10-22-14. Very calm, foggy, warmer, --- breakfast.  The sea from 16 stories up looks very smooth, no white caps.  

Last night we heard that $40M were spent in two weeks during the dry dock reno. in Rotterdam, that might have included the dry docking it self.  The ship was all out of the water, what is called, on "blocks".  Changes included, adding cabins, relocating a couple of restaurants, some new carpets, and some dining room rearranging.  

The person or persons programming music for the various venues and restaurants has totally missed the boat, the average age on this ship is not 20, more like 50.  So what are they playing MTV stuff and rap for ?  The demographics must be available, besides tunes with lyrics are useless, they interfere with conversations and can't be understood.  What ever happened to good old Musak elevator music, show tunes or do I dare say classical or semi classical ? 

At 8am no one was here in the Windjammer cleaning up tables or serving coffee or juices !?  And what about soft rubber wheels for carts that get noisily pushed around on tile floors ?  

And have I mentioned the elevator numbers being not readable ?  

We went to see the Aqua Show tonight, it was quite impressive.  It started to drizzle a little during the show and many people left, but it soon stopped and we got better seats.  

Thu. 23rd. It continues to be very smooth sailing.  My morning routine went off flawlessly.  B'fast at the Promenade Cafe was not so good, just egg sandwiches, bagels and oatmeal, OJ and coffee.  It's just very good for lunch salads.  The Wipe Out Cafe wasn't any better.  After skipping one day, our acu. #4 was ok but I had to lie on my stomach again and that is always uncomfortable, especially with that claustrophobic headrest.  But after, we had a nice soak in the port side hot tub -- nice !  And for dinner we had Fillet Mignon, very nicely done.  

Friday the weather was perfect, well windy but sun was out and a very blue sky for the first time.  Also for the first time I found potato salad !  in the Promenade Cafe, you just have to look for it.  Now all there is left to find is pickled herring and meatloaf.  

Most people were out today, and deck chairs were hard to come by.  You see this ship is meant to cruise the Caribbean that's why the thousands of deck chairs.  We had such cold weather in the North Atlantic.  

It must be a challenge to design menus with cooked food that was never left the kitchens and must be used to create new dishes for the future ! 

My quest for finding pickled herring or rollmops on this ship has been abandoned.  

Saturday we had our last acupuncture session in the Spa area with a final special topical cream application to maintain the benefits of the treatment.  We didn't buy.  We skipped lunch but had a nice dip in the hot tub overhanging the ocean.  The weather was so-so, with some sprinkles and some sunny breaks.  Sea--calm !   We saw on freighter, also going west and one large black seabird flying high about our ship.  During the night we passed south of Bermuda and perhaps the bird lives there.  

To night is "Cats" night, the musical, at 8:30pm.  We thought we'd get thru dinner at shortly after 7, it was duck tonight, very tasty, and last formal night, and get in line, for Geneva made reservations some time ago on line in Europe.  When a performance is sold out, there are always people that line up to get in after all the resrevationers had been seated, about 15 minutes before show time.  When we got down to the theatre we were surprised to find out that the long line were people with reservation lining up to get in !  Well, the line was so long, it wound around corridors and thru other venues and we were in line for over an hour before we were able to be seated.  Ridiculous !!  I was almost ready to give up.  There were no organized lines, no security to control  line jumpers, nothing, just a great big mess.  But it was really worth it !  The cast was great, the show was great and of course the music and singing was great.  Since this was an recreation of the original full length Broadway show by Andrew Lloyd Webber, on board ship they only had one source of music and that was a guy playing his heart out on a special piano, fantastic.  

My morning routine: 6am go to deck 16 for outside weather check, down to deck 5 for coffee and a couple of slices of bradded sweet bread with Dutch butter, back to the cabin with ½ cup of coffee for Geneva and to report.  

We have one more full day to go and it was spent eating and relaxing.  I'll try to get this on the blog before we get off the ship. 

This is the last writing from the ship.  

Final from ship

Maria Alm 2

Monday, the 6th, 57° at 7:30am, a few high clouds but the promise of a nice day.  

