Grace and I have to go to the doctor and it's proving to be a little complicated.  First, the reason we have to go.  In order to join a gym or an organized exercise program of some sort, you have to have a certificate from a doctor showing that you are healthy enough to participate.  I'm sure that somewhere in this, the government is making money, but I haven't figured out how yet.  There is no other logical reason for any kind of regulation in Italy.  All regulations are money making schemes for the government to cover their extremely generous social programs.  Anyhow, as Grace and I are starting Zumba on Tuesday, we need these certificates.  Last night at 7 we went to the doctor's office which is in a building at the bottom of our road.  As he is a doctor in the public health system you don't need to make an appointment, just show up during visiting hours and take a number and wait.  These are his visiting hours.  Mon.and Fri.  4:45 - 8, Tues. 1:45- 4:30, Wed. 10:45 - 1:00, Thurs. 8:00 - 11:00.  Suffice it to say I have them written down.  So I figured that Friday evening at 7 would be a good time to go.  Who's gonna be there?  5 people.  So I took a number and sat down to wait as usually these visits are very quick.  After 30 minutes when there still hadn't been any patient called into the doctor's office we had to leave as we were heading out to dinner with friends and still had to go home and change.  We'll try again on Monday evening.  Obviously this is the downfall of socialized medicine.  But had we actually been ill all we have to do is call and during those hours he isn't taking visits he makes house calls.  And it's pretty much free.  Can't complain.  We went to a restaurant in the center for dinner with friends I haven't seen in a couple years though Gp has been in touch.  It was lovely.  Very modern chic with guitar players entertaining us and really cool bathrooms.  We just had pizza and beers but it was nice.  Today is raining and we are staying home.  Grace has homework and I have to start studying for my license.  As  am starting work tomorrow will need a car of my own.  At one time this wouldn't have been a problem here, buy Italy has decided to get all civilized since the formation of the European Union and has decided there should be rules.  How could they?  Off to clean bathrooms and procrastinate as much as possible. xxoo me

Have spent the last few days battling Italian bureaucracy.  Shops and offices all have different schedules as to when open and closed and then never follow their own schedules.  I needed to do three things this week.  Three simple things.  1, takes some prints in to be framed.  2, register us as residents with the refuse collecting company.  3, pay a bill at the post office.  The shop that I took the prints to was closed when I stopped by on Tuesday morning with a sign saying they'd be back at 3:30.  I stopped by again yesterday and found them in.  I told the clerk what I needed and asked when I could pick them up.  He said they are closed Tuesday and Friday mornings until 3:30 and all day Sunday.  Why?  I stopped by the office for Refuse Collection on Monday but they were closed.  The sign said they'd be open every other afternoon.  Yesterday afternoon they were closed.  Finally GP called them today and told them that we were sending them the info they need via E-mail.  If they don't like it tough cookies.  Instead of paying bills through the mail, here you pay your bills at the post office.  But not all bills, only certain bills.  And post offices are only open from 8:30 til 1pm.  So if you have to work, well....  Actually made it in time today but had to fill out a form, show documentation and let's not forget, to pay the fee for paying my bill.  Good God. Next time I'll tell you about going to the doctor.  xxoo me

1st course

cheers

the white shirt club - ck out size of the bottle

Oh so much to tell. First and foremost, Grace had a wonderful time on Saturday.  Japanese food, shopping, silly photos around the center.  Then off to the Grandparents so that we could be silly.  I may never fully recover from the party.  Just don't have the stamina I had 20+ years ago when these were an every weekend occasion.  We started with Spumante and appetizers at 8ish and I didn't get to bed till 4.  That's a.m..  I spent all day yesterday napping.  Here, at the Grandparents, back here again....   But the party.  The locale was fantastic.  It's a hotel-restaurant built into the side of a hill that supports a huge church above.  The rooms were old cellars belonging to the church at one time, with walls of rock, (with fossils), and doors and windows looking out over a narrow street and the hills beyond.  Very cool.  We ate traditional local food, some of it questionable for my tastes.  There was steak tartar, and a stew made of various interior parts and eels in brine.  I did not eat those things.  Fortunately there was also risotto with mushrooms and sausage and roast pork and ox tail (very good) and more....  There was also a lot of wine.  A lot.  Really.  Taking a break till next weekend when we have a lunch date to celebrate the Grandparents' town's saint day.  Every town and city has a patron saint which of course is celebrated by eating and drinking. There's a lot of that around here. So far I haven't blown up like a balloon but I'm putting that down to spending 6 or more hours a day moving boxes and filling shelves with  books.  All the squatting has been great on the thighs.  I start officially, which means getting paid for what I've been doing for free, some time in October.  I'll be working everyday, 3 to 4 hours.  Tomorrow I'm not going in as am going to lunch with another mom I met at the school.  Also need to do some errands that will be tougher to get to once working.  Miss you all!  xxoo me

