Well another week at school has gone.  They interviewed a fellow today for the position of "official" or certified Librarian.  If he comes, which I think he will, it probably wouldn't be till next fall.  I wonder if I'll be needed?!  I hope so, for apart from the money, I love being around kids and I like to know what's going on in the school and there is no way better than being in it all day.  Plus the lunches are very good.  Tomorrow we have another wine-tasting tour to do.  A German couple, parents of one of Grace's classmates, are new to the area and we are showing them the wine buying ropes.  She's very nice in that hippy/German way.  She has a rat-tail haircut, big baggy all natural fibers clothing and Burks.  He seems much more conservative as is an executive with one of the car companies.  But if you look closely he does have a pierced ear.  He comes across as very stiff but hopefully after we get a couple of glasses in him he'll relax.  Grace is going to their house where she and their daughter will make German Christmas cookies and babysit their younger son.  Poor kid
It has finally gotten cold enough to start thinking about warm clothing.  I pulled out our bag of gloves and hats the other day and it is still sitting where I dropped it.  This apartment living means serious organizational and storage skills.  I have been looking for storage options but haven't found what I want yet.  Every inch of space has to be utilized to the max, every piece of furniture has to be necessary and preferably have drawers.  Is this what New Yorkers feel like?  Oh what I wouldn't give for a nice big hall closet.  But I digress so back to the weather.  Yesterday after a couple days of rain here, the clouds faded and the mountains popped out covered in white.  They are quite spectacular.  We still haven't gone into the higher Alps and I would love to do so before Christmas.  We have our snowshoes here so we need to use them!  Well no snowshoeing tomorrow, but hopefully a good day amongst the vineyards!  xxoo me

Ralphie, wasn't it?  From A Christmas Story?  Well imagine Ralphie but erase the cuteness and add an element of pigginess.  There you have our Federico, the boy upstairs.  He's the one whose dad sings at the top of his lungs all day.  Supposedly he teaches but I don't know when.  And whose mom lives in  heels.  She vacuums in heels.  For an hour.  Every day.  These are small apartments people, how much vacuuming can you possibly need? And who vacuums in heels?  She's like a Stepford Wife except she also works 10 hours a day because her wacky husband is home singing!  So back to Ralphie/Federico.  Last month he thought he was a super hero so he banged around upstairs jumping from burning buildings and defeating villains.  Now he's a dog.  Every time he goes in or out he woofs loudly.  He also loves to play with something, (a marble?), on the tile floor right over the head of my bed.  Clunk, rattle, rattle, rattle, stop.  Clunk, rattle, rattle, rattle, stop.  When he's not saving a life or driving me to drink with his marble, he's sneaking food.  His mother screams at him because he got into the cookies or jam or something.  She can tell because he leaves telltale signs all over his face.  He evidently hasn't figured out how to use a napkin yet.  This kid is 8.  And how do I know all this?  The family lives life with the volume turned up.  They don't speak, they yell.  They don't walk, they stomp.  They don't close the door, they slam it.  And they don't seem to like each other very much.  Weekends when they are all home is one loud bitch session after another.  That's when it's best for us to leave.  Ah, apartment life.  xxoo me

Looking down on the River Corsaglio

Taking a breather

A woodcutters hut

Another damned hill my mother's making me walk up.

There was some fog but mostly wood smoke in the air.

