The Skene Family: Milan

Next stop on our trip was Milan, Italy. My girlfriend, Christina, lives there and this was the meet up spot before the wedding weekend in Venice.

Our plane arrived in Milan at 7 am and when we got to our hotel we found out our room would not be ready until after noon. This was not what we wanted to hear on a couple hours of sleep, but we sucked it up and walked around Milan for a couple of hours. In hindsight this was actually the only time we really had to do some sightseeing, so I'm glad we did it:

I could not get over the window shopping as well. There were so many kid clothing stores and they all had windows like this:

Who wouldn't want a hot pink (real!) fur jacket for a five year-old? I passed on one for Isla.

Once our room was ready and we got in a little nap we woke up to go meet Christina, Jacopo and friends for celebration of their civil ceremony to. Apparently in Italy you have to do a civil ceremony to make the marriage official. Christina and Jacopo decided to do this before their wedding weekend in Venice. The beautiful bride with her flowers:

Sara and I got in on the flower action too:

Random pictures around the table:

The next day the girls attended a shower while the guys got together for a 4 hour lunch (more on that later). At the shower:

After the shower we got to go with Christina to her last wedding gown fitting. We made a pit stop at a cafe for some espresso for the bride, Sara and Amy:

Seriously, can you imagine walking down this street to go to your last gown fitting? It was so surreal:

Her gown was stunning.

So while we were showering and gown fitting, the boys went to a four hour lunch. We hadn't heard from them all day so I decided to send them a text and see what was going on. This is what I got in response:

Needless to say they were having a good time. Some pictures from the boys afternoon including Ryan's meal and their view:

Later that night we went to Christina and Jacopo's favorite pizza place with our new friends Erim and Tracey from Istanbul:

The pizza was probably the best pizza I have ever had:

Here is a great picture of Rob with the wine and water, but what I also want to point out is the girl behind him in the mini dress and thigh high boots. This was not uncommon attire in this pizza place. It was crazy. I don't think I have ever seen as many sequins, stilettos and models all in one place: