Week 2....

The next three posts are going to be about the last three weeks, but I'll separate them to pretend like I did them when I was supposed to....

Week 2 was also the last week of summer for the boys, and at the beginning of the week we still weren't sure what the time schedule for the boys' schools would be. Fil started middle school this year, so it all changed....
As per my contractual 'schedule' I still had the mornings to myself, so Monday morning Patrizia and I braved Italian bureaucracy. It took 3 and a half hours to become  registered with the State, about 10 minutes of that was spent actually going through the paperwork with an official.  The rest was spent waiting in line....my absolute favorite thing to do, ever.
Fil had stayed at the sea/beach/Lerici with his aunt and uncle and would return on Wednesday so it was just Ruggi and me. We had lunch, spent the afternoon playing board games: battleship, Risk, Uno. And then we watched youtube videos of Starwars with italian dubbing as Ruggi explained to me the importance of each scene and each fight manuever. Then we went out to the park until dinner--a pretty low-key day.  Dinner was amazing! It is still warm enough to eat outside at this point so we ate out on the front porch, with the Alps dining along side us, and had the most magnificient soup.  It was very light, but it had so many flavors! Carrots, fennel, peppers, and the broth was a lemony broth....mmmmm sooo good.  And for second plate we had a smörgåsbord of cheeses--the custom is to eat from fresh to aged. I will get the names of the cheeses and comment them up here, but bascially oh my gosh, heaven.  There are more than 100 types of cheeses just in Torino!! Well, the area around Torino. How ridiculous is that?!? We didn't have all 100, just 10... :)
Tuesday was another low key day, a little room organization in the morning after a not so subtle hint from Patrizia about whether I had enough space in my room for all of my things or if we needed to buy more boxes or shelving units.  Afternoon craft was collages, where Ruggi and I made a jungle from cut out animals from national geographic [thanks Lauren for the tip and the pre-cut starters!], and then Uno was the game of the hour.  Patrizia was in Rome on Tuesday so dinner was just Alberto, Ruggi and I.  Alberto likes to drink wine, which is fine with me, but usually there are 3 of us to drink the wine....This night Alberto and I shared the bottle and it was powerful stuff...so after dinner when I went out with Lindsay for her birthday, I was already a little buzzed walking to the bar.  The bar was awesome.  It is a Jazz bar!! Real jazz, not Frank Sinatra, and I am a major Frank fan.  But I'm talking Nat King Cole trio, Louie Armstrong, Ella, Billie Holiday, Duke Ellington, Miles Davis--the good stuff! mmmm let me help you imagine the scene: a small bar with mostly wooden fixtures; a warm red as the only other accent color; tons of wooden tables and chairs, not necessarily matching in style but in size and material; the crooning voice of Billie Holiday overhead; 2 bartenders who make a point to get to know the customers be it with conversation, shots, hand-rolled cigarettes, what-have-you; a lively yet hippie vibe to the place without being exaggerated; not too many people but not empty either. Can you see it? With our shared 10 euro bottle of red wine from the Piedmont (Torino) area we sat in a booth waiting for midnight to roll around. Lindsay and I had really spent limited time together so we got to pick each other's brain--an excellent exercise at anytime but the environment made it ten times better. One of the bartenders, Fuorio, sat with us for a little bit, rolled a cigarette, chatted, we informed him that it would be Lindsday's birthday at midnight and that we wanted a plate of chocolate (haha, random I know).  Sure enough, at midnight he returned to celebrate with chocolate, and a shot for everyone.  Lindsay and I cleared out at about 2am [6:45 wake-up call.....], and Fuorio had a parting gift of one more shot, whatever we wished. Yeesh! We promised to be back for my birthday in two weeks [see birthday post].
Mm, so Wednesday morning was hard to get up. I had to meet with Patrizia early because I was going to do the shopping for the family at the market with Nonna Dina (her mom). Quiet an experience, let me tell you.  First let me describe Nonna Dina: pretty much the classic Italian grandmother that you think of.  She openly praises and criticizes everyone, from relative to stranger on the street; she repeats what she is saying four and five times; she half guilts people into giving her what she wants; she cares deeply for just about everyone she meets; she has a very strong Piemontese accent, making her sound like Sean Conery in Italian. Okay so maybe the last one isn't the classic Italian grandmother, but it is Nonna Dina.  So shopping with her was a trip! She criticized the farmers selling their goods, telling them that they cost too much and that no one in their right mind would buy from them at that price, and doted upon her favorites hailing praises at their quality and price.  She speaks zero English, so while I can understand her [thankfully she repeats herself 4 and 5 times everytime], I stumble to respond back to her questions....she looks at me sometimes like I am a little slow....but we make it work :) Almost immediately after I returned to the house cousin Marta, 13, was waiting to go shopping.  First we hit the markets for discounted, fallen-off-the-back-of-a-truck finds and then we went down to the designer stores on Via Roma.  I loved the former, Marta loved the latter.  Lunchtime. Then another cool afternoon of Uno, battleship and Jenga, with playing outside at the park for dessert.  Fil came in on the train Wednesday night around 7 so at dinner we had a full table.