Check out the website for the caves.  www.grottadibossea.com

Stalactite the length of 3 men

That's a walking bridge over the falls

My, oh my, what a day yesterday.  We went to see the Grotta di Bossea, a huge cave complex in the lower mountains in the province of Cuneo, towards France.  The photos we took don't do it justice so I have included it's website.  The place is enormous.  From top to bottom the height is over 100 meters.  That's 328+  feet (no I did not convert that in my head) or a 30 story building?  The main chamber could fit 3 cathedrals.  It was formed 200 million years ago by a the river Corsaglia which runs through the caves roaring and tumbling.  There is a small lake and a waterfall.  Of course there are tons of stairs cause this darn country is all made up of steep hills and stairs!  My calves are again killing me.  The tour lasted over an hour.  Very cool.  The area around the caves is another story.  I'd never really seen hillbilly Italy.  It's in an part of the mountains without ski resorts or lakes or much of anything so there is little to no tourism.  The mountains are very close in and the slopes are vertical.  (There seem to be quite a few quarries in the area.)  Consequently I think the folks there don't see much sun.  The people seem to be "woodsmen", cutting and stacking logs all over every hillside.  There are a lot of goats wandering around and not much else.  The few villages we saw are very poor with half the ancient buildings abandoned and falling down. Sadly some of the ruins are inhabited.   I think we saw 3 people before we went to the caves where we found a couple Italian families and some French guys.  It was a grey day and the air was filled with smoke from all of the fires these woodcutters were burning.  The whole atmosphere was very dueling banjo-y.  Sort of creepy.  We did however take a walk up one of the steep hills to get a better view of the valley.  Not the place to go if you suffer from fear of heights. 

After that excitement we came home, changed, and went out for dinner with friends in the city.  As we were leaving the restaurant Gian Piero saw a car being lifted onto a tow truck down the street and joked that it was our friend"s.  It was.  An hour and 300 bucks later (I'll write about the ticketing process later) we headed home.   xxoo me

Things this broad abroad missed on Thanksgiving day.  Family.  Even though they usually all crowd around in my little galley kitchen gabbing until I very ungraciously kick them out.  I'm cooking here!  Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade.  It's tradition, what can I say?  Cheddar baked onions!  Can't find the ingredients here.  It's a Wonderful Life.  I love Jimmy Stewart.  All that aside, last night was very nice.  The old villa and the grounds of the school were all lit up beautifully. About 170 people gathered at tables in the cafeteria set with linens, candles and wine.  The food was good, though apart from turkey and mashed potatoes, nontraditional.  The high schoolers were served wine if they wanted and only Grace and one other declined.  Hmm.  We met some interesting people and Grace had fun running around the school in off hours with her friends.  A good time was had by all.  Sunday evening we are having the grandparents over for our own little dinner.  I need the house to smell like turkey to really get into the season.  It's still in the 50's and higher most days though so just doesn't seem like the Holidays are coming up.  Tomorrow we are hoping to go to a huge underground cave system near the Alps called the Grotte di Bossea.  The tour last an hour and a half.  Scary!  xxoo me

If you bundled together a player for the Red Sox, one from the Patriots, one from the Celtics and maybe throw in one from the Bruins, you'd get the celebrity of a Juventus player here in Torino.  Juventus is one of the 2 local professional football, (soccer), teams.  As soccer is the only sport that is really followed it is huge.  HUGE!  The rivalry between Juventus and Toro, the 2nd local team, is monumental.  Juventus is supported by the middle upper classes and Toro is the team of "the people".  For some reason, six or so players from Juventus have kids at Grace's school.  I have a few of them in my library classes. (Not that I knew that but Grace has informed me of such).  Most of these guys are Italian but there are some South Americans thrown in.  Today a couple of the players came to pick up their children and there was a near riot.  The kids swarmed over them getting autographs and having pictures taken with them.  Grace got a couple shots on her phone from a distance.  Handsome!  I would love to get to a game just once to experience it.  Gian Piero will be of no help on that front as he is one of the very few Italians who doesn't follow sports.  I'm going to have to get in good with some of their kids in my classes.........of course Grace will have to tell me again which ones they are.  xxoo me

Ok, listen to this one.  Tonight there's a march in the center against "transphobia".  That's the fear of transgender people.  Really.  Look it up.  There are so many questions here.  First, how many transgender people can there possibly be to make this an issue.  In order to have a fear of something, don't you need to have been exposed to it?  I can't believe most people would know a transgender if they saw one.  If I didn't know any better, I'd think Chaz Bono was just a chubby man with a rather sweet, child-like face!  Second, this is Italy, where in general, people are very tolerant. Not because of a great deal of openness but because Italians tend to be a very egotistical population. Most couldn't care less what the next person is doing unless it interferes with their own lives.  So I really doubt transgenders have been persecuted here.  And third, Transphobia?  They actually made up a word for people afraid of someone who's changed sexes?  Weird.
 
