Monday November 3, 2014

Well we got our miracle!  I called the Curator at 8:30 and he had just read my email from last night, and he apologized for not getting back to me sooner.  Anyway we agreed to meet at his building at 9:30 after he finished a telephone interview with a newspaper.  He was very nice, and Sue adds also very good looking: 30s, tall, thin, dressed casually and smart, he is a Doctor after all.  He had our painting and about four others to show us.  The paintings are on paper and not framed.  Each is about the size of regular typing paper.  He took us to an area where we could sit at a table and view the paintings.  He explained what our painting was about; I won’t bore you with the details, but I’ll just tell you that it is an Avatar of Vishnu defeating a demon.  We found it fascinating, as of course we would.

We are on the train to Milano and the scenery is beautiful and dramatic, the sun is out and it is another beautiful day.  We have been going down a valley flanked by mountains that I’m guessing are 3,000-5,000 ft. tall.  Many have snow at the top.  There are lots of cows and quintessential Swiss farm buildings.  The train also goes through a lot of tunnels.  We also went by a couple of pretty good sized lakes with modern homes on the shores.  We just came out of a tunnel that was several miles long into the clouds, so we must have been climbing as we went through the tunnel.  It is now gray and the rocks along the track are wet as it is raining.  We arrived on time at Milano Centrale.  We got our phones activated where I shook hands with a guy from Nigeria, who was getting a SIM card for his tablet.  So I don’t know if he was just in from Nigeria, but assume that was the reason he was in the phone store.  I will be home in about 25 days, so if I have Ebola the symptoms should manifest themselves before I get home, so no worries.  I just heard on a BBC interview that the World Health Organization has ruled that Nigeria is Ebola free!  So really no worries, unless of course it is Ebola free because all the folks with Ebola have left Nigeria and have gone to Milan.  After that we went to our very nice hotel.  We went to the convent that has the “Last Supper” to see if the gift shop was open.  I want to get Sue a scarf that we saw on our last visit, but it was closed so will try again tomorrow.  Our luck with the weather may have run out.  The weather forecast is for a good chance of rain all week.  That will be an inconvenience when we visit Cimitero Monumentale to see the elaborate tombs/sculptures, but unless it is raining cats and dogs it won’t stop us.

Zurich-Milan November 3 2014