Clooneys in Como

Well, well, well – so we meet again.  I bet you thought I was too old to be blogging about Europe trips.  You’re probably right, but here we are.  For those of you who aren’t currently stalking me, I’ve been living in Europe (Luxembourg, specifically) for the last 6 months.  I’ve repeatedly toyed with the idea of restarting this bad boy, but have been overwhelmed by just about everything.  Turns out when you are sent to Europe to work for two years, they actually expect you to work.  Unlike studying abroad, which is akin to studying in the same way kindergartners finger painting is akin to abstract expressionism.

However, every so often, a trip comes along that is so utterly life affirming, that you feel compelled to restart a blog you haven’t written for six years.  Our trip to Milan and Lake Como is that trip.  Now, before I dive into the trip, I need to set the stage by describing the attendees.  First we have the most obvious companion – Jess.  If you think that my husband Tom would have been the most obvious companion, you clearly haven’t read the rest of my blog.  Then of course we have Tom, aka photographer extraordinaire, aka the responsible one (at least on this trip, although it wasn’t a terribly high bar).  Then of course there was Jobin, Jess’s boyfriend.  Jess and Jobin are living in Europe too for the next two years, in Amsterdam.  We’ve done lots of trips with them to random places (Liège, Brussels, Cologne, Amsterdam, Luxembourg, Paris, Copenhagen, Saalbach-Hinterglemm, etc.), just to spend time together because they are essentially our European family and possibly our actual family at this point.  Not sure what the rules are as it pertains to common law familyship.

And!  We made new friends.  That’s right, we’re such cool grown-ups that other grown-ups that we’ve just met want to be our friends and go on trips with us.  Specifically, Jen and Shea.  We met them in a hostel breakfast area in Brussels on Jobintmas day, sometime around the moment that Tom and I lost our passports (coincidence?  I think not.).  We (Tom, Jess, Jobin, and I) were drinking champagne inappropriately while eating hostel toast, and talking about our jobs and #justamericanthings.  Jen and Shea overheard us and we started chatting and slowly discovered that we have basically everything in common (they are on a two year secondment in London, with another big four, and are originally from Seattle).  Fate wanted us to all become best friends, or Jen and Shea were creepily stalking us.  Either way I’m into it.

Jen proposed that we do an epic trip for Easter weekend, back in January, and we were all onboard.  We planned three or four day weekends (I planned a four day weekend and subsequently realized that Friday was not, in fact, a holiday, and had to buy breakfast to my team to make it up to them).  We decided we should fly into Milan and spend a day there, and then scoot over to Lake Como.  Then we proceeded to wait for eternity.  Since the theme of this blog post is apparently coincidences, I would like to point out that we only hang out with Jen and Shea on extremely religious holidays #churchfriends.

Finally the weekend came – Tom and I landed in Milan at 8am on Friday morning and did some light shopping while we waited for Jen and Shea to meet us at the hostel (Ostello Bello, if you’re wondering).  We promptly started drinking some casual noon white wine and catching up.  We didn’t have much to catch up on because, as I mentioned before, we met them four months ago.  I took them to my favorite pizza place, Rosso Pomodoro, which is basically the Italian version of Applebee’s but better and more pizza-focused.  What I’m trying to impress upon you is how uncool it is to love this pizza place, as it is a chain that legitimately opened a restaurant in NYC.  But it’s great and everyone loved RP and their ‘lively white’.

Then the four of us went wandering around to the Duomo and started scoping the situation.  And by scope out the situation, I mean we began a never ending quest to find Negronis and Campari and Aperol Spritzes.  We meandered aimlessly around the Duomo, stopping for the famous panzerotti from Luini’s (fried cheese, can’t go wrong), and then finally admitted to ourselves that all we wanted to do was drink in the sun.  Obviously as soon as we made that decision, there wasn’t a single wine/grocery shop to be found in a one mile radius.  We eventually stopped into a Tabacchi/café and purchased a bottle of wine from a nice man who only spoke Italian, and only after completing the transaction we found out that the only plastic glasses he had were shot glasses for espresso… which culminated in this:

Eventually we got tired of looking at the mediocre street performers in the plaza outside of the Duomo (I’m looking at you, gold lady with a one song repertoire) and wandered back to the hostel to 1) chill in hammocks 2) eat hostel/hustle pasta 3) wait for Jess and Jobin.  Finally they arrived at around 9pm and we hugged it out – some of us more successfully than others.  I feel compelled to mention that when Jobin tried to hug Tom, Tom was trying to take a picture, and the resulting hug was extremely awkward and might be Jess’s favorite thing that she’s ever seen.  The group of us then moseyed over to dinner – a multi-course meal involving risotto that tasted like kraft mac and cheese and also involved the restaurant accidentally giving us groupons in lieu of the menus.  Strangely delicious.

