Torino the city of the 2006 Olympics

10/12/2009

I am so happy to be in Italy, in Torino, with Claire! This morning we slept in and it was very nice to do this in a real bed. The room, which we are staying in, is the grandmother’s room and it has wooden panels over the windows (apparently most Italian houses do too and let very little natural light into them) so the roomed stayed very dark and it was very easy to sleep in. The room is interesting because there are at least two crucifixes hung up in it and three very large pictures of the baby Jesus and priests. Last night I iced my foot and kept it raised while I was sleeping and it looks like it is doing much better. For breakfast we had espresso (the have a machine in their kitchen) and some breakfast cookie biscuits. We spent the morning playing yatzee. I was terribly unlucky and never got the bonus, but I did get one yatzee so that was very exciting. We took showers and as we were getting dress Claire started telling us about how people in Italy typically dress up for everything, even going to the grocery store. This is a little unfortunate for Katherine and I because our nice clothing is very minimal. I am sure we stick out like sore thumbs in our backpacking attire, especially my sneakers that have become essential to my daily attire. Claire was very nice and let my borrow some tops of hers. It was nice to have a switch up after wearing the same clothes for almost four weeks.

I forgot to write about the little boy from dinner last night. He was such a cutie patootie! He was running around the restaurant giving random people at random tables hugs. I got a picture with him. Oh my lord he was precious. Also at dinner last night we tried a berry liquor called mirto. It was served chilled and was pretty good.

Claire fixed us the most amazing lunch. She cooked some great pasta that she paired with some pesto that she made. I was especially fond of the pasta because it was in shapes and not long noodles. I hate long noodles. Then we had all sorts of cheeses, tomatoes, tuna, steamed veggies, prosciutto and salami. Everything was so fresh and such high quality, I thought I had died and gone to heaven. My favorite part of the lunch was Claire melted/grilled a slab of cheese. She didn’t know what type of cheese, but it was absolutely delicious. We poured it over our veggies. All in all it was one of the most incredible lunches that I have had in a long time.

The shops in town close from 1-3 in the afternoon. Claire’s reasoning for this is that Italians are lazy. I suppose it is similar to a siesta, but I imagine that everyone just takes long lunches. So we headed town to the town center squares around 3 ish to walk around and window shop. While we were down there we passed a pastry store and stopped in to get some. We picked out both chocolate and vanilla meringues and then this other cute little pastry that it’s name is translated to something like ugly but so good. It was true, these little toffee treats we delicious, as were the meringues. We passed some fake purse vendors on the street and Katherine saw a pretty good fake of a big Louis Vuitton purse. She was pretty torn whether or not to get it for her sister but in the end she decided that she did not have room for it in her pack. Unfortunately the purse was on her mind for the rest of the night with buyers remorse (but the opposite)

We wanted to pick up some wine as a thank you gift to Susan and Diego so we popped into a little food market shop and picked out some bottles. We asked the clerk what a nicer bottle was and he picked out one that was just 8 euro! Diego is studying to be a somonier, so we didn’t want to give him a bad bottle. Later on that evening we found out that the bottle we picked out was a very nice bottle, which was a relief.

The weather was extremely pleasant and the afternoon sun put a beautiful light on the buildings. Torino is an incredibly beautiful city. The buildings tower over the streets and when you look all the way down the street you can see the mountains in the distance. It creates a very cool picture. Around 5 we decided to stop at a café and have some wine. We sat outside and our wine was served with snacks of peanuts, potato chips, and cheese and salami sandwiches on foccatia bread. We wanted another glass of wine so we went in to find out how much we were paying exactly and actually get the waitress attention. It was then that we realized we were paying two euro extra for the snacks and service outside and could get 3 euro glasses of wine (as opposed to 5 for the same thing) if we went to the bar and ordered the glasses ourselves. You learn something new every day. Everything we have encountered in Torino so far has been so much cheaper comparative to the rest of Europe. This makes me extremely happy and could be pretty dangerous to my waste line.

We hopped on the bus to go back home and decided to take a gamble and not stamp our tickets. A few stops later the bus stopped and bus official started walking towards us. For a second my heart stopped and I thought for sure we were going to get fined for not stamping our tickets. Turns out we just had to get off the bus and get on the next one. I guess the particular bus we were on needed maintenance or something. Then right as we were about to get off at our stop we realized that the STOP button that you hit to indicate to the driver you want to get off were not working on the side of the bus. So we didn’t alert the driver in time, drove past our stop, had to get off at the next stop, and cross the street so we could catch the next bus going the opposite direction so that we could get off at the right stop. At this point the sun had gone down and it was pretty cold out. The next bus that came was the same bus we got off. It had already turned around and started on its back loop. When we got on the bus the driver laughed at us. It was a pretty laughable situation.

Susan had fixed a delicious dinner for us. We had deliciously flavored white rice that had carrots and zucchini in it, chicken marsala (my favorite), and then cake for dessert. The way they get their groceries is by going to individual people to buy the products they specialize in, so I guess it could be considered boutique grocery shopping. They have a meat guy, a cheese guy and a fruits and veggie guy. The guys sell what is in season and everything is so fresh. Susan can call each guy up, tell them what she wants, they will get everything ready so she can just walk in grab her bag, pay for it, and leave. I am a big fan of shopping this way.

The kids went to be around 9:30 and we stayed up with Susan and Diego. First we started off with some rounds of yatzee, but no one was having much luck. Eventually we migrated to the kitchen and just hung around drinking wine. Diego went to be at 12 and we stayed up with Susan talking and looking at pictures. At one point I looked at the clock and realized it was almost five in the morning, we were 7 or 8 bottles deep, and I was seeing double. At that point I called it a night and went to bed expecting the worst hangover ever in the morning. My foot got very swollen from either standing around the kitchen or walking during the day. Hopefully the swelling goes down soon.

Claire’s family is so nice. She is incredibly lucky that everything worked out so well with this situation. Susan is extremely cool and down the earth. Diego is quieter, but sneaks in some very witty remarks. He looks like Liam Neeson. Their kids Luca and Giacomo are precious. Luca is the younger one (3) and they call him a monkey. He is a maniac and they definitely have their hands full with him, but he is sooo very cute. Giacomo is six and does a fantastic job with English. You can tell he is really trying to get English right because he wants to speak it well. He is a very sweet boy.