pad thai and chocolate

Say you live in Milan and find yourself hankering for Thai food. Where do you go for a spring roll or two? The answer's easy: Lugano.

Now if we're going to get technical about geography, Lugano is in Switzerland - not Italy. But once you've lived in Italy for a while you give up on certain things. Like pad thai.



Lugano is more well known for the fact that it sits astride a mountain-wrapped lake and boasts greenery in all the right places. It has that special beauty of Switzerland - a country that proves an organized and efficient culture is no less beautiful than those carried along by the momentum of dust and history. And it also has chocolate.



Last weekend, after a tour of the park with its fresh air and flowers we found ourselves drawn not only to the Thai food (oh, pad thai, we miss you so) but to the shopping. Yep, we're the only nerds who go up to a gorgeous Swiss lake and head to the mall.

So there wasn't really a mall in Lugano but there was a department store with a grocery store in the basement that was nothing short of magnificent. There's no exaggeration involved in saying that the grocery stores we have access to in Milan are neither well-stocked nor a joy to explore. Heck, we're lucky if there's more than one carton of skim milk for sale and the floor waxer isn't doing his job in the middle of grocery rush hour.



But the Swiss grocery store... you can't help but smile, lingering in the aisles, trying to decide which wonderful and glorious items will accompany you home. We spent an hour pointing at the shelves: "Look! Can you believe it? They have --- !!" We must have put on quite a show, two grown adults working up a sweat over bouillon cubes.

You never know what you'll find on a Saturday trip. Sometimes a gorgeous lake. Sometimes bouillon cubes. And if you've got time for a long weekend, I'll give you directions to the best Mexican restaurant around. It happens to be in Hungary...