It's time for another episode of "Visiting a Babysitter", starring special guest Bergamo. I hadn't experienced Ryanair in a while. It is definitely the low rent part of the terminal, with people sitting on the floor for want of seats and no outlets to be found. But we got there. Manchester was about the same damp chilly temperature as it had been on the day we'd left for Finland. Now, instead of being greeted by single digit temps and a foot of snow, we stepped out of the terminal into petal-soft air without a smidgen of humidity. Growing up on Long Island having to constantly explain where Finland is, I occasionally thought life might be easier if I was just Italian like everyone else. Some Finnish last names like mine could be mistaken for Italian, and we knew families who found it more convenient not to correct people who assumed they were. Anyway, while I am still very proud of my Finnish heritage I had to make a real effort not to compare the two visits.

P picked us up and we hurried into the car in the fifteen minute window before she would had to pay for parking. Someone in front of us had missed their window. The machine at the gate couldn't actually take payment, so if you owed money you had to scurry across several lanes, pay at a booth, and then run back to your car while the cars behind you waited or tried to wriggle into an open lane. Every time a car in front of us had to complete this process, the likelihood of making it in time grew smaller. We missed it, and by the way it turned out they'd recently changed it to ten minutes! In another parallel with our trip to Helsinki, getting to the AirBnB required navigating a courtyard with several gates, punch codes, and a lockbox. At least this time there was a tiny elevator that could fit one person with a suitcase.

People keep telling us "The great thing about being in England is that you can get to the rest of Europe so easily!" I didn't get that at first. I'm so Masterpiece Theatre-pilled, there are so many places in Britain I'm not going to get to that I didn't give much thought to the rest of the continent. But it is nice to arrive in a new city and not spend the first few days completely off my face with jetlag. My older son N and I were up first, as is our wont, so we went out for a wander. It was Easter Monday so the streets were still quiet at 8. We crossed a bridge over a feeble trickle of a river past a row of apartment blocks. They'd probably been built in the seventies but they were covered in subtly textured ceramic tile that looked no more out of place than the centuries-old stucco around them. There was a church attached to a Capuchin friary and people seemed to be waiting for a service, so I made note of the time to try and go back before we left. By nine a few stores were open so I got breakfast and snacks for the next few days. We ate a lot of amazing things on this trip, but the product I miss most now is the Italian equivalent of a Lunchable: a chunk of Parmegiano, a pack of taralli, and a peach nectar juicebox. Over the course of this trip we went through about a dozen. America: why can't we have nice things!!!!!

P picked us up and led us up an enormous hill to Città Alta, the old walled core of the city. We saw the Colleoni chapel, which was lovely inside but photos are forbidden. The narrow streets were thronged and it took some doing to find a place to get lunch. V. good risotto with rabbit ragu, although these were definitely European rather than American portion sizes.

After lunch we got our first gelato of the trip, which is when the children declared their love for Italy. Their default position any time we leave home is tolerating-it-but-would-rather-be-home-playing-Lego, so their enthusiasm is not given lightly. I sometimes get a little marbled out with antiquities, but most of the items in the archeological museum were local which was neat. It was possibly the first time in my life I wished I'd taken Latin, so many plaques inaccessible to me! There was a very large rock in the plaza in front of the building. The kids said later that sliding down the rock was the best part of the day other than ice cream. The natural history museum had a decent amount of taxidermy and a bathroom that was very far away from the exhibits and where the ghosts of recent cigarettes lingered. Another ice cream stop at Gelateria Gemma, which P said is their family's preferred spot and had the best selection of flavors we saw on the whole trip. Supermarket run, where I finally grasped why our sitters all found American superrmarkets so overwhelming. Dinner, collapse!

On Tuesday we took the hourlong train to Milan. We bought second class tickets, which from what I understand just meant our car wasn't air conditioned. I've never seen such a beautiful train station.

The Duomo is about a 35 minute walk from the train station. There's a subway that takes 15 minutes, but once we got out of the boring office buildings near the station it was a nice walk. For instance, we got to see this mint green Fiat with a dog bed in the passenger seat.

Pit stop at Marchesi 1824, a bakery in the Galleria Vittorio Emanuele II. When we got inside I saw the velvet pastel upholstery and chic black bateau neck waitress uniforms signalling Instabait and almost said forget it. But while the hand decorated Easter cakes and chocolate eggs were priced to ogle rather than to eat, coffee and pastries weren't a bad deal if you were willing to stand.

Galleria Vittorio Emanuele II gave me that most American of reactions: "Oh, this is what the Bellagio is aiming for".

Duomo after that. I haven't been to confession in years and might have ducked in if any of the booths had been open, but there was very little worship happening. Lunch after that at Fresco and Cimmino around the corner, full of bankerboys on their lunch hour. Best pizza of the trip, zucchini flower and anchovy.

We waited a very long time within tantalizing view of the Lego store for a streetcar, which looked about sixty years old with wooden interiors and glass lighting fixtures and decidedly midcentury ventilation. T led us to a gelato place where he was hoping to find the Grand Marnier flavor he came across on a college trip that has been haunting his dreams ever since. No luck, but he got a chocolate and orange that he said was pretty good. I got cassata and an extremely intense chocolate with cherry and coffee. Every now and then, there's some combination of caffeine, acid, and dehydration that knocks me off kilter. It usually takes a few hours to get revved up and sometimes I can head it off, but within minutes of eating the chocolate gelato it was clear that my body was revolting. We had started making our way back to the train station. As we descended into the subway I bargained with myself that I was going to steer clear of coffee for the rest of the day and stay super hydrated. The subway came and we boarded.

