London.  Love, love, love, love, love that city!  But for one little issue and no, not the weather.  It is the most outrageously expensive place I've ever been.  5 bucks for a ride on the Underground, $50 for a little trip to the supermarket.  Tiny apartments in decent areas run $1,000 a week!  It is crazy expensive but so worth a visit.  We got there on Wednesday, checking into our hotel at about 1pm.  Though the flight from Italy is only 1.5 hours, the trip door to door took us 9, (taxi, train, bus, plane, train, underground, walk).  It was warm and sunny so we set off for a long walk through Kennsington, past Kennsington Palace where we may or may not have seen Kate the Duchess of Windsor, through Hyde Park then up to "Chinatown" in behind Piccadilly Circus.  We met a friend of Grace's who is studying in London for the semester in front of the Odeon Theater in Leicester Square, famous as having the premier of the Harry Potter films.  We ate dinner in a little Chinese restaurant, very good, then wandered back to our hotel.  On Thursday we walked for hours again.  The city was packed with tourists, mostly French and Italians.  We couldn't get away from them.  Grace and I wanted to go to the Tower of London but GP is not a huge fan of museums so we dumped him on a bench in the surprisingly bright sunshine to people-watch. ( He informed us that Europeans have gotten fat.)  An hour and a half later when we emerged he was sunburned!  We walked back by way of the river and found a wonderful market in Southwark that had imported foods from all over Europe.  We almost fainted when we saw the prices of Parmigiano.  We also walked down Sloane Street, known for being the place where the "posh" people shop.  We saw lots of posh people.  We were not posh.  Thursday we ate in a Lebanese restaurant.  It was fabulous.  The city has a vast variety of ethnic restaurants and as good, traditional English food is hard to come by, we ate "ethnic" most nights.  Friday was dedicated to the Harry Potter Studio Tour.  GP didn't join us.  Grace and I had a wonderful time and would do it again in a heartbeat.  We missed the Duchess and the two princes by only a couple hours as they were at the studios for some commencement or another that same morning.  Dinner was cheddar, smoked mackerel, smoked salmon, and other "British" goodies back in the hotel.  Saturday was cold and rainy but yet again we stayed out all day walking and walking.  We went to Notting Hill and the famous Portobello Road and market.  I could visit that market everyday and never tire of it.  It is antiques, (silver and china mostly), ethnic arts and crafts, used everything, and food, food and more food, (paella, fish and chips, pastries, crepes, Indian, African, Spanish, French, Italian).  There were buskers on every corner and they were really talented.  One kid was an opera singer, another group sang Beatles songs, some old guys played banjos.  The streets were packed with people of every hue and language and dress.  It was so cool.  For dinner Saturday we took the train out to Southall, a suburb to the northwest, that is home to mostly Indian people from the Punjab area of India.  We had the best Indian food I've ever had.  Last comments.  I need to go back without my dear husband, (and maybe daughter),and see all the museums and go to a show.  English coffee really sucks.  Thank God for Starbucks.  (Hey, that rhymes!)  And London drivers make Italians look like little old ladies out for a Sunday spin.  Pics are coming, just have to figure out how to get them from Grace and GP's shared dropbox to the dropbox I share with GP.  Argh.  I hate technology.   xxoo me

Well they've got them.  GP and I have been watching live streaming out of Boston.  Grace was born in Newton, we shopped at a market in the area of Watertown that was closed off, GP worked a mile away, so it feels very personal.  But here, apart from us, there isn't much attention being paid to the situation.  It is as distant as Afghanistan or Iraq.  It is the distance that makes all the difference.  In Turin, people regard the bombings the same way we in the States would have had they been in Milan.  Horrible but impersonal.  Tragic but not affecting anyone we know.  Did you know that in the 1970's, the US government put out a travel advisory for Italy?  Americans were warned not to travel here because of the risks of terrorist attacks.  At that time, the Red Brigade was active here. They were a communist (USSR) backed anarchist organization who wanted to disable the Italian establishment.  They bombed government buildings and killed cops and kidnapped industrialists.  There were constant disruptions in everyday life.  In fact, public schools were closed so often that GP's parents sent him to private school, a 45 minute bus ride into the city (and into the chaos?).  But most Americans know nothing about it.  Just this morning I was listening to BBC and the London marathon is running today.  Apart from heightened security, there will also be a moment of silence for those killed and injured in Boston.  BBC's next announcement was news that 27 people had just been blown to bits in a market in Iraq.  No moments of silence, no international news feeds for hours on end.  Makes you think.

