Yesterday, as you may remember, was still the weekend. For baby, other half and myself this often means a trip down to the park. The park in question is Parco Sempione and it is located right slap bang behind Milan’s castle. As parks go its not too bad, a little on the small side and, now, rather well kept.
This oasis of green in the midst of all the pollution attracts hoards of people at the weekends, especially when the sun comes out. This it did yesterday and hence everyone tootled off for the park, including us. As we were wandering around heading for our favourite coffee kiosk, I noticed a person dressed up in Star Wars garb. Behind this said person was a huge poster publicizing the latest, greatest and possibly final episode of this long running and well loved saga. We walked further and this time there was another person sweltering, no doubt, in Star Wars gear. Further on there were a couple of Imperial Storm troopery types and more and more characters from the films, including Yoda. It was all quite fun. Now, as we had noticed lots of kids with Star Wars bags, we decided to locate the source of the goodies, which was right behind our favourite kiosk.
Stop reading, start speaking
Stop translating in your head and start speaking Italian for real with the only audio course that prompt you to speak.
After a coffee, can’t do anything before a good dose of the stuff, we trotted over to the stall which was handing out the goodies and willingly contributed something to the charity collection (For the wonderful clinic in Milan where my son gets treated for swollen eye problems), there. And got our bag and an envelope. This envelope contained a clue and was part of a treasure hunt which had been arranged for the day. You had to find the character named, solve a little word puzzle and then utter something like ‘May the force be with you’ to one of the sweaty people in costume. They then replied and told you where to go next. Great idea and great fun judging by all the kids who were hurtling back and forth around the park – pursued by tired looking mums and dads.
My other half muttered that nothing like this would ever be arranged in Genova and she is probably right. Milan is very good at setting up little events like this; even if it is not so hot at telling anyone about them, which is a shame. Forza Milano!!
