Surprise encounter with my oldest friend Anja today. I have known her now for over 20 years, and we have managed to stay in touch and keep each other up to date ever since, she even visited me in New York once. I knew she was coming to Itlay, but we were scheduled to meet sometime next week. But suddenly my phone told me I had a message which said ‘we are now 23 km away from Torino” ….
So, we arranged a pizza gathering at Flegrea and had a good time until Julius made it clear that he really wants to go home.
Which means ‘strike’ as in ‘not working’ …
I noticed some flyer on our bus to the kindergarten yesterday, I snapped a pic and had someone translate it for me and Ritsu even had a co-worker call the bus company, if there is a strike, of course they said ‘no’
But when we came to the bus stop today, there was a larger than usual crowd waiting .. and the first 2 busses that came were empty and did not stop. Finally a bus came. I made it to the next stop just in time, but there we waited 45 minutes and no bus showed up at all. And gladly one mom saw me and gave us a ride, otherwise I would have probably returned back home.
In the afternoon I simply took a taxi to pick up Julius.
He is a bit more clingy these days, not too happy when I drop him off, and the teacher said that he wants to be on someone’s arms a lot. Most likely he is having a bit of a hard time with his next set of teeth coming through.
Not sure what got into Julius today, maybe it was the excitement about moving into yet another apartment within the very same hotel (long story). But somehow he wanted to sit on that balcony chair and play with his elephant … and kept laughing at me making faces.
And of course I had to snap the cam to video mode … so here, get a good half minute of silly laughing:
But he is really eager to master his spoon skills. He hardly accepts when we spoon-feed him.
Julius as the veggie spokesperson of the week:
We knew the day would come .. and in a country with bidets in kid’s heights … even quicker .. and his love for his ducky … sure thing … so, he figured out how to turn on the water … and the only way to stop him right now is to carry him out of the bathroom. Enjoy the video while I clean up the bath …
On a sidenote … today was the first time that I got a call from the kindergarten to come pick him up early … allegedly he was not sleeping at all and was crying a lot, probably due to teething … so, I found a taxi that would accept credit card (of course, the day that happens, one is low on cash) and was able to tell the driver where to go. When I met Julius he appeared peachy though … the crankyness kicked back in later then again … I wonder if his molars are coming through.
And, yes, the title of this post is an homage to “Die Hard” ‘… and now I have a machine gun … ho ho ho’
To celebrate Ritsu’s birthday we walked to a restaurant we had seen before on our walks, “Catullo”. It is on the other side of the river and right on the waterfront.
We had a great seafood salad, Ritsu had some superfresh pasta with porcini mushrooms and I had a bluecheese / pear pizza. Now that was a great combination. Overloaded with cheese (no tomato sauce) … it was a bit like a cake 
Food was really good, the waitstaff was nice, the high chair for Julius was good, too, and he behaved well in general. We will surely go back there.
Surprise package from grandma Keiko arrived today and brought Julius his first winter jacket.
Great timing, since we were just looking around for Jackets. Clothes shopping with a kid his age is tricky … he is willing to maybe try on one thing .. and that’s it, then his patience level has been reached.
But he really seems to like this jacket and we will use it as soon as it gets a bit colder.
Incredible, thinking back that 1 year ago we were on a cruise ship in Fiji and Julius was a tiny bundle. It seems that so much has happened since then.
All the best wishes and lots of love to you, my love!
We had a very nice Sunday afternoon walk and passed this one playground where Julius especially liked those bouncy thingies. Age recommendation was 3 – 8 years, so neither Julius nor Ritsu were supposed to sit on those
While we enjoyed another fantastic dinner at that multi-asian place across the river (need to get their name some day, but we have been there before) Julius was working on his first novel, but it seems he had trouble to get the right inspiration.
Back to normal: I took Julius to the kindergarten this morning and it appears that he had no problem fitting back in … when I picked him up he was all peachy … but he still fell asleep on Egypt time .. which is nice .. but might also cause him to wake up fairly early tomorrow .. we shall see … until then: Sweet Dreams!
Our trip back was pretty ok. We had a car pick us up at noon. Again more fun Cairo traffic. At the airport in time, passing through 3000 metal detectors it seems, having a so so panini for lunch and boarding was on time.
What can I say about Alitalia? Nice crew, very old planes. But they did their job and though the plane was pretty full this time, we ended up having a row of 3 for ourselves. Julius was peachy and not much in sleepy mode.
We arrived in Rome on time, our depature gate to Torino was changed and thanks to a thunderstorm, our flight was delayed for 20 minutes. The flight was pretty packed, but we got a beautiful view of Torino once we approached. Our luggage had made the trip as well and our speeding taxi driver had us back home in no time.