It's rainy today so doing housework.  I've now had 2 lessons with my irritating and smelly driving instructor and he tells me I should be able to take my exam at the end of May.  After vowing sobriety and dieting, yesterday GP and I went to a little wine fair in Chieri, the town where Grace's school is located.  The area produces a very specific wine there, Freisa, that I don't know well, so we thought we had to give it a try.  The fair was small, tucked away under the porticoes or arcades of an old monastery in the center of town.  The town band was playing and they got more raucous every hour and the local police were doing "quality control" of the products, sidling up to all the stands in their bright blue uniforms and red cheeks and noses.  It was fun and we behaved, staying only about 2 hours. 

We have just 2 days of school then off to London for a five day weekend.  Our only scheduled plans are on Friday when Grace and I are going on the "Harry Potter Studio Tour".  We are very excited.  GP has decided to skip it.  xxoo me

Well my first "driving lesson" has come and gone and it is not going to be so much what I have to learn as what I have to unlearn.  Evidently after almost 40 years of driving I have picked up a lot of bad habits.  I arrived at nine and was taken immediately to the car I'm going to be using the next few weeks and in which I'm going to be taking the exam.  It's a red Mini Cooper plastered with huge Ps that stand for "principiante", or "newbie".  The instructor, who does in fact smell like an old ashtray, spent our hour driving telling me what I was doing wrong.  Shall I list them?  I don't use the blinkers when I go around obstacles such a bicyclists.  I don't rest my heel on the floor when I push in the clutch or rest my foot on the floor when not shifting.  I put the car in neutral at red lights.  I don't use the mirrors enough or properly.  I don't shift at the right time or enough or too much.  I speed or drive too slowly.  It was a constant monologue like being with a backseat driver on amphetamines.  I wanted to tell him to shut the hell up but realized he wasn't telling me how to drive but how to pass the test, which is in fact what I'm paying him to do.  I was completely stressed when we had finished.  I have another hour tomorrow morning.

After leaving the driving school I picked up my market buddy and we spent a few hours shopping for produce amongst the hundreds of stands piled high with seasonal goodies.  This market is a real mix of nationalities and languages.  There are Africans and Middle Eastern people.  There are Asians and Gypsies and Romanians, all buying or selling something.  Then I saw my first non-Italian uniformed police officer.  He is undoubtedly an Italian citizen but he is also of Asian descent. I wouldn't think twice about seeing an Asian policeman in the US but it was surprising here because immigration is still relatively new to Italy.  He is probably the son of first generation arrivals.  The human landscape of Italy is changing fast.  xxoo me

It has gone from "Where is that warm Italian spring?" to "Is it summer already?"  Everything is in bloom.  All the fruit trees are pink and white.  All the hedges are yellow and red.  It is very beautiful.  They say we are up for a long rainy weekend but at the moment it's in the 70's and blue skies.  Tomorrow morning at 9 a.m. I have my first hour of driving lessons.  I hear the instructor is a chain-smoker with less than perfect hygiene.  Can't wait.  Then off to the market.  I haven't been in weeks and my market buddy returns to Canada when school is finished so I do not know what will happen next year!

Cherry trees

Pecetto

The blossoms look like snow

 xxoo me

Going to tennis.

I believe this was after the first tastings

That would explain our faces.