Since we couldn't buy any provisions yesterday, we thought we'd try the in house restaurant for dinner.  I had a French onion soup and two trips to a nice salad bar (small plates), Geneva had a child's portion of her favorite, Schnitzel with French fries and she still could not finish it !!  The portions are quite big.  All this and white table cloth, for €17 or $22. (mind you, restaurant meals generally tend to be expensive here, but what food ! ).  

We ventured out mid morning to get our groceries in Saalfelden, the next large city a short drive west from here.  It was a gorgeous day.  The little settlement where RCI is, is called Hinterthal, then comes a larger town, Maria Alm, and then Saalfelden.  When we came 'home' we had a nice brunch and then I made my traditional vegetable soup that we had tonight for dinner and will last for at least a couple or three more nights for supper.  

The staff here is not especially helpful, tho friendly enough, but not very accommodating.  I bought a wrong map but she wouldn't exchange it or gave me my money back.  To wash clothes here costs 3€ for a washing load and 3€ for drying !!!  That's $7.80 total !  We hope the machines are big enough to hold a good load.  Washing at the RCI in Italy was free, just the cost of the soap.  

Every day tho, a couple of ladies come into our apartment and tidy up, make the beds, change the towels, vacuum the carpeted floor, mope the bathroom and toilet, they touch nothing in the kitchen, nice.

My daily ritual of getting fresh "Semmerln" (breakfast buns) in the morning will continue here, for its a must for most people.  Last Sunday morning we had the breakfast buffet at the in house restaurant, and while it was relatively expensive, 20€ for the both of us, we surely got our money's worth, at least I did.

This morning, Tuesday, we had a wonderful b'fast in the apartment.  I went to the nearest 'Supermarket' down the highway, about 6 miles away, picked up a few items including Semmerln, sugar and Raspberry syrup.  We had everything else to make it a fine morning meal.  

Life here in Europe, including Austria, revolves around food shopping and eating it.  I suppose it's like that everywhere, but I notice it especially here because the food tastes so much better.  And it seems to me that the portioning is different.  People go shopping for groceries almost every day, small amounts, fresh amounts, just what they need for the next couple of days.  Besides their fridges aren't as huge !  Tho portions in restaurants are generous.  And still, the obese or fat people I've seen, I can count on one hand.   

My reporting on this blog of mine is of two types, one is describing what we are doing, the action, what's happening, and the other is thoughts, the whys and observations.  

Maria Alm 1

On this trip I had three main objectives, hi points if you will, to travel on the largest cruise ship in the world and to see what that would be like --- to once again visit our dear friend Runi and family in St. Gilgen Austria, which is always a hi point --- to experience the two RCI condos in Italy and Austria.  All that stuff in between, train, car etc. was a bonus.  

75°F today, mid day and full sunshine, Sunday 9-28-14.  We spent most of the day in St. Gilgen town, the crafts fair was still going on and there were lots of people about.  Always food, always drink and always coffee with whatever.  At home we took a little nap and then had our soup with some wonderful bread.  Church bells were chiming off and on and no work type noises were heard anywhere.  It's Sunday in Austria, a very catholic country. 

Today is my birthday, September 29th. and what a wonderful day it was.  The most memorable birthday I have had.  Our friend Runi and her sister Reingart took us to a small lake nearby, Hintersee, we walked with dog for a while under blue sky and gorgeous mountain reflection in the lake, until we wound up at a little country restaurant in the middle of nowhere.  There we had a little some thing to eat, pumpkin soup, Applestrudel, some caffe, a beer, and I had to eat their special of the day, Hungarian Gulasch with a big dumpling.  It was fantastic.  

You see, here an outing, almost any outing, always includes a stop for some sort of food and drink.

In the morning our hostess at the apartment, gave me a small homemade cake with a real rose in the wrapping, Runi gave me, us, that beautiful outing to the lake, her sister have me a good portion of Appel Strudel and even the dog, Dony, gave me a cookie with a plastic dog on top.  What a wonderful day.    

Today, Tuesday, we took the car for a spin.  We visited another lake in this wonderful Salzburger lake district called Salzkammergut.  The weather was perfect.  Because of my roots, I have to call this my favorite place in the world.  

October 1.   Today, a trip into Salzburg to get our train trip arranged for the 13th. to Rotterdam, with an overnight in Frankfurt.  All taken care of, we will be rolling first class until we hit the boat. 

