Benvenuto ITALIA!

10/12/2009

Today we headed to Torino to see Claire!!! At breakfast this morning we saw the awkward engineer again and he was not nearly as chatty. Liquid courage can do wonders I guess. Last night it was pretty obvious that he had quite a bit to drink and chatted me up again telling me everything that he had told us the previous night. Im pretty over running into him. Of course the day that we leave Interlaken there is beautiful blue skies. The itinerary for getting to Torino involved changing five different trains. This made me a little nervous. I thought for sure we would miss a train or one would get delayed that would mess everything up, but surprisingly everything went very smoothly. The walk to the train station was quite a hike, but we made it with time to spare.

While on the first few trains, we snaked along this gigantic lake that I am not quite sure which one it was. It had beautiful clear blue water. I was pretty pumped to be on a train going through the Swiss Alps, but true to efficient travel, we went through tunnels for most of the Swiss trains so didn’t get to see much of the views. Obviously I would have preferred being outside of the mountains and winding around the landscapes, but I understand that it was probably the best for traveling. I cannot imagine what it would be like on these trains in the summer time, probably very crowded and smelly. Other than the hit or miss weather, I am extremely pleased that we are here in the fall. Also I hate how all schedules are done in military time. It doesn’t make sense to me because they don’t speak using that time terminology, they just convert it very quickly in their head when they are talking. Why not stop using military time and save time and energy? I would understand if they talked with it, but it just seems silly because they don’t.

We had one longer lay over at a random city so we decided to go across the street from the train station and have a cup of coffee. At this point we weren’t sure if we were still in Switzerland or had crossed the border to Italy yet. After a couple of minutes in the coffee shop and talking to the waitress, it was very apparent we had finally made it to Italy. We have been looking forward to this country all trip. In fact, I had been saving myself for Italian food. It seemed that there are Italian food places everywhere in Europe and it is normally a sure fire bet that you could find something that you like at one of those places, but I wanted the real deal. I am extremely looking forward to eating fresh tomatoes, mushrooms, garlic, and WINE! At the coffee shop we had café Americano (which was coffee in a cup that was served with a cup of hot water. We weren’t sure what to do with the hot water so we just ignored it) and some delicious little cookie biscuit things. The best thing was everything was so cheap compared to the rest of the places we have visited so far. If the rest of Italy is this cheap and this good, I will be a very happy girl.

One thing I do dig about Europe is that everyone seems to have their own individual style. There is a certain look that most people have that you can tell they live in Europe, but everyone seems to pull it off and look very put together. Claire told us when we got in that everyone dresses up in Italy, even to go to the grocery store. Nobody wears flip-flops. Knowing this information, I’m sure Katherine and I stick out like sore thumbs with our back packing attire.

We got into Torino around 4 and Claire met us at the train station. It was so nice to see a familiar face after about three and a half weeks of looking at mostly strangers. She looked extremely cute in her Euro style clothing. We took the bus back to her house and met the family she is staying with. They all are extremely nice and the little boys Claire watches are so cute. They are working on their English and it seems like they understand more than they want to speak, but that’s ok, you can still understand what they are saying. Their house has a great view of the mountains. Immediately the mom, Susan, told us to give her our clothes so she could throw them into the wash and hang them out to dry (houses in Italy do not have dryers and everything air dries. That probably would have been great for my Patagonia pants in Brussels, haha oh well). We told her that we were more than happy to do it ourselves and were just extremely grateful for her letting us stay with them for a couple of nights, but she wouldn’t here about it. She also prepared some delicious appetizers of meats, cheeses, and bread sticks. Claire had planned for us to meet up with some of her friends for pizza for dinner at 7, so around 630 we headed back to the city center on the bus. The bus stop is literally at the end of her driveway and so very convenient.

Torino is a gorgeous city. The architecture is beautiful and everything is lit up at night. We met up with her friends Giada, Elisa (they are twins), and Manuel (who is dating Giada) and they led us through the streets around the main square to an incredible pizza place called Donna Rosa (how appropriate for me). I was so excited for my first real Italian pizza and it totally lived up to the hype. I ordered a cheese and onion pizza and a quarter liter of red house wine. It was delicious! Then we got authentic Italian gelato for dessert. They are totally going to have to roll me out of Italy and I am going to love every bite of it.

I loved hanging out with Claire’s friends. The girls spoke very good English and Manuel did his best. Between Claire and the girls translating for both of us, it was pretty easy to communicate and we got the general gist across of what we were saying. It was a pretty neat situation. He taught us all of the bad words in Italian, but alack I don’t remember any of them. The way Italians speak is so fascinating to me. They use their hands and put so much emotion into their words, in addition to speaking an incredibly beautiful language. I really enjoyed hanging out with them last night. I am currently reading the book Eat, Pray, Love by Elizabeth Gilbert. The first part of the book she goes to live in Rome and has an excellent description of how Italian’s use their language. On a side note, I am very much enjoying that book.

After dinner and gelato, the girls had to go home because they had to go to school the next day, so we said our goodbyes and Katherine, Claire and I walked about and checked out all of the bars in the main square. We ducked into one and had a drink, but then decided it was getting pretty late so we took a taxi home (this proved to be a more complicated situation that we thought it would, but eventually we figured out where the taxis were located and were on our way). Once we got home, I iced my foot (they have ice packs at the house!) and then had girl talk for a while. It is so nice to catch up with Claire. My foot swelled up pretty big (Im pretty sure I have a stress fracture) and I will be wearing my sneakers for the rest of this trip, because they do a pretty good job with making my foot feel better.

I am so happy to be in Italy and to be with Claire! I cannot believe that tomorrow starts our 4th week of traveling and that I still have four and a half more weeks over here!