Turin, the first time

Turin, or Torino, is where our friend S is from. It is in the north-western part of Italy, near France. Like Frankfurt, it has a canal.



We spent a lot of time our first two days walking along the canal. From there, you can see lots of stuff. There are castles perched on hill (mountain?) tops.



At one point, we were getting really hot from all the walking and were looking for a gelato place and randomly ran into two hometown people who joined us for gelato and relaxing in a huge park.



Also, a friendly game of frisbee that sometimes included a somewhat possessive dog.



It was nice to be around people who spoke English again. But watching the Italians in the park was neat. There's a very laid back feeling in Italy.

Back to the canal. Unlike the canal here, the canal in Turin turns into a huge outdoor bar scene at night. You can walk from bar to bar with a drink in hand - very cool.



The only problem with drinking all sorts of alcohol is getting to a bathroom. Thankfully we were near Piazza Vittorio which has restaurants and cafes and bars and shops. Think we could find one with a bathroom? Well we did, but it took a while. J had to buy a glass of wine, which he downed. That, combined with all the other drinks at dinner and at the canal, made for a very intoxicated J. And that night we found out just how thin the walls in the apartment were.

Speaking of the apartment, from the balcony we could see the Mole (pronounced Mole-ay). It's a huge dome that can be seen from everywhere in Turin.



On our last day in town we went up to the Mole. There is a museum inside and an elevator suspended only by cables that takes you to the top. We all crammed in the elevator (8 or 9 people at a time, literally pushed up against the glass walls) and stumbled out at the top. It was an open area that you could walk around to take in the view of the city. It was spectacular.



I tried taking pictures that I can stitch together to get a 180 degree view of the city. Now I just have to figure out how to do that!

Here we are, at the top of the Mole, high-fiving the camera.



High fives were a big part of the trip.

That night we had dinner at a little place where no one spoke any English and the menu was in Italian only. We thought we'd picked up enough to get by but were almost completely lost. We ordered the first four pastas and hoped for the best. Take it from me, scampi is not the shrimp we are used to. It is fully shelled and eyed and legged and antenna-ed huge shrimp.



After getting over the gross factor and figuring out how to get the meat out, they were really good. But ug.

Some other interesting shots from Turin, the first time:

The Mole reflected in the glass windows of another building.


Graffiti saying that tv is eating your mind, which we all loved.


For all of the pictures from the trip - and I'm warning you, there are LOTS of pictures - your best bet is to go to my Flickr set. I haven't made the all public yet, but I am slowly getting through them and tagging and adding descriptions.

Up next: the wedding!