The Great European Adventure

...and so it begins. (Babylon 5 anyone? and yes Coli, it is a good show!)
We had a very smooth trip from Abbotsford to Seattle (thank you so much Uncle Frank and Auntie Eileen). After a delicious lunch at California Pizza Chicke..Kitchen, we got to the airport with hours to spare, which for Monica and I is not a bad thing. There were no lines in the airport, it was just smooth sailing from check in to boarding. After a long night -which included movies, pasta and wine for dinner, and TRYING to sleep- we arrived at Heathrow at 12:15 pm local time (yes that really is 4:15 am BC time!) So now we are sitting in the airport in London, waiting for our flight, and even more important what gate we will be leaving from. Our flight is at 2:55 pm, and the gate opens at 2:05 pm, so until then we don't even know where we need to go.
To be continued...
The Next Day: We arrived in Milan at about 6pm local time. We had such good flights and connections the whole way here. Our lugggage was unloaded in a few minutes, and we didn't even really have to go through customs as we had nothing to declare. (Well except how glad we were to be in Italy!) We got our car which is a Mercedes A180 - see picture for further details - or ask Monica. She says it drives well, and we sit up a bit higher in it so we get a great view of the beautiful countryside. Our hotel is very quaint and fun. We had supper last night at the restaurant here at the hotel because we were too tired to go out to eat. At this point we had been awake for about 30 hours because neither of us got any sleep on the plane. For supper I had Risotto "Vecchia Milano" - or flavoured with saffron and of course parmigiano - and Monica tried Risotto con pere dolci e toma - sweet pear and fresh cheese, it was surprisingly tasty. We both fell asleep almost the minute our heads hit the pillows. We woke up this morning to the birds singing and a wonderful cool breeze, Monica swears it smells like Italy (which is a good thing as we are in Italy) but I can't smell the difference. This morning we sat down to a breakfast of brioche and cappuccino - so good. Monica skipped the coffee and had tea instead. We also had fresh squeezed orange juice. Mmmm. I know this seems like a list of food, but really all we have done so far is travel, eat and sleep. We are heading into the city later this morning so we'll have a whole other adventure to blog about.
Monica and I will alternate posts on our blogs, so if there is nothing new on my blog, you might try Monica's at http://twocatsandamonky.blogspot.com - or I think there is a link on the side of my blog. Ciao