SKIP IF YOU DO NOT WANT TO THINK ABOUT VOMIT

I began to wonder if a worst-case-scenario plan might be warranted, so I rooted around in my backpack for a plastic grocery bag. Almost immediately, the worst case scenario was upon me. I went into a corner and held the bag tightly to my face while my stomach turned itself inside out. I forgot about my bewildered children. I forgot my husband, who had his back to me while he took a work call and hadn't yet noticed the commotion. For a few minutes, the only other people on the planet were the woman standing next to me who gently rubbed my back, and the owners of several disembodied hands that held out packs of tissues. I hope all of these people are shown grace in their hour of need. We got off the train and I disposed of the bag. I felt a little better. Another train came and we got to the main train station.

I was starting to flag again. The station, which I'd found so charming when we arrived, was now hostile pandemonium. The smell of cigarette smoke, which normally wants me to go up to the nearest smoker and try to siphon the smoke directly out of their lungs, was an assault. I paid €1.20 to go through a turnstile to the bathroom, where the smell of smoke was replaced by very strong cleaning chemicals. I bought a bottle of water, mostly for the sake of obtaining another plastic bag. The only place to sit was in a coffee shop where I tried to ignore the display of sandwiches directly across from me and occasionally worked up the will to sip from a cup of hot water. It was time to get to our train back to Bergamo. I had just made it out of the cafe when I started vomiting again, first into the bag and then a trash can. My stomach was completely empty at this point so I felt OK enough to get on our train. I slowly returned to myself. Gradually it seemed possible that someday, maybe in a year or two, I would eat again. P picked us up at the train station and brought me back to the AirBnB and took everyone else went out for sandwiches. I was fine after that but I have not eaten chocolate since.

OK THAT'S OVER

In the morning I was born anew. I went back to the friary at 8:30 for Mass but nothing was happening. There was another man in the church and with the help of Google Translate I learned from him that it started at 9. It was only a three minute walk and I was starting to wonder what my semi-supervised children were up to, so I went back to the AirBnB to wait. When I got inside, they were watching Alta Infedeltà, a reality show where people in an adulterous love triangle talk about their situation interspersed with reenactments. "That is his girlfriend but then there's another lady! They took off their clothes and they were kissing and saying 'Oooooooh'!" said N. To my shame, my curiousity was piqued and I did not change the channel as quickly as I should have. Eventually I came to my senses and encouraged my husband to come downstairs to keep an eye on things.

Back to church, much to reflect on. The service was in Italian but I'd rather have a short Mass in a foreign language than one in English with a ton of singing, which probably says a lot about my relationship to spirituality. After visiting the Capuchins it seemed only appropriate to have a cappucino at the coffee bar across the street. The proprietor was having a chat with a customer who seemed to be having some kind of breakfast wine? They really know how to live.

To get back to the old city we took the funicular that chugs up the steepest part of the hill. Città Alta was much less crowded now than it had been on Monday. We meandered around and looked in a few churches before lunch. I got lardo pizza which was great, although a little part of me is sad that we never made it to the takeout place that served polenta through a walkup window.

After lunch we got gelato where tragedy struck- both children managed to knock most of theirs off the cone onto the ground. We assumed it was just the first of many rounds of gelato that day so they took it in stride. As it turned out, it was also our last of the trip so if we ever go back to Italy I'm sure they will inform us that they are owed a gelato debt.

In the afternoon we went to the inauspiciously named Palazzon Moroni. As I've mentioned, there is no museum video so dry that my children will not want to watch it, and language is not a barrier. While they were listening to Italian narration about the history of the house, I took a brief nap. The house was lovely, although I think they will have fonder memories about rolling down the hill in the garden.

We sat for a while having spritzes (us) and orange juice (children) which came with little dishes of chips, olives, peanuts, and bruschetta. Funicular back down the hill, then walk across town to the Starbucks where P was picking us up to bring us to the airport. We still had time to kill and hadn't finished our Italian Lunchables so we found benches in front of a hotel where the kids could play on the grass. When B had to go to the bathroom T started to look up coffee shops, lacking my hardwon knowledge that if you stride purposefully into a hotel lobby and make your way toward the elevators the bathroom will present itself to you, and the marginal chance that the doorman will try to hinder you evaporates if you are holding a small child's hand.

Intense but brief goodbye at the airport so P did not have to repeat the payment gate debacle! Inside we learned that, two days after we got home from Finland, a new policy had come into effect requiring all foreigners entering Britain to fill out a £20 registration form. I am usually very snobby about people who do not prepare themselves for this sort of thing until they get to the airport, and now I was one of them. All feelings of shame dissipated when we confronted what Britain has cost itself with its Euroskepticism. We passed through the shiny part of the terminal with the Eataly and the playground before we got to the immigration line, which could have taken over an hour if we hadn't hit the double golden ticket of having EU passports and young children. The non-Schengen part of the terminal had only two places to eat, neither had gelato as we'd assured the children they would so our ice cream debts continue to mount, and the place with seating was next to the smoking section, so T dragged them away from the tables (which had TVs in them, very impressive) and we ate sandwiches at the gate. We'd arrived at the airport two hours early, and if our flight hadn't been delayed we might have missed it- the number of times that all passengers for the flight to Cairo were implored to proceed to the gate for final boarding suggested that some did. But we made it home, more grateful than not to Ryanair.