Oct. 2. we drove to Freilassing, Germany, just across the border from Salzburg, except there is no border, my old stomping ground where I grew up until I was 18.  There we were looking for a special gift. We had lunch there, at a small hotel beer garden.   

A lot of it has changed, more build up, newer buildings, newer streets, newer shops and so on.  I do recognize some of it still, but after all, it's been over 60 years !!!  But it was fun seeing the old place again.  The traffic was bad, like everywhere, too many cars, even tho they are relatively small.

The drive outside the city was beautiful, always is.  My love for this part of the world will never die.  

Today Friday the 3rd. We had our last outing with Runi and dog Dony, we had smoked "Saibling", (a relative to the trout), for lunch, by Fuschelsee, capping it off with coffee and Apfelstrudel, our favorite pastry, at a nearby hotel.  Tomorrow will be travel day to RCI Maria Alm.  

While I was gathering things up in the apartment, Runi took Geneva, in the morning, to a big flee market.  It was outdoors and was stocked with old stuff and new stuff.  I did not go.

We finally left St. Gilgen shortly before 1pm.

We just got to our new RCI place in Maria Alm Austria, a 1-½ hour drive south/east from St. Gilgen, which we turned into a 3 hour one.  The drive was absolutely wonderful, totally enjoyable.  High Rocky Mountains, blue sky, white clouds, a stream running beside us a good bit of the time.  We stopped at a little place called Mühlbach (Millstream) by the Hochkönig (High King) and had lunch.  Delightful.  I must say right now, this is like night and day compared to the RCI in Italy !!! 

Unfortunately the internet connection here is not very good, eventho we have to pay for it. (8€ for 20 hours).   So, for the week that we are here in Maria Alm email will be spotty at best, but receiving mail seems to work better.  Italy wins this one.  

Other than that, the place is fantastic, clean, fabulous location, Austrian style buildings, many amenities.  We had breakfast this Sunday morning in the 'in house' restaurant, with a very well stocked, all you can eat, buffet.  We did get our traditional b'fast Semmerln and much more.  This venue here seems to be quite big and popular with mainly Europeans, for there was much activity this morning with people moving out at the end of the weekend.  This RCI place is billed as a "Family and Sportshotel".  14°C or 57°F at noon, 65°F in the late afternoon.

This afternoon we went for a nice drive to Maria Alm town and beyond to a larger town called Saalfelden.  (They are easily found on Google maps).  The country side is breathtaking and every view a picture postcard.  The leaves are just turning now, they did not show any color when we first got here.  I'd say that it rivals St. Gilgen, but only just !!  Unfortunately we can not send pictures very well, the internet here can't handle it.  Later.  

Here I want to note some of the little (and not so little) mistakes we have made on this trip so far.   --The most recent one, yesterday Saturday, we did not get some basic food provisions for breakfast etc., because today is Sunday and most, if not all, stores and shops are closed !!  But plenty of restaurant are open.

(All tho we did have a nice pizza dinner at the Bistro 'in house' last night).  

--Another one is, Geneva left a jacket with a glasses holder magnet on the train on the way to Salzburg.  --The biggest one tho was not having rented the cars before we left the US.  --I did not buy the transformer/plug, 220/110, for my razor, from the guy in the Pension Stoi in Innsbruck for 5€.  (I can't find one anywhere).  --

Salzburg 3

Thursday, 9-25.  Temp: 10°C, 50°F, cloudy but nice with prospect of sunshine later.  

Today is Marionette Theatre day in Salzburg, Die Zauberflöte, by Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart.  The show was very good, we enjoyed it a lot.  And my getting there and back home at night, came off without a hitch !  

I'm actually really impressed with the sizing of everything here.  When I described sizes of stuff in Italy, I think that they have gone a little overboard.  But here in Austria (and Germany) things are smaller and more compact for a reason, it seems.  I really welcome smaller fridges, smaller sinks, smaller stores, smaller packaging, etc, because a lot of it makes sense for people here, it saves waste, it saves the environment, people here a extremely green conscious.  The emphasis is on smaller and  compacter.   Everything in the US it seems is so geared for mass consumption.   