So as for our weekend.  Our friends arrived late Saturday afternoon without their luggage.  It seems they took one plane from DC and the luggage took another.  We got them settled in and had dinner and sent them to bed.  Sunday, after a leisurely breakfast, we drove off to the Langhe, the wine region.  It was a wonderful, warm, sunny day and there were spectacular views of the Alps.  Our first stops were at a few of the lovely villages to take in the scenery before our friends became too inebriated to appreciate it.  We snacked on local cheese bought at a market to coat our stomachs and then took them to one of our favorite wineries for tasting.  We spent well over an hour sampling their selection of wines and left with our trunk full of cases of Dolcetto and Barbera.  Next we drove to a village famous for it's Roman amphitheater and while wandering the streets ran into some of GP's old friends from the area.  We spent an hour or so with them and shared a bottle of Spumante, Italian Champagne, and some little appetizers.  After that we toured some more hilltop towns, saw a castle or two, and then headed off in search of our dinner.  We ate at a beautiful old inn/tavern that offered us four courses and a lot of atmosphere.  We finally tumbled into bed about midnight.  I swore never to eat again.  I lied.  Monday, as Grace had school and GP and I had work, I took our friends to the local train station and sent them off to the city for a day of touring.  Unfortunately I sent them off in the wrong direction so they ended up in Chieri, (the source of the train line) and not Torino, (the intended destination), and had to wait an hour for the next train back.  Oops.  I used being over-tired as an excuse.  I picked them up in the city at four and we came home to their luggage, (yeah!), and a nap.  Last night we had our final dinner together until this summer.  Have you noticed that pretty much all we do here is eat and drink?  It is no wonder I've put on ten pounds since autumn.  I must now get serious about exercising and dieting!  Yeah, right.  ooxx me

Our weekend guests have just driven off.  It is bittersweet as very close friends and wonderful to have them here and show them around but as we do have school and work and a tiny apartment it is also good to get back to routine.  Sniff.

Am reeling from the news of Boston.  It is a sad portrait of humanity, (I am referring to myself here), that though bombs go off around the world daily with scores of innocents killed, when it hits close to home, we feel it so much more.  Nightly we watch the news and don't blink at all the children being massacred in the Middle East and Africa.  But one 8 year old in Boston is a tragedy. 

Off to school but will write about our weekend later tonight.  xxoo me

This morning we got up at the ungodly hour of 6:00, jumped into our clothes, drove to our local train station, caught a 7 a.m. into the city and the central train station, where we boarded an intercity high speed for Milan.  We had an appointment at 9:30 at the U.S. Consulate to renew Grace's passport.  We took a cab from the station to the consulate and arrived with a 1/2 hour to spare that we definitely ended up needing.   There was a big long line of people waiting to get inside for appointments.  As very few were Americans, (mostly Africans and South Americans), I assume they were hoping for visas.  There was one poor guy from the U.S. who had had all of his documents stolen and had been going back and forth for 3 days trying to get everything straightened out.  He was dressed like a French hippie artist with scarves and sandals with socks, an orange jacket, red pants and various layers underneath.  He was of course wearing a beret.  I say poor guy because he fell asleep in the waiting room, sitting up on a hard backed chair with a pile of papers and folders 12 inches thick on his lap.  We kept expecting him to fall over.  The consulate does not allow cell phones or any sort of digital, battery or electric equipment in the building so we had to put our phones and even car keys (they have a battery run alarm system remote), in tiny little lockers at the entrance.  Unfortunately they don't allow any bags bigger than a wallet either.  I, of course, had a big purse.  They told me that there were two places where I could store it.  One was a bar next door, but they asked an exorbitant price, and the other was a Mailboxes Etc. "around the corner", that charged less than half.  So I left GP and Grace waiting in line and skipped around the corner only to find that it was three big city blocks away.  I found this out after running up and down the first block like an idiot till I finally asked a guy in a coffee shop.  Ten minutes later I returned to the consulate all sweaty and out of breath only to get "the look" from my dear family for taking so long.  I made them walk all the way back with me to see how far it was once we had finished.  Once past security and inside all went smoothly and we had some time to spare so we walked back to the station to see a bit of the city.

