Milano

Just back from a quick trip to Milan, where I picked up my Permesso di Soggiorno (my official residency card). Now we're both legal.

Milan has a charm very different from Rome: more elegant, more contained. We almost chose it over Rome, actually — the beauty, the efficiency, the proximity to the rest of Europe, the civility, the food, the shopping. What scared us off was the cold, dark winters. And so instead we have the glorious, layered chaos that is Rome.

Had we chosen Milan, we would have needed to upgrade our wardrobes and commit to an actual personal sense of style. I sat for an hour in a park just watching the Milanese go by in their extraordinary outfits. It was its own form of entertainment.

I also deeply envy Milan its metro. It’s clean, fast, easy, and it actually gets you where you're going. Rome's public transit is a separate blog post entirely.

But I will say this: elegance only goes so far. Manspreading is very much a thing here too.