A Snow Day in Lombardia

Friday, February 1, 2019

As promised by the local weathermen, I awoke to find about . . .

. . . a foot of new powder snow

on the ground

It was a Winter Wonderland!

It was beautiful to view but a bit hard to get around in on foot.

We had more snow in the area immediately around the Villa Skorpion II area as we reside in Varese's highest elevations.

There was decidedly less snow down in Varese's historic, old downtown area.

I boarded the train to Milano as I had a yearning to go sightseeing.  

The Duomo was as majestic as ever

In Milano there was no sight of snow but we did have a light drizzle.

As a result, I used the Metro as much as possible to get around as opposed to my usual forced field marching technique to again visit this incredible city.

"What costs more Oscar Wilde

or 1 kilo of mushrooms?"

Heck if I know?

The Galleria Vittorio Emanuele's

wondrous dome

Dressed for the weather conditions

A thick hot chocolate here

REALLY hit the spot!

This bar, Il Camparino, at the Duomo side entrance to the Galleria Vittorio Emanuele was recommended highly by my book Italy for the Gourmet Traveler.

I ordered my hot chocolate

at Il Camparino's full bar

You can see me if you look hard enough, it's my tribute to Alfred Hitchcock films.

Of course, Campari is a huge

part of this bar's history

Another view of the Galleria

after my hot chocolate stop

Our son Andrew has a tie

shop in the Galleria?

These ties looked good but . . .

 . . . the bow tie selection was

OUTSTANDING!

I love Milano's old school trams

That is the La Scala Opera House behind the tram, it is my next stop.

Leonardo da Vinci statue in the

piazza accross from La Scala

 I had decided to visit La Scala's Museum

A 33% Senior Citizen discount made sense to me.

 Great theater posters as

we climbed the stairs

This one of Giacomo Puccini's capolavoro.

Giuseppe Verdi's Masterpiece

The museum visit starts in this

well appointed hallway

Dashing!

Ah, it's the great composer

Arturo Toscanini

A special treat!

We were allowed to listen to the full orchestra and the performers practicing for Saturday night's performance of the Verdi's opera La Traviata.

They were good! 

Famed Conductor

 Victor de Sabata

Nicely shaped cranium.

Not sure who Giordano was

He looks like a run stuffing defensive tackle for the Milano Seamen to me. 

The great Giacomo Puccini

Unknown, pensive subject

Some classic musical instruments

Operatic costumes

 Love that beard

 Opera singer Maria Malibran

Incredible detail on this bust to say the least.

Maestro Giuseppe Verdi

 "It's not over until the fat lady sings!"

What did you expect, her name is Giuditta Pasta after all.

Enrico!

Thought to be the greatest Italian tenor of the early 20th-century.

I did not buy anything in the gift shop

but there were lots of options

The Versace shop in the Galleria

is always tempting, but no

Not wanting to spend more time in the inclement weather, I decided to head home for the relative comfort of the Villa Skorpion II to curl up and read a good book.

Speaking of which . . .

Reading Is FUNdamental!

Nothing like a good crime yarn set

in Florence that includes the Mafia,

drug running and the Masons

A Quiet Day and a Skorpion Weather Evening

Thursday, January 31, 2019

The day was one of simply laundering a few clothes, a little further exploration of my surroundings and getting ready for another long evening of Skorpions football, both flag and tackle versions.

 I found a copy of Laurie's

favorite French language film

on sale in Varese

I fought off the temptation to buy it somehow. 

 Definitely NOT an old Catholic Church

While it is a Catholic church it is quite new by Italian standards.

This Chiesa is dedicated to the memory of San Massimiliano Kolbe, a Polish Franciscan friar who volunteered to die in place of a stranger in the Polish death camp at Auschwitz in 1941.

He was only 47 years old when he was executed by the Nazis.

The Chiesa had a frozen moat

to protect it from the invading

Visigoth hordes

 The stark interior to this Chiesa,

combined with its exterior funkiness,

led me to believe that I was in a random

Orange County Protestant edifice

 Given Kolbe's heroism, this painting

made perfect sense

Enzo Fiori

our local flower shop

I found that I liked this flower shop both for what they had on sale and for owner Enzo's positive, outgoing attitude.

In the late afternoon, I started getting ready for our U13, U15 and Senior Women's flag practices as well as our U16 Tackle practice all starting at 6:30 p.m., followed by our Prima Squadra tackle practice from 8:00 p.m. to 10:00 p.m.

What to wear?

Better check the weather report . . .

 . . . OH!

Long Johns it was then, a California boy can't stay too warm in these conditions.

The thing that makes things a bit harder is that our practice facility, in the Varese suburb of Vedano Olona just south of the city, has its own microclimate that is way different from the rest of Varese.

This microclimate is commonly referred to as . . .

SKORPION WEATHER!

Now, it had not snowed for a few days and in Varese, other than in spots in full shade throughout the day, all of our recent snow had melted long ago.

But not so at completely unshaded

Skorpion Field

This is what our game/practice field looked like at the start of our 6:30 p.m. practices.

Again, it had not snowed for a few days but a new blanket of about a foot of fresh powdered snow was due sometime tonight.

The predicted cold weather and snow had many parents of our youth team players opting to keep their kids at home tonight.

U13 Warmup

U15s had a sparse turnout

Barely enough U16s on hand too

 The Senior Women's team was

MIA as well

The U16s worked on improving

their tackling techniques

Quite simply, if you can't tackle,

you can't play good defense

While the air was as cold as advertised, we had absolutely no wind tonight to cause us any wind chill issues like in the American midwest this week.

Just as our four early practices finished and our Seniors were about to start their work at 8:00 p.m., it finally started to snow.

 But still no wind chill!

I love this artsy photo taken by our DB Coach Dario D'Adelfio. 

 We had about 35 Seniors at our

final tuneup battling both the

elements and each other

I say final tuneup because we have our first scrimmage of the campaign this coming Sunday at 1:00 p.m. in Verona against the Mastini.

The Mastini will definitely let us know where we stand at this point of the season.

Despite the look on my face,

I was having fun tonight

 Team Scrimmage Period

 Same Period,

different view

After a hardy workout,

the hard working Skorpions left

Skorpion Field none worse for the wear

The effort was good again tonight but we have a long way to go before we play our first game in March, especially on Offense.

Stay tuned . . .