My baby is off on her own, with 7 other 14 year old girls, in the city!  Her first foray into the center without us.  They've gone for sushi and shopping. The girls are a mix of cultures and languages.  One new girl is Brazilian, the daughter of a professional soccer player.  Two others are UN families.  Some are here with auto companies and another, like Grace, is the daughter of American mom, Italian dad. At the very least they'll be tramping along jabbering in Italian, English and German, the 3 most common languages.  Gp and I took another long walk along the Po after dropping her off.  I now have blisters.  Tonight we take Grace to her Grandparents and head out into the wine country for a birthday party.  It starts at 8:30 and will go well into the wee hours.  Actually knowing the birthday boy, he and a few cronies will have already started.  It's about 5pm now.  I'll report more on tonight after I've recovered.  

Well our 2 Romanians turned into 4 Romanians when the first guys realized that the doors to the wardrobe they had brought were broken and they had to call for emergency replacement doors.  Two hours into this the Romanians realized that alas, we hadn't purchased the hinges for said doors and they had not brought any either.  When they finally left, the wardrobe was up but doorless.  This afternoon we took another and hopefully our last trip to Ikea to buy hinges which GP will install tomorrow.  Did I mention that I am never going to buy furniture from Ikea again??  Booked our flights and hotel for Prague end October.  Oh boy!  xxoo me

The saga of Ikea continues.  We have two Romanians here installing Grace's wardrobe.  Big muscular guys who carry in the boxes on their shoulders as though they weigh nothing.  GP and I almost gave ourselves hernias bringing them in!  Alas the doors they brought are broken so will have to be brought separately.  Really - never again.  I'll be back with more on that when they leave.  Am looking at 3 nights in Prague for Grace and I at the end of October.  She has a week off and we'll need an adventure.  There are some very inexpensive flights between major European cities and we could fly there in a little over an hour.  Will already be winter in the Czech Republic, 30's, but as will be walking, visiting museums and such am not worried about that.  Found a great hotel in center and GP has an acquaintance who makes his living catering to visiting Italians so could pay this guy to play tour guide, driver.  The food is supposed to be heavy but yummy and I may be sick of pasta by then.  Doubtfully, but maybe.  I'll be back. xxoo me

I went up to the mountains with GP today.  He had to visit a client in a town called Pont San Martin in Aosta valley.  It's not very far up, only an hour from the city, but the Alps come upon you very quickly.  In fact this area isn't so much pretty as oppressive.  The mountains are very steep and rise straight up on either side of the valley with the towns in between.  While GP was working I took a walk in the town - very small - and started to wander up the hiking path that goes miles up into the mountains.  After 15 minutes I was exhausted and had to keep taking breaks.  Gotta work on my endurance.  These traditional houses are wood and stone with slate roofs.  I suppose the snow lips off the slate.  This is about half an hour from some of the ski areas and 40 minutes from the border with France.  In fact they speak both French and Italian. The pics below are from today.  Tomorrow the guys from Ikea are coming to install Grace's wardrobe, the one that fell on our head, the one that I said maybe we should follow the instructions and a certain engineer said no he could figure it out.  Finally she will be able to get her clothes off the floor and sofa and table...... xxoo me

The bridge in Pont San Martin

The vertical vineyards

View from my walk

The path up the mountain

So I've been eating lunch at the school the days I volunteer.  It is really good. Today I had spinach flan (like a mini souffle) with Fontina cheese sauce, sauteed green beans, tossed salad with tuna, fresh fruit salad.  I'm trying to stick to the veggies and avoid the pasta dishes, the bread.... Fortunately they don't serve sweets.  Tomorrow GP has to drive up to Aosta, a small city in the mountains, to visit a client.  I'm going along for the ride.  If the weather cooperates I'll take a long walk while he's working.  I hope I don't pass out.  It wouldn't be the first time as my blood pressure drops like crazy the higher up I go.  If I feel woozy I'll just loll around in a bar.  xxoo me