 The Vatican has to be involved with this.  The church no longer holds much sway with the common folk, but as they fund their favorite politicians, they do have influence in the government.  So the church must be pushing for some law against Transgender rights or something.  The biggest deterrent for me would be all the red tape you'd have to go through to get your sex changed on all of your Italian documents.  Legally you can't even change your name here. They don't care if mom named you Prudence Picklebutt.  If it's been documented on your birth certificate, your name is there to stay.  I can't imagine how long it would take to get all the paperwork settled if you had to change your sex on your license, passport, ID card, healthcare card.... . 

Thursday is Thanksgiving and we are attending a dinner at the school put on by the Alumni Association.  I'll report in on Friday.  xxoo me

A quiet weekend!  Grace had a sleepover Friday night with 5 girls, followed by a day of shopping and wandering around the city center Saturday.  Gian Piero and one of our neighbors spent the day painting the stairway of our apartment block.  Here's the story.  The staircase (3 floors) hadn't been painted in some years and really needed a sprucing up.  The occupants all met and decided that this year was the year to do it but then all began hemming and hawing about having to cough up the funds to pay someone to do the work.  Typical.  So after months of procrastinating and making excuses, in a moment of frustration,  Gian Piero and our across the hall neighbor Renzo said that if they could all at least come up with the funds to pay for the paint, the two of them would do the damned work.  So last week GP put a sign on the front door of the building hoping that someone else would volunteer to help but alas no real takers.  One guy, the singer from upstairs, showed for a couple of hours then disappeared and another came out at the end of the day and helped with the cleaning up.  My husband, (and undoubtedly my neighbor), is now sprawled on the sofa with a sore back.  The stairway looks terrific though.  I spent the day cleaning and reorganizing the kitchen cabinets and studying (always half-heartedly) for my driving exam.  Last night GP and I went out for dinner with old friends.  Beppe and GP have known each other since they were teens and Beppe's wife Alessandra is a kick.  She spent the evening telling us stories about her weird aging parents.  Her mom once threw a side of frozen mountain goat off her balcony, hitting a guy in the head and almost knocking him out.  Tomorrow no plans aside from a long walk and dinner with the grandparents which has become the Sunday thing to do.  They too are doing some odd aging stuff.  Yesterday my mother-in-law was convinced the reason a representative from a phone company kept calling her was to tell her that the battery in my phone had died.  Hmmm.  xxoo me

It's still warm here.  Winter is a long time in coming.  Days are still up in the high 50's, lower 60's and no freeze in sight.  I don't remember it ever being as warm or sunny as it has been this fall.  One reason is that I am now living a life above the fray.  I only go up into the hills, to grace's school, her tennis lessons, her friends.  In my past life I headed down into the city.  There in the mornings when we drive out of the gate we can look down the hill and see the fog settled in.  Farther into the center that fog mixes with smog and there is that gray that I remember so well.  Up high, where the privileged live and play, they are above the mist and gray.  Sort of symbolic ain't it?  But even with this late season warmth, I miss autumn at home.  I miss that cold fresh ocean air.  The air here is too verdant, too closed.  Dear sisters do you remember that musty, ripe smell the gardens had in England?  That's what nature smells like here.  It's the smell of European soil.  It smells damp and full and really old.  Even my little condo garden smells like that, with it's weed-like ivy, and mold growing over everything.  Maine smells clean and new.  Can you tell I'm homesick?  We've been here 2 1/2 months and are settling in.  We have a routine going for the week days and have been pretty busy weekends.  But we still have that pull from home happening.  Oh well.  this too shall pass.  xxoo me

Cavour "hill"

 This is the hill below which the town of Cavour is built.  It lies about 15 miles from the mountains, smack in the middle of the plains, as though someone had dropped it by mistake while building the Alps.  It is so steep and rocky the only building on it is, of course, some church named for some dead saint or another.  Cavour is a charming little agricultural town that hosts Applefest every year.  A fair obviously dedicated to apples and other local products; cheeses, salamis etc.  We went yesterday after the rain stopped and had beautiful weather with great views of the mountains.