Porta Garibaldi with skyscraper

that same skyscraper up close and personal

Milan is Italy's biggest city with about 6 million people.  Milan is followed by Rome, then Naples and finally Torino.  Where Torino feels like a big town with all of it's old, low buildings and narrow roads, Milan definitely feels like a metropolis.  It has skyscrapers and gobs of highways and big boulevards.  It is the commercial hub of Italy with the fashion industry, banking and economic market all based there.  There are a few worthwhile things to see.  The famous "Duomo", a huge Gothic cathedral, (one of the world's largest), the fashion district where all the women are extremely tall and make me feel like a troll, and few other places.  But overall I don't like it.  It's always gray, it's rather ugly, and it's doesn't seem to have any character.  Walking back to the station we passed one of the original "gates" into the city, called Porta Garibaldi.  Walking between there and the station is a large area of all new, still unoccupied, and uber-modern buildings that will be offices, apartments and shopping.  It is pretty cool in a very sterile way.  xxoo me

I have committed the ultimate act of stupidity in Italy...... and I have survived!  I left my purse in my car parked outside the gates overnight.  It was in error, but the type of error one should know better than to make here.  We were coming back from dinner at the grandparent's and had arms full of donated lettuce and other goodies.  We were borrowing their car as we still have only the one, and grandfather's car gets parked in the garage because God forbid anything happened to it.  This is the man who checks his tire pressure and oil levels every time he drives.  I parked our car outside the gates in the parking lot and gathered up everything except the bag that matched the color of the car's carpet.  Every time we leave a car out we cross our fingers and hope for the best as the first night we slept in this place 20+ years ago, we left GP's new Saab out only to wake and find it missing.  It was tracked down a few days later minus the battery.  Anyhow, my bag was safe and sound where I had left it which is a huge relief.  Just thinking about all the paperwork and lines and visits to official buildings I would have to make to replace my documents makes my head spin.  Plus I had Grace's American passport in my bag as we are going up to Milan (the American consulate) tomorrow to renew it.  I think spring may finally have arrived.  The Romanian leaf blowers are out in force in the restaurant's gardens behind us.  When we arrived last fall these guys were out blowing leaves around everyday for two months.  I don't think they ever pick them up, just blow them from one corner of the garden to the other.  It's very loud and gets pretty tiresome.  But it is a sign that the restaurant plans to be opening their outside seating soon so that's good.   I'm off to buy train tickets for Milan tomorrow and then to a staff meeting at the school.  xxoo me

I am so dog-less!  After nine days with that little critter, the apartment seems very empty now that she's gone.  But I won't miss having to pick up after her on our walks, or yell at her to get back into our garden when she sneaks into the neighbor's through a hole in the dividing hedge.  Her family came for her this afternoon and I sent her off with a pat and powerpoint of her vacation.  I'd attach it but can't figure out how to.

GP is in Verona today.  Every year there is a huge wine festival called VinItaly in April.  There are dozens of pavilions filled to the max with vintners displaying their wares.  Every wine making nation, region, state is represented.  There are also tents for coffee, oil, and cheese tasting.  The festival lasts 4 - 5 days and one could literally spend 12 hours a day drinking,  (it has been done I might add).  Years ago I  attended a few, but I don't know as I have the stamina anymore.  GP went by bus with other members of ONAV, or The National Organization of Wine Tasters.  He is a 20 plus year certified member and had to complete two years of university courses to become one.  They take there wine very seriously here.  One can also become a certified coffee taster, cheese taster or olive oil taster.  Anywho, he'll be back at 10ish and probably won't even notice that the dog is gone.  ooxx me

Grace comes home this afternoon, dog leaves tomorrow, all will be back to normal.  GP and I went into the city center to the Teatro Reggio, the gigantic opera house in the main square.  They are celebrating the 40th anniversary of its construction/reconstruction.  The original theater was built in the 1700's and burned to the ground 200 years later.  Though there were plans to rebuild immediately, there were two world wars to get through first, and then post-war reconstruction of the entire city.  Finally in the '60s an architect was found and the theater was opened in 1973.  The walls facing the square were salvaged from the original building but the rest is very '70s modern with lots of glass and metal.  We had a little tour, listened to some chamber music and checked out a display of costumes from various productions.  Now we're home, doing laundry and waiting for Grace to call for us to pick her up.  Alas, only one more day, then back to the salt mines.  Still waiting fro spring though the fruit trees are beginning to bloom.  xxoo me