Wow, busy day.  First the school brunch with a lot of wonderful baked goods.  I did not behave myself.  Nice people but haven't made any real connections yet.  Time will tell.  Then we went for a walk in one of the two large parks up in the hills.  If one wanted one could walk for hours and never cover the same path.  One didn't want to.  Then heading home we stopped at the Castello of Moncalieri (our town) and visited the "Royal Apartment", as today is one of those rare days when the museum is open.  Now sitting outside enjoying the weather and wondering when the infamous northern Italian fogs will begin.  From autumn till spring there can be foggy weather and weeks can go by without sun.  Not looking forward to that. Gotta go start dinner.  All that eating made me hungry.  xxoo me

The museum was interesting the first half an hour.  Then, well you know how it goes.... .  Back again this afternoon and re-opened the crypt.  The crypt you say?  It takes an extra fifteen minutes to come and go here as have to close all of the anti theft shutters - metal in the back like the ones you see on shops in NYC - and heavy duty vinyl  in the front.  Then there is the front door with wooden exterior, steel interior and bolts - not kidding - that go up, down and into the side frame.  So the apartment is locked up tight, big long flippin' key, then out the front of the building, another key, out the front gate (if we haven't parked in the garage, still another key) ,key #3.  So we live in a crypt.  Gotta keep out the gypsies and Romanians.  Tonight there is a wedding party at the restaurant behind out building.  Our gardens back up on the gardens of an old villa that was converted into a restaurant.  We only see large trees and grape vines but can hear all the ruckus.  Kids running around and laughing (how dare they) and talking and singing from the terraces where they are eating, drinking and being merry.  Tomorrow the brunch at the school - made banana bread - and then a hike to work off some of this food....  xxoo me

Last night we went out to dinner in an area of the city called the Quadrilateral. Four sided something or another.  It's an area that has been completely renewed, updated, regenerated..whatever you want to call it, since the winter Olympics brought $ and tourism to Torino.  The area was out of bounds when I lived here 20+ years ago.  Very rundown, dirty, and unsafe.  Now it's all clubs, restaurants and snazzy shops.  The buildings have been restored and some torn down.  A big hotel was built for the games and apartments for athletes are now dorms for college students.  It's very lively and bustling on a Friday night.  Lots of foreign restaurants - unheard of in my day - and tourists.  We went to a good but overpriced Brazilian place.  Meat cooked on a rock, black beans, grilled veggies and some weird powder made from roots that taste like garlic bread.  Check it out. www.ritualbrasiliero.com .  A walk around the center on cobble-stoned pedestrian streets and then a stop for gelato at a place near us.  Fun was had by all.  Today some work around her then off to an exhibit about Italian life through the ages.  Tomorrow we have a school brunch from 11-1:00.  It's a welcome new, welcome back old get-together.  After that a hike in one of the huge nature "parks" up in the hills.  Busy, busy.  I'm glad.  Keeps me from missing home too much!  xxoo me

I'm back.  today is gorgeous.  Yesterday we had a rare wind.  Torino and surrounds sit in a bowl, cupped by the hills on one side and the mountains on the other.  Because of that there is very rarely any wind and a slight breeze is consider a tempest.  Yesterday was down right blustery and it cleared the usually hazy skies right up.  Today is cool and bright.  I have included a photo of the view from a small market place in one of the towns on the way to the school.  You can see the Alps in the distance and the highest peak in Mont Viso.  Today we are off to sign up for "City Car", the auto rental program where members can pick up a car at various locations and use it for an hour or a day paying by the hour.  For city dwellers it's a great alternative and we are going to use it for me until I get my license (ugh) and find a good cheap auto.  Then off to my first PTA meeting.  I'm feeling so soccer mom-ish!

Last night after dinner we took a drive up to Superga, a basilica (that means big mother church) that sits on top of the highest hill surrounding Torino.  The "hill" is about 2,000 feet.  The view from up there is, as you can imagine, amazing.  Last night was a beautiful clear night and we could see the lights from the city, all the burbs and over to the towns on the lower mountains, the "pre-alps", on the other side of Torino.  Superga is famous for being the sight of one of Torino's worst tragedies.  In 1949 a plane carrying the city's newly crowned world cup winning soccer team crashed into the church.  Now it's like a monument to dead soccer players.  They even preserved the wing of the plane embedded into a side of the hill.  A little creepy.  Anywho, no one ever said Italians have their priorities straight.  More later.  Off to school.  xxoo me