In Cavour

You can see the hill at the end of the main thoroughfare in town.  We tasted our way from one end to the other and then continued on to the Grandparent's house for dinner.  I took another nap.  xxoo me

It's been so long!  Last week flew by with school, soccer, zumba, and tennis (all Grace apart from my pathetic try at zumba).  Friday night we went to dinner at some old friend's place.  I worked with her about a hundred years ago when I lived here and taught at a language academy.  She and her husband and son live in an apartment in a renovated complex of outer buildings attached to a gorgeous villa in the hills.  Their place is rather damp and chilly but has an amazing view out over the city.  The road up is treacherous.  First a very steep, curving, but paved city street.  Then a turn onto a short, vertical entrance that leads to huge iron gates.  After the gates, a long, curving, steep and so narrow the plants touch on both sides, unpaved, private road up, up, up till you come out to a clearing at the top.  The property is jungle-like with acres of Palms and Dates and other exotic plants and they have 3 resident boars.  Mamma boar, Papa boar and Baby boar.  If you come upon one of these boars on your way up you have to honk your horn insistently to move them because they are big enough to make passing them impossible.  Woe is he who comes upon them on a motorbike as they have no fear and won't budge.  They might even charge.  This place is right above the center of Torino, a city of over a million people.  Dinner was marvelous but GP had to mind what he drank as we had to navigate the road back down in the rain.  Yesterday we went wine tasting and shopping in Le Langhe, a wonderful wine region nearby.  We took a couple we've met through the school who are here for the year and wanted to see the area.  It was rainy and cold but that made the strong reds and wonderful lunch all the more appreciated.  Unfortunately we couldn't show them much in the way of scenery as all the hills were shrouded in clouds.  We came home with a trunk full of wine and I took a two hour nap.  Today we are waiting for it to clear up then off to an Applefest in Cavour about 45 minutes from here.  We've never been so it will be an adventure for all.  xxoo me

again view from pecetto market square

another shot

ditto

yellow building in middle school

fields with baby trees

dry soil looks like snow

Election day and this broad abroad feels very far from home.  There is a meeting of Americans in Torino to watch the election results tonight but it's a little late for me.  They are meeting at 10pm and staying up all night.  I'll stay up as late as I can, (probably not past 11) and get up early.  Today was a beautiful day and after work I took a walk in the hills behind the school till Zumba time.  Here are a few pics.  xxoo me

View of Prague Castle from Petrin Hill

  www.hrad.cz/en/   Check out castle's website.

Walking up

Rooftops

Mini Eiffel Tower

 

Bakery where I left Grace

Weird street performer doing Indian Powwow dance

Day 3.  Sun at last!  And good thing too as we spent much of the day wandering up stone paths through the autumn woods trying to get to the top of Petrin Hill.  Petrin Hill has a replica Eiffel Tower and a gigantic park with churches, a monastery and some miles-long-ancient-turret-topped wall twisting and turning all over the place.  We kept wandering through arches to see gardens and views and then ended up stuck on the wrong side of this endless wall and had to back track to get where we needed to be.  This was all uphill again, with lots of stairs.  I have built up some serious calf muscles.  When we went back down we wandered along the riverside, more shops, restaurants, lovely old buildings.  We stopped in a bakery for cheesecake cause it comes from this area and we HAD to try it.  Most places take credit cards and as this cafe was across the road from an American university/study program, I assumed that using my debit card would not be an issue.  Well it was.  So I had to leave Grace as hostage and find an ATM to get some cash.  I thought about taking a little walk to scare Grace but then decided against it.  She holds a grudge.  After that we went to Wenceslas Square which separates old Prague from new Prague.  One end of the square (which is actually a long rectangle) spreads out into multiple little cobble stoned alleys that lead into the old center.  At the other end stands the National History Museum which is massive and dark and scary.  It would have been the perfect place to spend Halloween evening but was, alas, closed for renovations.  On the square is an open air market with stands selling roasted sausages, pretzels, grilled smoked sheep cheese (really good) and beer and oh so much more!  We tried it all, then waddled back to the Astronomical clock for one last look before saying goodbye to Prague.  We got back yesterday and I am now on a diet.  xxoo me