Here in St. Gilgen a curious thing happens when it comes to heating.  There is a plant here that burns wood by-products and pellets, for the whole town, to create steam and that steam gets delivered to houses that are hooked up to the system and then they pay for that service by the month.  The initial hook up is expensive if you are not already hooked up, but after that the cost is reasonable.  How smart is that ??

Today, Friday, we decided not to go to the Munich Oktoberfest by train.  The weather was not nice, too many people, my body was aching here and there and I was generally too tired and lazy, besides I was there the last time.  Runi had visitors and we just took it easy, relaxed, emailed, wrote and read and snacked. 

I was going for breakfast material this morning in this strange car of ours.  It is a Skoda station wagon as I mentioned earlier, it has so many bells and whistles that one would have to take a course to learn all their uses.  When you lock it in the evening, it not only locks it, turns off all the lights, naturally, but also folds in the side view mirrors !  At night when you unlock it, it not only unfolds the mirrors again but also has lights on them to show you where the door is and shines the light to get in the car.  Then there is the stopping of the engine every time it comes to a stop at a stop light, very disconcerting.  As soon as you take the foot off the break, the car starts again !!!  It seems hard on the battery but easy on gas, perhaps.  

A most relaxing day !!  

Salzburg 2

The train to Salzburg rolled thru some wonderful Austrian and Bavarian country side, with the emphasis on wonderful.  Fantastically green fields, distant mountains and the occasional villages with their pointy church steeples.  The route took us across into Germany for a brief time before reaching Salzburg and it's newly built/rebuilt Hbf, (main train station).  

Now came the task to secure a rental car.  After asking around, we did finally got a car, a Skoda, a station wagon-type new automatic with built in GPS,  that for the price should have come with  a chauffeur !!!

We had no real problems getting to St. Gilgen except for one curious condition.  The engin would stop for no reason when I came to stop light or stopped for any other reason and I had to restart the thing all the time.  In fact it got so problematic, that I had to call Avis to find out about it.  As it turned out that this problem was not a problem at all.  They said that all I had to do is touch the gas pedal and the engine would automatically restart, again !!!  I think that it is for saving gas while idling.  What a concept !!  Well with price of nearly $8. a gallon it makes sense, except  it would have been nice to have been told about it.  

We got to St. Gilgen ok and to our friend Runi in the late afternoon.   Runi greeted us oh so warmly.  She had coffee and cake ready and later supper, and we gabbed until about 8pm.  At this point, the days are sort of loosely planed and tomorrow, Wednesday, we are going to the annual St. Rupert festival in Salzburg with Runi and her sister.  Salzburg is about a ¾ hour drive from St. Gilgen.  St. Rupert is a saint who created the greater Salzburg area, put it on the map so to speak, many centuries ago.

Runi's friend, Annemarie, in who's house and apartment we are staying in now again, and have stayed for the last three times before, but this time we have the whole upper floor, living room, bedroom, both with a common balcony, kitchen and bath room, with an awesome view of Lake Wolfgang, is simply fabulous.  

After a great night's rest, I got up at 6:30, watched the sun illuminate the lake and later went to the small market to get some fresh b'fast buns called Semmerl, still warm, some butter, cheese and coffee.  I did not want to mess with making coffee here just yet, because I'm not familiar with our coffee maker.  Now we are ready for a fun day in Salzburg.  

The temperature was in the mid 60s°F in the early afternoon dropping to 60 in the early evening.  We drove in Runi's car, an older four door Mazda, and we found the old part of down town Salzburg was buzzing with people.  It is a semi holiday, big businesses are closed but smaller ones are open, after all, they have to make money.  What it was, it was a Fair, a full blown county fair with shooting booths, carousels and food booths.  We walked for a while, then sat down to a nice cup of fine coffee and a snack, and watched the people.  They bought some tickets for a marionette performance of Mozart's "The Magic Flute" for tomorrow evening.   While Runi has shown me how to get there, I'm still pretty nervous if I will make it ok.  We had a title lunch, and they also got us some ready to eat dinner.  We ended the day with going up to the seventh floor of a very popular hotel rooftop coffee house overlooking the Salzach River which flows right thru the middle of town.  

Back home again, I was beat !!!!   By the way  this whole day's outing was a gift for my and Geneva's Birthday, including the Theatre tickets.  

