Torino 4

We are waiting to finish with the washing experience and then we will drive 20 minutes to a nearby town called Oulx, that has a larger market to buy a few more serious things, such as sausage meat such as salami or ham to put on bread and butter, also some cheese and pasta to make a pasta dish with.  Maybe some veggies to make a good soup with, etc.  

Well it looks like that this trip will have to wait until tomorrow because the laundry operation has taken too long and the store on Oulx will be closing in about an hour and a half, don't want to take a chance of finding it closed when we get there. 

Thanks to the TOMTOM GPS, to get us here, sure I drove like an Italian, zooming along with all that traffic but that was because Geneva and her trusty GPS was guiding me, I had to watch the traffic and the roads. 

Wifi is strong in the lobby, and charging our devices is no problem if you have the right plug-ins for the Italian/European wall outlets.  Everything else here is very limited, power for the laundry goes off at 9pm, radiating heat in the apartments comes on only between 7 and 9pm, desk service, she is only there in the morning and from 2 to 5 in the afternoon.   After all, this is billed as a Winter Wonderland, and it's now OFF-SEASON.  That suits us just fine, and it only costs us 4K in credits and a $199. one time transfer fee, transferring credits from World Mark to RCI, for one week, 6 days/nights.   

Laundry all done, cost, just for the soap, €1.

We are going out for pizza, which we didn't get last nite, and on the short drive into our little town, we picked up a few more things we will need for b'fast tomorrow morning, at our little "Jolly Market".

Just came back from a very nice pizza dinner.  The fog was covering the road to our little town, a less than 10 minute drive thru thick fog.  But we had a very good tasting Primavera pizza, thin crust with cheese, garlic, tomatoes and fresh basil and we shared a small carafe of red house wine and I also had a soft drink.  The pizza was big enough for two, total, €19. including tip.  This was our second and final meal of the day, we had fresh bread and butter with coffee during the day.  

Waking up this morning, Thursday, and looking out of the window, the place was totally socked in !    We slept in our great bunk beds in a separated curtained off area, because we wanted to have the closed sofa-bed to sit on during the day.  I cooked a simple b'fast agin, eggs, bread and cheese.  Geneva had a yogurt and coffee.  In the early afternoon we went to a little town called OULX back down the mountain, to a small super market where we bought a few more groceries especially vegetables to make a soup with.  The two lane road has quite a few hairpin turns and the weather was very foggy.  On the way we stopped for some gelato.  When we came back to the car,  it started to rain but our feisty little Lancia Y made it just fine all the way "home".   At 6:30pm the temp inside our abode was 71.6°F and 50°F outside.  Since we have been so good today, we are going to get another two hours worth of heat from our radiator in our apartment, from 7 to 9pm.  For supper we had open faced salami and cheese and tomato sandwiches, wine and coffee, which I served in our studio apartment.  

This is morning, Sept. 19, Friday.  I looked out the window and . . . suddenly there's a (green) valley . . . (sing), mountains, ski lifts, no fog !!!  No sun yet, but the fog has moved up about another thousand meters.  9°C/49°F outside and a comfy 69 inside.  As you can tell, I got myself a thermometer.  

I was just thinking, that for the price of a two week car rental here in Europe, one can cross the Atlantic with the largest ship in the world with just an extra $45. (that's without the mandatory $12. a day p/p gratuity).  This guy told us on board ship, he paid $500. for the crossing on the Oasis of the Sea.   Amazing !!

>>>>>The above was published as Torino 3 on Fri 19, from lobby of RCI

Well it's just after noon here, had brunch in our apartment, sent off a couple of emails and published Torino 3 to my blog in the lobby.  Got info on the trains out of Torino where we will have to return the car an Monday am.   With the train on Monday it will be: Torino--Milano--Innsbruck--Salzburg, where hopefully a rental car will be waiting for us, provided we do all our on line reservations right by pushing all the right buttons, and the car reservation god smiles down on us.  

The weather is crazy here today, fog in, fog out, sun in, sun out, rain on, rain off !!  So if you are still asking maybe why did we come here ?  Read earlier on in my blog and you will know.  The gas here is $7.86. a gallon !!!  (€1.60 a liter).  

My soup is slowly boiling away, it contains sausage meat which I brazed with onions, carrots, potatoes, tomatoes onions and I used broth kind of cubes for flavor and seasoning.  

Now the sun is trying to come out.  We will go for a drive again, just to find ourselves in another little hamlet with not much more going on.  But it's peaceful here, a real vacation place, no car noises, no people noises, no plans overhead, no noises.  Oh wait, there was someone hammering about a mile or so away.  

The soup is done, towards the end I put in some tiny shell pasta . . . . and tastes wonderful !

Well, we didn't go for that drive today, perhaps tomorrow, when the weather with its sun god may shine upon us.  

I have this fun ½ size theory, here in Europe almost everything is half the size from the US.  (well, not everything can be judged the way they are here in this condo, but in general it probably could).  Elevators in most say 4 story or so buildings are ½ size, most cars are ½ size, of course we are getting the benefits of smaller cars in the US now too, coffee cups are ½ size, take a regular mug in the US and cut off the top ½, tee spoons are ½ size, the shower stalls are ½ size, most grocery items that come in jars or cans are ½ size, lots of soft drinks are ½ size, that is actually good, but the price is mostly full size, . . . . 

Almost everything here inside a building and out, is made out of good looking stone or ceramic tile or concrete.  Window sills, shelves, counters, floors, walls, surrounds, frames, even some seating.  It certainly win out over wood !  And there are certainly way more skinny people than fat ones here in this part of the world.  Geneva was commenting when we were watching the people walk by on the Rambla in Barcelona, where do all those skinny people come from? 

11am Saturday morning our time.  Song: (Louis Armstrong): I see skies ,oh so blue, high mountains too, clouds casting shadows, they're present too, and I say to myself, what a wonderful world . . . . . 

The weather is beautiful today, just like the day we arrived here in Sestriere.  Temp out side is 14°C, 57°F, after all we are 2,000 meter high, (over 6,500 feet),  but of course hot in the sun.  Today we are going for a drive.  There is some old snow on the high parts of the mountains as well as some new snow dusting at the highest  peeks, 2,700 m+ or 8 to 9,000 feet !  

We went down the mountain, back to the little town of OULX about 20 km from here, Sestriere.  We picked app few little things in the "large" market and on the way back we stopped for a little late lunch.  We came back home a slightly different way, I don't know how that happened, but it was fun, the weather was fantastic, warm and sunny.  This is the weekend, Saturday, and a lot of motor bikers are out, racing up and down these curvy mountain roads, jockeying for position to pass an these two lane roads, f-u-n  😬!