After dinner we decided we needed to get some more wine and drink in front of the Duomo, so that Jess and Jobin could experience the gloriousness of that situation.  We grabbed some wine and plastic cups from our hostel… I should stop here and say that Italian bartenders are the best in the world.  They never once judged us when we bought multiple bottles of wine, asked them to open them for us, and also asked for plastic cups.  On our way to the Duomo we started discussing George Clooney, his life, and his dreams, in preparation for our trip to Lake Como.  We decided that we, too, were Clooneys, and actually we were #sixclooneys if you must know.

We made it to the plaza and stared at the imposingly up lit Duomo, clambered up atop the giant statue in the middle of the plaza, and started drinking and watching street vendors fling light-up spinny things skyward.  We were having essentially the BEST time, until I heard the one thing no Patty wants to hear “Patty, don’t freak out…”  Jess was trying to warn me about a cockroach that was crawling inextricably toward my right foot, across the base of the statue.  Now, while I am not a cool person, I have been known to play it cool from time to time, so I nonchalantly moved quickly away from the cockroach.  But as soon as Jess said there was another cockroach I decided I needed to evacuate the statue immediately.  Jess and I gracelessly hopped down from the statue, I might have stubbed my entire leg in the process, and we ran away from the statue.  While I was having Jessica investigate my person for cockroaches, the rest of the clooneys were shining a flashlight into the depths of the statue, which apparently illuminated an entire swarm of cockroaches.  They dubbed the cockroaches the Street Beatles, which I think is giving the cockroaches a bit too much credit.

At this point we were feeling froggy and I knew we were going to Lake Como the next morning, so I decided to lead the group on an impromptu midnight walking tour of Milan.  I set a course for the random castle Tom and I had stumbled across on our morning walk, and the girls played a game to see how long we could walk toward the castle (which was not particularly close to the Duomo) before the guys asked us what we were doing.  The answer is about 20 minutes of walking, in case you were wondering.  When we got to the castle, Jess decided to play an impromptu game of leap frog, and then we went swimming in the moat:

We then decided that hookah was just the ticket to round out our evening and Tom led us to the nearest hookah bar.  We arrived there at 1am – time to spare before their closing time of 2am.  But they wouldn’t let us in.  Now I’m not sure what we did to deserve such a rebuff, but it might have been related to the aforementioned frogginess.  But it was fine because we went back to our hostel and ate more hostel pasta and then washed our dishes and went to bed.

The next morning we had hostel eggs, which were ‘based on a true story’, which is to say that they were fake eggs.  I put that in quotes because I like it so much and I can’t take credit for it – it was either Jess or Jobin that coined that term.  Also I should point out that I did not eat any of the fake eggs, because they warned me off of them, and came to find out later that both Jess and Jobin ate two massive plates of eggs.

We started our long wander toward Lake Como, stopping to shop on the way to the subway station.  Jen and Shea got lost in a lingerie store for what felt like 2 hours, Jess and I promptly abandoned Tom and Jobin to go wander around Zara, and (naturally) as soon as we left, Jen and Shea came back.  Eventually we all reunited and moseyed on into the subway station.  Shea helped us all buy tickets and we made our way to Milan Centrale.  Once there, we clooneyed our way to the ticket machines and purchased first class tickets (as you do).  They were only 7 EUR per ticket, as opposed to 4 EUR per ticket… I know it’s what George would have wanted.

We hopped onto the next train to Lecco and started popping bottles and sandwiches.  The only thing we were missing on our first class train ride was a BB8 – Baby Butler 8.  There may or may not have been a couple that were sitting directly across from me and Jess, who promptly moved when they realized how much fun we were about to have.  But everyone made it through and we managed to alight in Lecco, at which point Jobin took us on a delightful stroll to the waterfront, where we would board a ferry to Bellagio.  Of course, when we arrived at the ferry terminal, we discovered that the ferries weren’t running that day (it was a Saturday, obviously you wouldn’t run ferries on a Saturday, I don’t know what we were thinking).  Thankfully some people seemed to know what was what, and told us to hop the next train to Varenna, where the ferry (presumably) would be running, and we could scoot across the lake to Bellagio.

While we waited for the next train to Varenna, we chilled at a café and got some beers/wines.  The bartender was very intrigued by us and attempted to share with us his deep knowledge of our people, by dictating to us who he thought each of the couples were.  He didn’t get a single one right, and I am strangely proud of that fact.  When it was time to go, Tom asked the group how far away the train station was, which was particularly hilarious given that we had just come from the train station less than an hour before.  Classic tomfoolery.

We paid for our drinks and walked back to the train station for our train to Varenna.  Approximately 100 feet from the train station, the boys decided we were late and started running.  Hilariously, they ran right past a shortcut through an atrium, and so the girls ended up walking and arriving at the station at the same time.  We had to split up on the train to Varenna, so the boys went one way and the girls wound up in a secret private first class car by ourselves, aka in the bucket seats used by train conductors in the corridor between two cars.  Everyone was jealous.  I should mention that the views were gorgeous from this train – I would describe Lake Como as a cross between the Swiss Alps and Cinque Terre.  Naturally I wanted to stand up and take in the view, and I reckon this is probably one of Jess and Jen’s favorite memories of that train ride – as soon as I stood up and said ‘would you look at this view!’, we went through the world’s longest tunnel.

