As sad as the news is, and even sadder, being that she was friends with a friend's sister (Italy is incredibly small), pictures from her funeral, which was held in Milan today, are somehow consolatory: a feast, with music, people singing and dancing and drinking, hundreds of green balloons set free and the gasket draped in green.

Similar, in a way, to the funeral another friend of mine devised for himself before leaving for Iraq as a journalist, whence he never came back.

Not that you see €500 notes everywhere in Europe anyway. Most of "normal" payments involve €100 or €200 (tops) notes. Amounts greater than that are usually made by debt/credit cards.
(aside: my US friends visiting EU usually are struck by the size/colour differences through the different denominations.

Wow. I'm impressed. Come to think of it, I know a guy who actually deep fries pretty much anything he can put his hands on. Google: fritture mirko.

Yes, I have weird friends.
No, he's not among the weirdest.