Yesterday I went to the driving school at the bottom of the hill and signed up to take my actual "driving test".  That means 130 euro for admission fees, 130 euro for 5 hours of driving lesson that by law I have to take even though I've been driving for 35+ years, 85 euros for the test itself and 16.42 euros for the infamous "tax stamp" which is the governments cut in this.  I start my "lessons" in 2 weeks and will hopefully have finished by the end of April which means by the end of May I hope to have taken my test, passed, and be done with all this!  If I pass.

Grace has been gone for 5+ days and it is very lonely here without her, even with replacement dog.  We've been using the dog as an excuse to go out and take long walks again.  We'd been doing them all fall then laid off for the winter.  Now it's relatively warm, trees and flowers are blooming, we have no good excuses and winter-in-Italy weight to lose.  But not today as it is raining.  I'm doing spring cleaning and waiting for GP to come home with the car so that I can do some errands.  We have friends coming for dinner tomorrow night and have no food in the house, plus I have to drive 1/2 an hour to Chieri, the town after the school, to a specific coffee roaster that will grind my coffee for an American drip coffee maker.  The coffee in shops here is of course made for espresso machines and much too finely ground for our coffee makers.  There are doggie prints all over the floor so have to wash it.  xxoo me

Borrowed dog "Belle"

mountains over tilled field

 Yesterday was a day of food and napping.  We went to lunch in the countryside with the grandparents.  The restaurant is outside of a town called Carru', famous for it's beef.  We sat down at 1ish and didn't leave until 5.  I have to share the menu with you all.  As it was Easter it was a fixed menu for 35 Euro a head, all inclusive.  The wines are local and wonderful, the food was amazing, and by the end of it I was sure I was on my way to an early death.

The view from the restaurant parking lot

Gian Piero looking shocked

Everyone looking so serious

                                                                                                                                                            
It was a gorgeous day, and I wish I could have spent it outside as the rest of the week looks lousy.  But can't complain.  No cooking or cleaning up!

So here is the translated menu. Note you don't choose from these items.  Waiters come by with large platters and you take as little or as much of each dish as you like.  The same goes for wine.  They offer a selection of wines to choose from and then bring the bottle.  You can order all you want.  I could do some serious damage in this place with friends of like mind....


                                                                Appetizers
Shrimp cocktail (didn't eat it cause I'm from Maine and we were in cow country)
Steak Tartar with Quail egg (didn't eat it cause I like my meat cooked)
Easter salad with little frittatas (2 helpings to make up for not eating first two apps)
Asparagus tart with red pepper sauce (yuuuuummmmmm)
Toma (cheese) tart with Speck (smoked ham like thing)

                                                                       Firsts
Sausage and Porcini mushroom Risotto
Artichoke stuffed pasta with Herb butter (Oh My God)

                                                                      Entrees
Oven Roasted Lamb with Roast Potatoes and Fried Artichokes
Selection of "Bollito" (think pot roasts with different cuts of meat including tongue, tail and snout) with Spinach (skipped it as didn't have room for both this and dessert)


                                                                       Dessert
Fruit Tart and Traditional Easter Cake, Coffee and After Dinner Liqueurs


                                                                                                                                                                    The restaurant is called "The Fat Ox" cause that's what you feel like when you get up from the table.  We came home and crashed after taking borrowed dog for a walk.  Real Italians had another big lunch today, traditionally a picnic, as Easter Monday is a holiday called Pasquetta or "little Easter".  I have started spring cleaning and we took dog on a 12 kilometer walk to recover from yesterday.  xxoo me

front of restaurant "The Fat Ox"