The last 2 nights we have been staying with Yuko at her place in Zamalek, a part of Cairo which is basically an island in the Nile and has historically been the grounds for embassies, country clubs, expats and fine hotels. This makes for a really flavorful mix (e.g. around the corner we found a very Barnes & Nobles-ish bookstore called “Diwan”, on that island you can also find McDs, KFC and TGIF, which I think should be renamed to TAIT [Thank Allah it's Thursday])
So, on this our last morning in Egypt I had to organize some breakfast while the rest of the family was still sleeping and I managed to get some arabic bread and bananas for 1.50 LE (30 UScents) and I used the occasion to take some pictures of the colorful hustle and bustle … I wish I had managed to snap a pic of those crazy guys on bicycles, with a huge tray of bread on their heads, riding one handed, one hand on that tray …
How does all that fit together?
Well .. as a tag on to yesterday’s pyramid adventure (see below), let me finish how the whole tour was …
What we had booked for 155 LE per person (25 USD) was “Half Day Pyramids, Sphinx, Bazaars”. When I asked in detail about the bazaar part, I was told they would also take us to the famous Khan el-Khalili Bazaar.
Anyways, I had a bit of a feeling that our tourguide had been rushing us a bit around the pyramids, which I actually welcomed, since the sun was really burning and the AC environment of the tour bus was a pleasant retreat.
Once done with the sphinx, we were told that we are going to visit a perfume factory, where they show us how to make perfumes using all natural ingredients, no chemicals … well … and as you could guess, among several papyrus museums and little stores calling themselves Khan el-Khalili Bazaar and a dozen perfume stores, we were welcomed at the Golden Eagle Perfume Palace. And what followed was basically a sales show.
Don’t get me wrong, it was not bad at all, quite some interesting facts (or fiction), welcome drinks, some demonstration (yes, perfume with alcohol in it burns). But no way did we see the production process. Instead we had a very nice sniffing hour (Julius got bored fairly quickly and distracted the sales guy immensly, which I found very funny!) and were in a shady, air condinioned place and got free tea. The place is very nicely decorated with hand crafted glass perfume bottles. (As we found out later, a bottle for like 325 LE = 52 USD was available at the next store for 60 LE = 10 USD .. or 5 USD at the airport’s duty free store)
Yes, we ended up buying some stuff and we still believe we got a good deal That one essence (Lily of the valley) is especially nice and allegedly the basis for many high profile perfumes.
Golden Eagle Perfume Palace
63, Zaghloul St., Pyramids, Giza, Egypt
Tel: 37403248 – 33880906 (Thanks to Anonymous)
Interesting that our tourguide was not in a rush this time around. She asked ME then (not the group) if we want to go to some ‘bazaar’ … and we went .. but instead of the one 14th century tourist attraction place, we just went to another store where the tourguide probably collects comission and after seeing the prices (e.g. a sheesha for 200 LE, which can be had at the ‘real’ bazaar for 60 LE [and at the airport for 300 LE]) we left and returned home through the chaos which is Cairo city traffic.
I am not sure if he is calling to complain about the roomservice, placing a bombthreat or applying for a job as a tele-marketer … but he sure loves to talk:
Since Ritsu’s workshop was over today we had to leave the hotel and checked out at 6 PM. Ritsu’s friend Yuko, who lives in Cairo, picked us up by 7PM and we experienced the crazy Cairo trafic on our way back to town.
Initially we wanted to eat at Sequoia, but they refused to seat us because we came with baby. How very lame. Julius was sleeping at that time and would not have bothered anyone.
So we brought our stuff to Yukos apartment in Zamalek and then walked to “Egyptian Nights” Restaurant at Marriott Hotel. Very nice: mezzahs (mixed appetizer dips), mixed grill, feteer (egyptian pizza, kinda), sakara beers and later apple and cocktail sheeshas (Egyptian waterpipes).
No tour today since it is check-out day, but we sure did the pool again. And there was some kind of birthday gathering of teenage girls and some of them came over because they wanted to meet Julius.
He enjoyed the pool again, the only negative point this time around was the piss-ant of a lifeguard who tried to justify his existence by telling me that I cannot wear a t-shirt in the pool. C’mon … ever heard of sunburn? Protection? I was really upset with this guy and if I knew his name I would yell it tonight when I toss and turn on my red back.
Julius is getting more fearless about water .. he ran right into it, until he fell and got his head under water (good that daddy was like 2 inches away) … but he really loves it a lot … see for yourself:
Due to my strange pop-culture fascination with McD, I had to check their menu when we came by a McDonald’s at Star Centre Mall the other evening. There are usually some local specials, e.g. would you hardly find the McPork here, which was big in Europe after the whole mad-cow scare.
So, the local specials here are the McArabia, grilled chicken in Arabian bread and the Chicken Big Mac, as the name says, a Big Mac with 2 chicken patties.
If I get the chance, I want to try the McArabia … somehow it would be cool if it had lamb in it instead of chicken.
Finally we had the time to check out the Morrocan / Turkish restaurant here in the hotel and we both had tagines, mine was with lamb, Ritsu’s with chicken, both with prunes and almonds. While they did not come as I had expected in the typical cone shaped dish, they were excellent. Julius tried from both and liked it. He behaved very well after he discovered that his high-chair had come with a pencil and drawing kit, which he could drop to the floor and chew on.
He was also very fascinated to watch the baker lady making lebanese flat bread.
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