Day Trip to Milano

Today I went with Giovanni, Natasha, and Justyna to Milano for a day trip. It was a 3-hour train ride, but the time went by quickly because we had many opportunities to talk about what we would see while we were there and how we would attack the large list of tourist venues. Our first order of business was to find a good place to eat, so we stopped in a family-owned store with freshly made Italian dishes. (see photos)
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During the day, we saw St. Ambrose church, the Cathedral, a bunch of crypts and mosaics, and the Castle museum. We also headed to the Pinacoteca to see the Caravaggio, which, unfortunately, was temporarily on exhibit in Rome.
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After we saw the Pinacoteca, we stopped for an iced tea in the student café next door. We had this wonderful foccacia rolled with olives as well. As we were sitting at the table, this woman approached us and asked us what our definition of life was in one word. She told us that the art student across from us said "beauty," but she wasn't convinced that this was a good answer. Natasha said "movement," I said "friendship," and Justyna said "love." It was funny because we kept having to have Giovanni translate for us - we told her we were from Switzerland, so she tried to speak German. We tried to explain that, no, we were from the French part, and then she apologized that she didn't know French, only German and English. Then she continued to talk to us in Italian. She added a rather amusing element to the end of our visit, as well as a thoughtful perspective on discussion. In any case, we left her to the other clients in the café so that we could catch our train back to Lausanne.
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We took the metro to the Central train station, where Giovanni bought wrap-around earmuffs from a street vendor and hailed the end of his suffering in the Lausanne cold. He had been waiting for 8 years to find these earmuffs at a good price, and he finally found some! For 3€, no less.