At the start of the Charles Bridge

Newer part of the Prague Castle

On Golden Lane

Puppet shop

Another view of Castle

Looking down on some of the gardens

Day 2.  We headed out into another cold, damp day but warmed up quickly as decided to cross the river via the famous Charles Bridge to the part of the old city around and up to Prague Castle.  Prague Castle is the largest ancient castle in the world.  It once contained a town and still has squares and streets and a huge cathedral and acres of gardens within it's walls.  The streets up to the castle are VERY steep and in fact many are not passable by car but are actually stairs.  We stopped and took a lot of photos as an excuse to rest while all these old Czech ladies passed us with their shopping bags.  All this cardio exercise is probably what keeps them from dropping dead from their "all fat-all the time" diet.  There is an area in the castle that's called Golden Lane.  It's a small street of tiny houses that once housed some of the people who worked in there like seamstresses and jewelers.  It was actually still inhabited up through the 1950's when the city bought all the houses up to make the entire castle complex a state treasure.  Now the little places are set up as a museum showing how the occupants lived or as shops with some of their local crafts.  It looks like something from the Hobbit.  Franz Kafka lived in one of the house for a few years.  Maybe that's where his idea about the cockroach came from as only way to live comfortably in one of these places is to be the size of a bug.  After hours of trudging up and down to the castle we went back to explore the Charles Bridge which is lined with giant statues of saints. It is pedestrian only and filled with stands of people selling art and jewelry and goodies.  There are also street performers (some very good), and beggars (all surprisingly well fed), and tourists, tourists and more tourists.  After all that walking we had to go back to the hotel for a nap.

For those of you who never thought of going to Prague, think again!  It is a gorgeous city with tons to see but 3 days worked just fine for us.  It's pretty small for a capital city with a little over a million people.  The older architecture is beautiful.  The buildings look like they're frosted and decorated like cakes.  We walked and ate so much I feel rather spider-like; round in the middle with skinny limbs sticking out.  Here's my rundown.

Old Jewish Cemetery

Old Town Square w/ Gothic church

Cold Grace

Astronomical Clock

Did I mention the wax museum?

Side street

Church of Our Lady Before Tyn

 

 

The square at night

Day one we left Italy at 7 am which meant getting up and leaving home by 5:30.  In this city of one million there are fewer people on the streets at 5:30 am than at that time in Boothbay Harbor.  We made it to the airport in record time.  When we flew into Prague (only 1.5 hr flight) it was gray and cold.  We checked into the hotel, bundled up and headed out.  Our hotel was right out of the 70's boom era with mirrored walls and huge western themed chandeliers, but clean and convenient and only 3 stops from the old center.  Getting off the tram and walking into the center is like entering Disneyland.  The city is extremely clean as they have huge fines for littering.  The cake-like buildings are pink and blue and yellow and there were still flowers everywhere even though they had already had their first snowfall.  The Czech Republic is part of Bohemia which is famous for all sorts of well known hand-crafted products.  They make crystal (Swarovski), and enameled nesting dolls and eggs, wonderful puppets and other wooden toys, amber and other semi precious stones, plus glass Christmas ornaments and all sorts of shiny pretty things filling every shop window.  The old center has churches dating back to 900, and it's street are mostly pedestrian because they are too narrow for cars.  There is an astronomical clock tower in the main square that announces every hour with moving characters who ring bells and wave their hands.  Then from the top of the tower a trumpeter plays a tune from each of the four sides.  Five minutes have past before the hour has been tolled.  There were tons of tourists even though the "high season" is over.  All of the shops and bars and restaurants were open and bustling.  There are even more restaurants per block than Italy, and everywhere you walk it smells like roasting meat and spiced wine and toasted sweet bread (sold on every corner, all tasted and enjoyed).  We toured the old Jewish cemetery and surrounding Jewish quarter with many historic synagogs and museums.  For dinner we went to a traditional pub for cabbage and potato pancakes topped with a garlic sour cream, goulash with dumplings, and beer (me only - good).  Yes it was as heavy as it sounds.  Then we stumbled back to the hotel.  On the tram a lovely young gal was doing her make-up.  She had red toothbrushes stuck through her earring holes.  Day 1 complete.