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...

Praga = Prague = Praha

I was lucky enough to be sent to Prague for business last week. The business was great and so was Prague. The #1 question of the month, though, is why haven't we gone there before? The city is gorgeous, the food is good, and the prices are generously more affordable than Milan.

It's a one hour-ish flight from Milan, most of the airtime spent over mountains of one sort or another. Alitalia is kind enough to serve ice cream cones during the flight and also feature Sports Illustrated Swimsuit Issue cover models in first class. Your husband may recognize such models while standing close to them on the tarmac bus, then may go so far as to confirm his assumptions by gawking at their boarding pass. But then, in a sad showcase of jitters, he may refrain from hounding her for a photo -- leaving both your husband and his fantasy football league with a lingering sadness.



Prague, on the other hand, will only make you happy. It is incredibly aesthetically appealing and for a former Communist state there were surprisingly few blocky monstrosities - one of which was our hotel, but I digress. On the whole the city is light and airy with a consistent prickling of spires rising into the sky. These are best seen, and most appreciated, from at least nine floors up. One of our lunches was in the hotel restaurant on the ninth floor and the windows looked onto a garden of spires, sprinkled consistently into the distance.



Many of the buildings are Art Nouveau with the details and artistry that in the US is seen mostly on greeting cards and college dorm posters. And to be truthful the most interesting parts of the city are seen by looking up. The cornices and windows, signs and statues are all found far above street level. Prague is also known for its beer, but I would recommend finishing your "looking up" tour before embarking on your "beers of Prague" tour. Vice versa might make for some navigational and gravitational issues.



As Milan drinks wine, Prague drinks beer. It's easy to understand and easy to participate. The glasses are large, the beer is fresh and crisp, and there is none of that lingering murkiness of lesser beers. When you drink beer in its hometown, you're drinking something altogether different. I'm regularly not a beer drinker but in Prague I happily complied. That's how good the beer is.

And it's strange to say it but there is also good Thai food. Why eat Thai food in the Czech Republic? Isn't that a wasted chance to eat Czech food? What you don't know, my friend, is that Milan is sorely lacking in Thai food. Either that, or it's hidden far far away where we can't find it. So please refrain from judging us; just know that a spring roll and Lad Nar can be had in the Czech Republic should it be desired. And it was desired.



There are a lot of sights to see: an astrologically themed clock that people gather to see ring on the hour, towers to climb, the Jewish quarter with its synagogues and cemetery, museums and monuments, statues and bridges, shockingly large spiders that come out after dark ... Prague is rife with things to see and do. This time around we were with a large group of what we now call "old" friends and so reveled in the chance to hang out & catch up and so didn't see as many of the highlights as we might have liked. But what we did manage to see has convinced us to return.