I can't believe it's been a whole week since I posted! Last weekend we had great weather here so I spent all of Saturday downtown.  Instead of taking the Metro, we decided to walk from where I live on the eastern side of Milano to Castello Sforzesco, on the western side of downtown.  It only took about 25 or 30 minutes to get to the Piazza del Duomo and 15 more to get to the castle.  There are several museums within the castle, but I didn't have time to visit them so I definitely need to go back. On Sunday, two other students and I went to our Post-Doc's house for lunch in a suburb of the city.  Her town has 8 Contrades ("neighborhoods") that joined together in medieval times to defend their land from invaders.  As the legend is told  by residents, the alliance that grew to become Italy so each year the town commemorates its history by hosting a huge parade and horse race.   Because each Contrade  is  formed around a  Basilica, the victor of the Palio delle Contrade earns an elaborate crucifix to hang in their church for the year. In lab this week, we separated the dorsal and ventral horns of the spinal cord and performed TIF extractions on the samples.  Although this is a really valuable technique for me to learn, Donato and I had to stay in the cold chamber at 4 degrees C for hours at a time for these extractions.  We also did  western blots, protein quantification and some other standard stuff. I haven't made official plans yet, but the Pope will be in Milan this weekend so I might try to see him on Sunday and some friends and I might go to Riomaggiore (one of the towns of Cinque Terre--about 2.5 hours south of Milan by train) for the day on Saturday.   Megan