Living a Dream

In 2012 I had the chance to visit Europe with my friend Graham. We spent a couple weeks going to a few different areas - one of which was Milan, my future home. We planned to go there for a soccer game, see the famous Duomo, and use the train station as a launch-pad for the Lake Como area. In our time in the city we wanted to browse a little bit of the local art scene but unfortunately couldn't get a time to see the Last Supper (Jenna and I were able to see it during our time there. It was awesome). We walked the city streets though, and not surprisingly there was a lot to see. Statues abound in Italy - guys you've never heard of and extremely famous people alike. There are buildings older than the USA, there are fascinating shops, and there are restaurants that offer burgers named after Native American tribes in a vaguely offensive atmosphere . So one day we were walking from our hotel to a random corner of the city. We started by passing a shop that offered pens - the w...

A man named Parker Fernandez was one of my college roommates during my senior year at Ohio University. We then lived in different areas for a few years, but he would occasionally show up in Chicago and we'd have a hell of a time wandering the city. Not long after I came to Italy, Parker moved to Madrid to teach English through a much-more-official-than-mine program. In mid-November, Jenna and I visited him. This is our story. We had a 6:40 a.m. flight from an airport almost an hour outside of Milan, so we got up at 3, waited outside for an overnight bus to take us nearish the train station, then walked 2/3 of a mile to the train station, got on a shuttle bus, and arrived at the airport around 5:30. That's not a fun start. I stayed optimistic and upbeat, my bride to be was...less enthused. We were both also getting sick. Madrid is big. Like, really big. Just the airport took ages to get through, and eventually we got the train to the appointed meeting location for Parker and...