Thursday I set off to finalize my Italian language class stuff.  Explanation: part of the reason for my whole Italian excursion is to become fluent enough to present my argument for a Fulbright Scholarship researching the relationship between Commedia Dell'Arte and Northern and Southern Italian societies in Italian. Clearly I need to make sure that I leave here fluent or I would have missed out on a seriously huge opportunity and be really dumb.  So back to the story, after a week of research for the classes, done by both Alberto and myself, pretty much any University based class was out of the question either because of the time schedule or because of the cost.  Private language school was the only option, now I just had to pick which one.  Thursday and Friday mornings I went to two prominent schools in Torino, took the entry test and got information, eventually chosing the CiaoItaly school for the price, the duration of the course, and the vicinity. I finished my test on Thursday morning in time to go to lunch with the boys and Nonna Dina to get pizza at a nearby shop.  On the way I asked them about tie dye, if they had ever done it--they didn't even know what it was.  We had to pass through the open market on the way back from our pizza lunch to get to the house and low and behold there was a natural dye stand. I kid you not.  So we bought dye, but it was old school stuff.  We started tye dying as soon as we got home (2:30) but it wouldn't be finished until 9:30 that night....super old school, but a very exciting adventure/experiement for the boys!  As the tye dye set, we three went to go see Ice Age 3, 3-D.  Which was awesome, probably mostly because it was in Italian and because there were 4 people in the whole theatre. But check this out: on the way to the movie, some how we started talking about American history, the Boston tea party to be exact. The boys were hooked.  We spent the rest of the afternoon post-movie talking about the Boston tea party, Jamestown, even got into the declaration of Independence and Constitution, while these two little boys sat in rapture listening and asking questions. IT WAS AWESOME :D. Thursday night is date night for the parents, so we spent the evening checking on the tye dye, building a fort with cushions, eating pizza [yup, welcome to Italy, pizza 2x a day] and then reading the Indian and the Cupboard.
Friday, after confirming the Italian course, I had both of the boys at home together.  This was a funky day becaue Ruggi had a birthday party at 4:30, so I was prepared for the nerves and excitement to yield badish behavior in the boys....thank goodness I was prepared. A rough morning filled with whining, rough fighting, and yelling was finally couched with Uno, the miracle game.  They like to be a team against me [because I'm so good, and modest too ;)] which seems to be something they want to do pretty much all of the time. 
Patrizia came home early from work to make a chocolate cake, from scratch, and to get ready for the party, and then the boys arrived. So it was only 4 little boys but I felt like it was 23000. Running around, yelling, fake shooting, fake and real wrestling--absolutely insane. And there were only 4.  Apparently last year there were upwards of 8. Unimmaginable. Right after the party pretty much was dinner, which was piggybacked with some friends of Alberto and Patrizia coming over to see pictures of their US vacation, i.e. more Uno for the kids and me. A late and exhausting night/day.
Saturday--first day in Torino where I am off work. Super slow and relaxed day.  Mid-day shopping with Lindsay, just galavanting around town, continuing to get to know each other and buying a few things at h&m [including my outfit for the baptism on the 27th]. It was a gorgeous day, perfect for strolling, and stroll we did. We finished our spree around 4, Lindsay wanted to take a nap and go for a run [mad props to her] and so I decided to take advantage of an empty house [mom, dad, ruggi and fil all were at a birthday party or work until 7] and free tv to watch Slumdog Millionaire.  It was marvelous.  I just chilled on the couch, watched the movie, had exactly what I wanted for snack when I wanted it and it felt for the first time that this was my place.  Not completely but enough to really lounge in shorts and a tshirt on the sofa.
7 o'clock rolled around and Ruggi, Fil and Caterina [a little dancer/gymnast with TONS of energy] arrived, we had dinner, and sat down to watch "Tata Matilda," or it's true name "Nanny McPhee." A half chapter of Indian and the Cupboard and to bed we went.
Sunday, the last day of summer, I had to babysit in the morning, which included bringing the boys to mass with me.  Something that I cannot do again without going to another mass just for me.  They are Catholic, but they don't go to mass, and thus were not well behaved in church.  If I was fluent in the language, or if it was in English, I feel like it would have been less distracting, but as I needed to concentrate really hard to stay focused on what was being said in order to fully grasp it, their distraction was exactly that.  It was, however, a really nice mass, but surprisingly with very little music! It was an experiment of sorts to bring them to mass with me...and now I know that I need at least one mass just for me, for my time, and that bringing them with me will be a babysitting gig for real.
Sunday evening, Alberto, Ruggi, Fil and I went to the Basilica of Superga.  The story is that the Duke of Savoy really wanted to win this battle, and promised to God that if he did win, then he would build Him the most superb church on the hills looking at the Alps.  They won the battle, thus was born this gorgeous church.  This was also teh church that the Torinese soccer team's airplane fatally crashed into 20 years ago, cursing the team with losses ever since. We picked the perfect time to go, the sun was starting to set, and because of the height and direction of the church we got to see the sun set over Torino and the Alps.  Breathtaking.  I'll post the pictures up here soon. We finished the week, my second full week in Torino, with a scrumtious dinner outside on the front porch, buzzing excitement for the school week to come!