Day 19: Buongiorno, Italia

    I arrived safely in Torino on Thursday evening. My first hosts were Piero and his Bulgarian girlfriend Ewa. When I arrived at the apartment they were standing side by side in the doorway, smiling, the classic image of Italian hospitality. They took me to a huge restaurant / grocery store called "Eataly" (ha, ha) which specializes in local, organic, and slow food. The slow food movement started near Torino, although I honestly couldn't tell you in what way the movement is actualized around here. Not that Italians eat quickly, but it's not like there are timers on the table to make sure customers pace themselves. Anyway I ate a delicious pasta al succo di terra (tomatoes, eggplants, olives and pancetta), which I ate very slowly out of principle J

    By the way Lynda, now that I think of it, I've always made a conscious effort to spell Canadian so I don't know what you're talking about. Maybe my computer does auto-correct without me realizing?

    Anyway yesterday morning I took my first stroll through Torino, although I didn't get very far. On my way towards the city center, I happened across a huge market full of vegetables and clothes and jewelry. Of course I got promptly distracted, and then got promptly lost. It was great – that seems to be the best way to get to know a city. But Torino is laid out in a more straightforward way than Paris or Marseille. It is less frequent that a street suddenly changes names. The layout is less spiderwebby and more griddy. So it didn't take me long to get to the center, where there is a huge piazza surrounded by arcaded walkways. France didn't seem to have open squares like that. France didn't seem to have much open space at all. There are no more two-burner kitchens here, no more isolated chambres de bonne. Everything is clean, comfortable, attractive, spacious. No piles of excrement on the streets, no crowds of people anywhere, no stench of sulfur.

    But still, they call Torino a "little Paris," and with good reason. The streets are lined by trees, the buildings are stately and baroque, the skies are gray. And there's a weirdly shaped tower poking out of the middle of the city.

    Here, cafes are called "bars," and in Paris, bars are called "cafes." What's nice is that here you can sit to drink your caffe in the bar, and order a brioche (=croissant in Italy, but brioches and croissants are different things in France) if you like. But in Paris and Marseille, you don't sit to drink your coffee. You stand at the bar, or you sit and order a $15 meal with your coffee. I missed the middle-ground café in France, so I'm glad to have found it here (in the form of a "bar") (are you confused yet?).

    Yesterday evening Piero and Ewa took me to a big dinner party with a bunch of Piero's friends from work. Forgive the stereotype, but it was sooo Italian. Everyone was talking, yelling, laughing at the same time, there was tons of food (not a single fruit or vegetable in sight, all bread and cheese and pizza and pasta and coldcuts), and the wine ran out after an hour. I couldn't participate much because there were always too many conversations going at once, and within each conversation everyone was talking at the same time, andeveryonewastalkingsuperfastandsuperloudanditwasprettyoverwhelming. Fortunately there was a Russian guy who spoke English, but not Italian, so we talked a lot. And Piero was very attentive, trying to make sure I was having a good time even if I was a bit lost.

    The Italians strike me as being aloof. Their eyes are always moving, moving, moving. I have a feeling that the so-called Italian charm comes from the fact that it's rare for an Italian to sit down, look you in the eyes, talk to you, and pay attention. You're in trouble once they do. You get all high on yourself and start fluffing your feathers, because usually the Italians are running around talking to ten other people at the same time. Although I should hold my tongue - I've just met my next host, Silvio, and he seems to be a great one-on-one conversationalist. Still, the eyes are moving, moving, moving…

    Italy is not big on wifi, nor the internet in general (which is actually due to Berlusconi, so says Silvio, but that's another story), so I don't know how often I can write. It's also very difficult for me to post photos on the blog – it takes a long time, and I need a wifi connection to upload the pictures from my own laptop. So again, I'll have to redirect you to facebook. Mi spiace!