Excitement!  I've got a job!  I've mentioned that I've been volunteering at the school library helping set up for the year.  The gal who runs it is neither a librarian nor a teacher but sort of fell into the job when the librarian of 30 years decided to retire.  She, the present librarian, is however VERY organized and meticulous and is making up for 30 years of haphazard labeling and shelving and sorting.  Plus she's tech savvy so also works in conjunction with the tech team.  But while she is doing a fine job in administration she doesn't feel comfortable teaching and gets overwhelmed when the classes come in for library time.  Consequently I've convinced her that she can't live without me and that I should teach the classes while she runs the library. I had a meeting with the Headmaster today, an American who has spent his life teaching and raising his family in Brazil, until now, and he offered me a job.   It's part-time by request (mine) and the pay isn't great but for the moment it will give my days structure while leaving me time for other things.  Like Zumba.

Grace and I have been invited to join a mothers-daughters Zumba class every Tuesday at 6 at the school.  Some of Grace's classmates do it with their moms and should be a good and embarrassing way of getting to know some people.  The woman who organizes it is an American from NYC who teaches French.  She's married to a "local" and has a daughter in Grace's class.  She's very funny and energetic so this should be a good time but unfortunately she is also in really good shape.  This does not bode well.  I'm off for a nap.  Unpacked lots of boxes today.  xxoo me

Well first let me just announce that I have bought an Olive tree.  I stopped at my new garden center on my way back from the school and loaded it up into my father-in-law's car that I am borrowing as GP is away for the day and here it is.  I'm just waiting for the sun to go down a little behind the building as too hot to plant it right now.  I'm living in Italy and I have an Olive tree.

As for our weekend at the sea...GP's parents go to the sea twice a year.  In May they go to the Adriatic to a town called Catolica and in September they go to Liguria which is the continuation of the Riviera once you cross the border from France into Italy.  They go with a group of 50 or more "older" people on a packaged vacation organized by their local Parish priest. ( He goes along and conducts mass every evening before they sit down to dinner.)  They stay for 8-10 days, have hotel, 3 meals and reserved spaces on the beach.  They play cards and talk and swim and sleep and eat a lot.  They enjoy it and it's stress free.  Well we drove down to visit them this past Saturday and to take advantage of a last weekend at the beach.  It was beautiful weather, the sea is warm and clear, the foods good but it is so damned crowded.  There are very few open and free beaches in the north of Italy.  They coast is too built up and too many urbanites go to the sea every weekend and all summer.  The beaches are miles and miles of beach chairs under umbrellas for as far as you can see.  The actually beaches are rented out to businesses (hotels.restaurants) and one has to pay to go on them.  The fee gets you a lounge chair, an umbrella, use of showers, bathrooms, changing stalls etc..  Each "Bagno" as these areas are called usually has a snack bar and some actual restaurants.  Depending on how much you pay, some being much more expensive than others, determines how much room there is between chairs.  Some are very exclusive and some are for the masses. They say Italy is in financial crisis but judging by what I saw this weekend I beg to differ.  The place was packed.  Every hotel booked, restaurants with waiting lists, the beaches and streets clogged.  These are not small seaside towns like Boothbay but cities on the sea.  But I'm not complaining.  The swimming was great and I'm holding on to my tan!  Will include photos when I can get Grace to show me how to down load them from her camera...

Oh by the way.  Update on the floating floosie.  She was killed by a spurned Brazilian lover.  I have to say if you are the jealous type, dating a prostitute is probably not a wise move....

I have the weed from Hell growing in my garden here.  Not only do I have to dig deeply to extract it, it also has runners so it spreads like crazy. This is going to take a long time to clean up.  Oh the trials and tribulations of a gardener!  Speaking of which, I have found a great garden center near the school.  The drive to school is beautiful.  We go over the hills and past two small villages with walled villas and vineyards and hazelnut orchards.  They are very lush and rolling hills.  Just like in the movies!  But if I drive down the hill into the city we go through a grubby, unattractive edge of city kind of place.  Perfectly safe but not exactly scenic.  Tonight pizza with friends then off to the sea tomorrow.  I feel the need for salt water though the Mediterranean doesn't smell as good as our ocean.  Alas.  xxoo me 

Second day of school and again I was helping out in the library.  The gal that runs it is Dutch and her husband is with the UN here.  She has been giving me all the scoop and telling me how to deal with the various politics of the place.  She is one of those "gets things done" kind of people.  I imagine from the moving every 2 to 3 years she has had to be.  She tells me if there's something I don't like at school "stay on top of it, speak up!"  I think I'll give it a few days.  Grace has moved down to Italian as a Second Language after they starting discussing Dante in her Italian class yesterday - in Italian.  She is not quite there yet.  The weather has turned beautiful now and tomorrow I'm going to get at my garden.  It's beginning to frighten me.....  xxoo me

First day of school!