Salzburg 1

We ate in tonight, the rest of my soup with nice slices of fresh bread and butter we got from the market.

As I wake up this morning, I look out of our large window at a beautiful day, watching the white cloud banks scraping across the mountain tops from west to east, saying, today I bring good weather, for after all it's Sunday in Italy.  And come to think of it, other than the odd birds, we have not seen any other form of wild life.

As I went down to the lobby to fetch the latest email, I learned that our good friends arrived ok, last night, their time, at our house in P.O. and I hope are by now sound asleep.  

Here a few more ½ theory items.  Here they have nice and simple wall light toggle switches, but they are less than ½ size from US ones.  There are wooden pallets in the isles of larger markets with sales items on them, but they are ½ size.  

Now I'm sure that in large cities such as Rome, Munich, Berlin and say Amsterdam there are supermarket chains that have larger stuff, but other than that everything I smaller here.  Smaller cars, smaller shower stalls, smaller kitchens, smaller pots and pans, etc.

I think the reason why there aren't  so many obese people in Europe, it's because here people don't buy so much food in one go, they don't buy so large quantities at once, family or not.  They don't stuff their freezers, (if they have one), full of food and then eat it.  

I remember my mother  buying fresh food items every day or every other day, especially meat, vegetables and fruit.  As she would drag me along, she would buy some meat at the butcher shop, the butcher would give me a pickle from the Pickle barrel or a small hand full of sauerkraut which I would eat while my mother shopped.  I don't remember having a freezing compartment in our fridge, I barely remember having a fridge, it was more like an icebox.  When we wanted some ice cream, we would go to the store and get a cone.  I do remember that there were horse driven ice wagons, where a guy would ice-pick-off a smaller chunk of ice from a larger block, swing it on his leather covered shoulder and would take it to a business, or even a home.  We as kids would follow that wagon and get these small ice chips and suck on them, but I regress. . 

A quick evaluation of this RCI facility in Sestriere:  Besides the fact that it is a winter destination and dead in the summer, wifi is very weak, the kitchen is super tiny, the door to the balcony can not be kept closed when you on the baloney, heat available only from 7to9 pm, it has great bunk beds.  

Last day transitioning and moving out of this RCI unit is always a pain.  We had zero luck finding a car to rent on Salzburg on line from here.  So we're going to try getting some help from the car rental places at the airport when we are returning this car in Torino.  We would then catch a bus to the train station and on to the fast train to Milano at 10am.  (well that didn't happen).

Anyway, as the train is speeding thru the Italian country side, parallel  to the Alps, I have a few minutes to recall this morning, always exciting when it comes to moving day.  

We left our RCI crows nest a few minutes after 7am.  We worked it out backwards to hopefully catch the 10am train from Turino to Verona and then on to Innsbruck Austria.  Well, it's was not  exactly to go that way.  We got to the Turino airport ok, to return the car, but all that took a little longer than figured.  Then with a slow bus to the train station but missed the 10 o'clock speedster then took the next one at 11:19.  Well, a well meaning young Italian buck urged us on to a train that arrived on the same track just a few minutes earlier, we got on, but left at 11:06.  We were on the wrong train, a slower train, tho going in the same direction.  The conductor suggested to change train at the next major stop ahead and get on the right train that followed us, it was faster but left later.  We did that.  We are now sitting in the fast train heading for Verona.  Verona came and went and we now are on the train to Innsbruck !  

Innsbruck is one of our favorite places.  I flagged down an elderly local lady who sent us in the direction of a nearby (tree star hotel --- tooooop expensive).  They in turn directed us to a small Pension a block away, Pension Stoi.  A fantastic, new-ish and very clean place with good beds, a bathroom with shower, a view out onto a vegetable garden, and good free wifi !!!  After a good nights sleep, we got ourselves a SIM card, €15. for Austria for one month.  So immediately called Runi in St. Gilgen to see if it worked . . . bingo it did !! Now we are in communication with everything and anybody in Austria.  

(I just looks up, and and it says that our train is traveling 220km/hr,)

We had some coffee and toast at a little cafe, then packed up and walked 10 minutes to the train station.  We are now on the train to Salzburg.

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  😬!