Training (my palate)

Well today was an off day in Milan.  I had ambitions to rent a motorycle and try to drive the Stelvio, but the combination of there being snow and just the experience of italian driver's I decided that could wait for another trip.  Instead we had a plan to drive to a wood working shop to buy some wood to make a roof race for the rental car.  After making directions and look at maps we set off.   Let me just say that driving in Milan is ambitious, just the vast number or cars combined with lane splitting scooters/motorcycles along with lots of cyclists and pedestrians makes things difficult.  About a quarter of the way there I ended up taking a wrong turn,  then took and even worse one heading further into the city center.  It took driving in a bus lane and some aggressive driving to make it back in the right direction. Once we got to the spot where I thought the store was the next task was finding a parking spot.  After a few go rounds of the streets in the area we actually managed to find one and with a little direction I was able to parallel park the car, which I believe is honestly the first time I've had to do it since my drivers license test. Then, we had to find the actual store, the unfortunate part was that we actually weren't at the right spot and after spending half an hour wandering around we gave up and headed back. After driving in Milan traffic for a good portion of the morning I came back and took a nap.  Later in the afternoon we headed out again but this time on foot.  We already saw the Duomo yesterday so today we went to an old castle, not really sure of the name but it was cool.

The main entrance of the castle

Outside of the entrance there were some crazy street performers.  The top one is sitting on a soccer ball on top of a pole held in one hand by the man on the bottom who is sitting on a glass jar.  The were just sitting there static, who knows for how long.

from inside the castle

Some castle's have moats with water, this one has a moat of stray cats

The view out the back of the castle

After all this wandering we were getting hungary. I heard tip from one of my old roomates about a cool coffee shop in Milan, after looking them up, it turned out they had an eight course dinner special that night, so that sounded like a good thing to try.  First was some Jean-paul Deville champagne 

Next, was basically a vegetable medley, but with 15 different elements and it was amazing

Next was a sort of tomato paste with stewed yellow tomatoes, basil and several other things I can't remember

this course was branzino (sea bass) with sea urchins, and a spinach cream sauce

Then came the some sort of meat? haha well it was marinated for 3 hours, then roasted and dried slightly and served with a light mustard sauce on thin slices of toasted bread doused in olive oil

Then came a shot of yogurt with ginger to cleanse the palate

Ah dessert, dark chocolate mouse, with rasberry jam, and white chocolate cream,  not nearly enough of this, so they have us another plate

Top it off with some really good espresso and some cookies. An excellent meal in a really cool cafe.  Going to try and head back in the morning for this before leaving Milan, so good.