As nicely located as our apartment was, there was no discernible couch, as had been pictured, and the programmable thermostat was set too low. It was cold. Carol theorized the bed was convertible and maintained that theory even after the manager assured her it was not. As we unfolded the bed and the couch began to form itself, Carol’s only concern was whether we “found a bunch of condoms underneath the bed.” (We didn’t.)

“It was there we learned that at the finer Italian eateries, the waiter will ask for your food order first, then he/she will recommend the wine. Hoity Toity, but my breaded Veal cutlet on the bone would have tasted fabulous paired with a bottle of Two Buck Chuck as far as I was concerned.”

   Carol then found the model of the thermostat on a Google search, and was able to translate enough of the instructions to reset the temperature to something more comfortable.  While she was doing that, I counted up the euro coins we’d accumulated to see what they totalled up to.

   The day’s “Plan” (read: “Carol “) would have us heading to the Duomo for walk-bys of the cathedral and the La Scala opera house. This was fine by me, as it wouldn’t entail actually entering these places. (Sadly, I was to learn that tickets to do just that had already been procured for the cathedral on the following day.)

   It did not surprise me, though, when Carol decided to take a tour of the La Scala opera house. Since she could seat me at a café next door, I had no objection to her taking the tour. I was also not surprised why she wanted to take it. You see, in his youth, Mike had dreams of singing opera. He also had the pipes to make that dream almost come true. In 1967 or thereabouts, he had actually been  accepted into La Scala’s program, the equivalent of getting into Juilliard, except even more prestigious. Then he was informed that they had overextended their invitations, and he would now have to re-apply in a kind of sudden death sing off. He didn’t make it, and what Carol was doing essentially was visiting the grave of Mike’s aborted singing career. How that never crushed his spirit I’ll never understand. Yet that benighted soul went on to a very successful life as husband, father and grandfather, and from an entrepreneurial point of view anyway, lived a life that would have made a good opera of itself.

   Carol returned to the Cafe, wiping away tears, but felt a certain fulfillment in honoring Mike’s shattered dream. I ordered her a glass to match my third, and we commiserated about life’s gut punches, as two Okay Boomers sat nearby anachronistically reading from a real newspaper. Don’t know why that made me nostalgic, but it did.

   Our second evening in Milan concluded at a white tableclothed restaurant located at the foot of our apartment. It was there we learned that at the finer Italian eateries, the waiter will ask for your food order first, then he/she will recommend the wine. Hoity Toity, but my breaded Veal cutlet on the bone would have tasted fabulous paired with a bottle of Two Buck Chuck as far as I was concerned. The twenty or so steps back to the apartment didn’t walk off any of it either, and I was happy to carry that cutlet into my incipient dreams that night. Even the prospect of climbing up a church in the morning couldn’t dim my perfectly satiated spirits. 

   I would soon learn how much I underestimated what tomorrow would bring.