I'm beat!  Grace's first day of school resulted in my spending 7 hours unloading books in the library.  I volunteered to get on the "inside" and may - big may - have landed myself a part time job.  Have to get a resume together and talk to various people etc.  But what's more important is how Grace's day went.  She didn't think it was terrible!  She likes her teachers so far, though her Scottish English teacher is difficult to understand and her Australian Homeroom/Social Studies teacher is new and nervous and has "big pit stains". The kids seem nice and the cafeteria food is fantastic (I ate there too and it is).  In a country where everyone drives a car the size of a vacuum cleaner the parking lot was filled with Jeeps and vans driven by the Americans who are here with Chrysler, and BMW's, Audi's, and other goodies driven by those "who can". Luckily our temporary rental that the company provides before GP's car comes in is a Mercedes wagon so I fit right in.  Hopefully everyone one will have accepted me already by the time I start taking Grace to school in my plebeian auto. It will be too late to look down their noses at me for being.....middle class.  Actually everyone has been very pleasant and helpful and I am optimistic that all will go well.   By the way...the police have already caught the guy who murdered the hooker.  Who woulda thunk it.  xxoo me

Argh, another rainy day.  I need to get out in my little yard here to clean up a year of neglect.  My sage has taken over the herb garden and is strangling the rosemary and lavender.  Horrors.  The apartment we live in is in an area outside the city and slightly up in the hills.  It's all very built up as far as the crest of the hill where it opens up some cultivated fields and bigger homes.  The higher one goes the more it costs.  Once you start going down on the other side it's untouchable. That's where Grace's school is located.  I can look but I cannot touch!  Our particular neighborhood is all apartment buildings and town houses.  Quite green and nice but space is at a minimum.  We are on the ground floor which means a terrace and small enclosed garden but unfortunately overhead neighbors.  Italian neighbors.  High heels clicking on tile floors, high volume child and father who sings pop songs and opera at the top of his lungs.  Fortunately they have been out a lot so it hasn't been an issue but GP has their phone number taped up all over the apartment in case he needs to call them to say "Shut the ***up! I'm working!"  The apartment is basically four outward looking rooms with a hallway and 2 baths.  Toward the garden there is an eat-in kitchen and our bedroom/GP's office.  Toward the front is the living space and Grace's room.  It will be a while before I have it all put together and it feels like home and not our vacation spot which is what it's been used for for the last 20+ years.  I need stuff on the walls, some small tables etc.  Today Grace and I are going exploring in the area behind the hills around and past the school.  Maybe I'll find some good walking areas to work off the wine, cheese, bread......... xxoo me

So let me tell you all the story of the floating African hooker.  Yesterday we took a long walk along the river Po that runs through the city.  9 miles!  We parked at a building that looks like a huge kite and was the venue for figure skating for the Torino winter olympics and walked up the river towards the center.  On the city side it is all parks and there were joggers and bikers and doggie walkers.  The parks are full of giant Plane trees - very pretty.  Then we crossed a bridge and headed back.  On that side-the hills side- of the river you walk along a walled River Walk and you pass all the private rowing and tennis clubs. It was a very nice day and I commented on how relatively clean and well maintained it all was and how much Torino had changed for the better since we last lived here.  Then yesterday afternoon we were listening to the news and heard that a woman had been found floating in the river by some fishermen that morning - just at the time we were crossing the bridge and saying "Hey look all the emergency vehicles".  She was an African prostitute and had been stabbed multiple times and thrown into the river.  Oh the joys of city life!

But this morning in less than an hour we procured our ID cards and Health cards which guarantee us total coverage for all and varied ailments for the rest of our lives, followed by a cappucino and an apple tart.  Now off to clean out cupboards.  xxoo me

Ah yes, the wardrobe. That didn't go well. So yesterday we returned  to Ikea to replace broken pieces and pay them and extra 100 Euro to come and install the damned thing. 2 good lessons learned.  1-Don't buy furniture from Ikea. 2-If you must, follow the instructions!  We left beautiful weather in Maine and has been raining and cool since we arrived.  Not what I signed up for!  Today is sunny so off to take walk in center and the dinner with grandparents.  Someone asked about leaving comments.  Have to become a follower or use and e-mail address.  Just click where it says no comments under a post.  xxoo me