We soon arrived in Varenna, were delighted to purchase a lighter for Jobin, and to discover that the ferry was still running to Bellagio.  We floated directly onto the ferry, the wind swept our hair for about 15 minutes, and we were in Bellagio.

We started our trek to our Airbnb by way of the Enoteca (wine store/restaurant) where we had dinner reservations that night.  We bought 12 bottles of wine, because we’re basically boy scouts, and we are always prepared.  Tom was a bit concerned by the quantity of wine we were purchasing.

We made it to the Airbnb and discovered a number of delights.  First, this delightful staircase, which Jessica was convinced the owner bought from Ikea and seemed like it would fall apart at any moment.  The whole thing was quite thrilling.

Then we saw George Clooney and his badass gardener, right across the street:

Then we realized that we were missing some wine.  After a LOT of very challenging math, we determined that we were missing three bottles of prosecco.  Now, the boys did not seem phased by this turn of events, and even appeared to be smirking.  So, naturally, we girls assumed that they were sending us on some sort of demented wine Easter egg hunt.  I tried throwing Tom some serious shade to see if he would break and tell us where the bottles were.  Instead of getting annoyed with me as I deserved, he laughed at how silly we were being and tried to help find the bottles.  Touché Tom, touché.  After much pondering and just a touch of frustration, we eventually realized that we had left three bottles at the Enoteca.  Tom might have had a point when he thought we were buying too much wine… but I digress.

We hung out at the Airbnb for a while and then Tom took us on a walk down to the water.  We all thought he was getting us lost but it turns out he was finding the most beautiful and most direct route back to town.  I feel at this point I should mention that Tom was the winner/savior of the entire weekend, and it would have been significantly less awesome without him.  We made friends with some ducks and got judged by a waterfront restaurant, and then we wandered over to the Enoteca to make our reservation and liberate our three bottles of wine.

The dinner was one for the record books.  Tom had the genius idea of selecting three types of wine (a dry sparkling, a dry white, and a strong red) and asking the waiter (who was also the owner) to pick the wines and the accompanying food.  He was (naturally) tickled by being given such creative license, and what ensued was one of the best dinners I’ve ever had.  The conversation was perfect, the wine was perfect, the food was perfect, the service was perfect – I could not have been happier.  We also knew that we were in the right place when the owner said we weren’t drunk enough part way through our meal.  The restaurant is very small, so it was just two tables for six in the cave.  We introduced ourselves to the other table when we sat down and let them know that they could absolutely let us know if we got too loud.  Their response was that they were going to be louder than us.  They ended up being wrong (clearly), but I loved that response nonetheless.

The next morning the boys strapped on their como camo and we got pumped – we were renting a boat.  Now this is where Tom REALLY came through for us – he offered to be our designated driver around Lake Como.  The boys went on a grocery store run and came home and Tom cooked us all eggs and we had mimosas.  Have I mentioned how amazing Tom was on this trip?  While the boys were gone, the girls had mimosas and conversed in a manner that was both subtle, and poignant.

After breakfast, it was getting to be time to meet up with the boat guy, so we walked down the street (laden with wine), Tom learned how the boat worked, and we were off.  I should mention at this point that we had been warned multiple times by the boat company that the weather was going to be super windy and that we should move our reservation to Saturday or Monday.  We decided to risk it.  Shockingly, the best boating weather of the weekend just happened to coincide with the exact time of our reservation.  It was hot enough that we were even able to dip our butts and more into the lake without too much discomfort.  We #nevernude it could be that good.

Towards the end of our reservation, the weather took a turn, and we decided we were done getting #bzdp in the water.  We got back onto dry land and went home to game plan our next meal.  We decided we wanted to go to a restaurant close to our house and called to make sure they were open (it was Easter, after all).  They were and Jobin asked them in Italian if they had calamari (calamari?  Si o no?).  Dinner was a delicious meal with a full view of the lake and we made some new friends.

Then we went out on the town and explored Bellagio proper.  We drank a wide variety of things, for reasons unknown, and Tom tried to wake me up by pulling me around the town.

We made lots of impressive boomerangs and grabbed some road beers for the walk home.  Jess and I ended up separated from the rest of the group on the way home somehow, and got home before everyone.  We decided it was a really good idea to prank Jen, Tom, and Jobin by 1) pretending to be asleep and 2) doing it from the same bed so we could force Tom and Jobin to sleep in the same bed.  It was a terrible prank and it did not work.  Tom and Jobin proceeded to have a heart to heart that night until approximately 4am.  The next morning Jobin informed us that he remembered none of it and that it was a waste of tom.

The next morning I set up a shuttle to take Tom and me to the airport.  The rest of the peeps were dropped off at a train station, so they could do some more exploring around Milan, as our flight was much earlier than theirs.  We kept in touch while we were in transit and I do recall that they had some delightful #hustlepasta and that there were boner butchers afoot.

Overall it was a fantastic weekend objectively speaking, made even better by the fact that we have new friends, and we’re now a six pack.  We’re already planning our next trips, and if they’re good enough you might even get to hear about them.