he slept in this morning, and left my guest happily asleep in his bed when I went in to uni to do some work. Well after 1pm I returned home to find that he'd broken his fast and was contemplating a shower before following the directions I'd written for him to join me in my office (my only source of internet, which is why I spend so much time here!).

However, I'd made my way home in search of more food (having long since eaten what I'd brought with me in the morning), and had brought my computer home to enable me to do some work from home, for a change. After I'd eaten and done a bit of work we decided to head to the closest supermarket to get some supplies to make food a bit more to his taste than what I've got in the house. Alas, that plan was thwarted--the supermarket is simply not open on Sunday afternoons. So instead I cooked him some home-made egg noodles and tossed them with butter, cashews, some grated carrot, and some curry powder; a simple meal, but filling and while he would have prefered a bit of cheese in the mix, the cheese I bought at the market last week was so good that I finished it all before he arrived. (Money being tight until I get paid I don't have the well-stocked spice cabinet to which I'm accustomed, but I couldn't live without *something*, so I picked up a curry blend from the local Asian market. It isn't bad, but I do look forward to having enough money to expand the spice collection a bit).

The night is still young, but we are both feeling a bit tired, so I think that as soon as I post this I'll shut the computer off, head home, and get some rest so that we can wake up early for the morning market and stock up on yummy food stuff for the week before I have to come back and do more work.

Speaking of work--after a couple of e-mail exchanges with my advisor I've decided which sub-topic of my research I will try to publish in the Journal of Metamorphic Petrology. We've picked the "hook", and I've started the document. I wrote an introductory paragraph, and have started editing the bits from the thesis which are relevant. I've also done a quick search for papers that I'll need for background reading and to cite on the topic of the effects of metamorphic fluids (and/or the lack thereof) on (mineral) inclusion density in garnet. Alas, I didn't find anything very useful, so I gave up and asked on the Geo-Metamorphic e-mail list if anyone there can recommend one. (I did find 1000s of papers on fluid inclusions, which is different, and handfuls on the manner in which fluids modify pre-existing garnet, which is also not helpful).