Angel in a Wooden Bra / Page 5 of 20


	it's raining in Milan after 10,000 miles, with the pilot promising sunshine & 70 degree highs in Milan, we land in low fog and rain. and Dean looks at me expectantly as if I should suddenly throw back my hair after a long flight of broken sleep mixed with in-flight video (where Rickie Martin sings Puerto Rican love songs to Tom Hanks). the man who corrects my English ten times a day thinks now I will start speaking fluent Italian. I use the point-at-the-address method to get us on a train to Milano Centrale, to get us a taxis to il albergo. and after a long game of charades and pictionary with the hotel clerk, where English, French, German, and, yes, even Italiano is tossed up over a city map, we're standing on the sloped marble roof of the Milano duomo with its 14th century gargoyles, a view of the construction cranes and green cathedral domes. I cling to the foot of a carved saint calculating the distance to the ground and whether I could snag the elbow of the protruding John the Baptist half way down if I lose my footing on the rain slicked tile, while Dean quizzes me on Italian vocabulary.

it's raining in Milan