Antique Market and waiting for a public transport card

This last Sun. I went with Paola and Enrico (her husband) to a monthly antique market in Milan (for those interested it takes place on the last Sun. of every month). It was very nice. Along the canals in Milan (yup, there are a few canals here - they used them to bring in supplies and equipment to the inner parts of the city). I'm not a big antiques person but this was a very pleasant market (I'm told that with me it's usually the people I'm with who determine whether I'm going to like something or not, so maybe I liked it also because of the company). i didn't see much Judaica there but Paola said that sometimes there are Poles who have some things (she commented that she doesn't want to think where or how they came about the things they're selling... a good point). We also went to eat in a special kind of bazar organized by the church - they prepare home made food - pies, cakes, and the Italian version of the Hungarian Langos (a kind of fried pocket of dough filled with Mozarrella and tomato paste), it's cheap and was actually quite nice. They use the money to support their welfare or social projects.

and I also had a chance to enjoy Italian Bureaucracy this week. I purchased a monthly card to use on the public transportation. First you have to fill in a long form in Italian - giving all your personal details, then you stand on line (or sit) for an hour and wait as 50 other people get served, then comes your turn (and I was there first thing in the morning, after I left there were even more people). For 40 euros I now have a monthly card (10 for the ticket, 30 for the rides). To compare - a similar ticket (weekly) which I got in the metro in France took all of 5 min. to acquire. On the bus in Israel it takes less than a minute. However, the public transport system here (especially the subway) is efficient and fast, and you can get around very easily (again, mostly to places close to the metro lines, but also others are quite easy to get to). Interesting that in Israel the buses still don't have a schedule, they come when they come. Even in relatively unorganized Italy, the buses come according to schedule... this card should be good for 4 years, so hopefully I won't have to stand on any more lines regarding this over here.

We're off on the second Succot holiday. I'm going to have a haircut tomorrow. Let's see what happens.

Got to run. Do write. Hag Sameach.