I arrived in Milan early Saturday morning, and immediately went downtown to start looking at churches and drinking plenty of coffee to stay awake. The city was founded in the 4th century BC by the Celts, and has been continuously inhabited from that time. They have some old petrolyths from around that period in the City Archeology Museum, as well as Roman and early Christian artifacts. They have tons of this stuff just lying around. I wish that I had a better understanding of the history of this area, because the museums are all poorly documented, and most of THAT documentation is in Italian. (imagine that!)

The first place we went to (I am travelling with John Macfarlane, the VP of Bell's European operation) was the St Ambroglio church. I cannot recall what year it was built, but it is being restored now for the Millennium celebration. (All the churches here are collecting money for the "Turn of the New Century" celebration) The church has very square towers, and huge round dome. It is mostly brown brick with contrasting cream colored brick for detail and design. This church, as most areas of interest here, have a healthy group of beggars surrounding it.

Several people here have told me that Milan is the "real" or sometimes "business" capitol of Milan. (When Napoleon crowned himself King of Italy, he named Milan as the capitol. They still have large boulevards named after him) The economy here seems good, and the sense of style is stunning. The Milanese must spent a large portion of their income on clothing, and it all looks good. Let me tell you what is in: Wide ties, those coats for women are quilted (some with squares, some with diamonds), "wedge" high heels. But based on what I see here, I would guess that platform shoes are out.

We went to see a HUGE castle here, as well as the "Duomo" or the cathedral. The castle could be called italianate (yeah, right) and was all dark brick, not stone. There are holes in the wall in a regular pattern, probably every 10 feet or so. The holes go all the way through the walls. We called John's father, who is a professor of mediaeval history in Aberdeen to ask about the holes, He said that they lower the weight of the wall, so the lower bricks do not get crushed. The castle had a moat, and a real drawbridge (!) to get over the moat. The moat was not filled with water, and I am not sure if it had EVER been filled with water. It was about 20 feet deep, and would have been one heck of a jump. They have a museum inside with another amazing collection of artifacts, furniture, paintings, and sculpture. There is a Michalangelo Pieta, which is unfinished. (The mythology of the sculpture is that he was working on the piece when he died, but I gather that there is no proof of that).

The Duomo is an amazingly detailed cathedral. It is also quite large, and spectacular. We went to the 11:00 mass yesterday (the "canto" mass). There are so many tourists going though the church that it is sort of distracting. But it does make you appreciate what happens when we go to other religious (Buddhist, Hindu) ceremonies. The church has hundreds of spires that are detailed with statues on each spire. We walked to the top of the church for a great view of the city, and the Alps beyond. There are flying buttresses (what middle age cathedral would be complete without flying buttresses?) on the top level, but not at the ground level.

I wanted to mention a couple of other things about the trip. While in Milan, we had just wonderful coffee, espresso, at every corner caffe. (Some of you may know that good espresso has become my latest obsession.) It was good cheap, and fast. REAL Italians don't drink any cappuccino or lattes after breakfast, but seem to live on a constant stream of wonderful espresso all day long. Interesting point: They charge differently if you are going to sit at a table than they do if you stand at the counter. The government regulates the standup price, but not the sit-down price. We never sat, so I do not know what the price was for sitting, but the stand up price was 1500 lira (about $0.75).

I mentioned the fashions in my last letter, but I do not think I mentioned how many people were wearing furs! (Not the men, this wasn't France) There was even an elderly lady wearing a coon skin cap! (I am not kidding, just exactly like Davy Crockett! Or was it Daniel Boone...) I hate to say it, I really do, but those furs were certainly beautiful. Even the policemen were stylish! You had some with big white hats like Bobbies in England, you had some with white (and blue) Same Browne belts, and you had some that wore spectacular capes. I spent most of my time there feeling dowdy. I DID get this cool hat, though. It is a felt bleu Borsolino traveller, which is crushable, rollable, and waterproof. I felt cool,  but I am sure I could not pull it off like an Italian. Especially an Italian from Milan.

We flew to Amsterdam on Tuesday to see some clients in Der Haag (The Hague). It was mostly uneventful, except that we had a pretty good Indonesian meal there. John Macfarlane (who is on this list, by the way) lived in Indonesia for beaucoups years (more than 12, right, John) and his kind and generous wife is Indonesian. So when we walked in, John greeted them in Bahasa Indonesia (literally Indonesian Language) and they just looked at him slack jawed, uncomprehending. (Heck, even I can say Selemat Datang. Or something like that. Well, I really CAN'T say that, but John can. Trust me.) Since neither of us spoke Dutch, and these waiters did not speak English (Probably the only people in The Netherlands (Der Nederlands) who don't) John ordered everything in Bahasa. We got chicken  instead of fish, and goat instead of rice, but other than that it was great. NO! I AM KIDDING! (John, don't get mad!) I think that they were so shocked to see this tall Scottish bloke speaking in Bahasa, they where shocked into insensibility. Once they figured out that he knew what he was saying, it went great. (John thinks that I pick on him too much. I just treat him like everyone else I know...)

The last part of the week was spent in Aberdeen. Again we say clients and took the office out to dinner, that all went fine. When I arrived at my hotel, however, they had no record of my reservation. Then they tried to charge me DOUBLE what they had quoted, but it all worked out. (You gotta hand it to those Scots for cheapness...)

For Thanksgiving, John and Renny (his wife) invited me to his house for Renny's usual great cooking. We had Scottish Salmon as a starter, and the a wonderful free range roast chicken with roasted potatoes, potato salad, and gravy. And the coup d'grace. a HAGGIS! Haggis is the national food of Scotland, and I had been bugging John to try one for as long as I have known him. So he got one for the holiday. It is a typical country type food - oatmeal, various leftover bits and parts of animals, stuffed into a sheep's stomach and cooked. Sounds terrible, but I can tell you that it was wonderful. Maybe it was the wine that accompanied it, but everything was great.

John's mother and father joined us for dinner as well. John's father is a professor at the local university (still going strong at 85 years old! Not the university, the father) and we had just a wonderful conversation about Italy, the middle ages, business, science and anything you can imagine. The two of them are wonderful company, and I had a great time.

Now I am going home, and hope to get at least one bite of turkey.