Here are 2 nice shots I took along the Po river while the afternoon sun was setting.
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And here 6 shots of Julius, similar setting
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For some strange reason now, Julius is not afraid anymore to get water all over his face. It might have started with our fun shower battles at the onsen in Japan, where we both were pointing the showerheads at each other, laughing like crazy (too bad nobody was there to film that). He even now uses little cups to pour water over his head by himself. Hair rinsing suddenly got much easier.
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Once again, the box the toy came in is just as interesting as the toy itself 
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We went again for our favourite Asian restaurant .. and as usual, food and service were great. The waitress ladies love Julius .. and besides them sometimes trying to bribe him with candy, they are fantastic .. when the place is no too crowded, we can rely on them taking care of him.
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Always fun to realize that we have been going to this place for like 1.5 years now (first time)
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Today was the public opening of this new all Italian gourmet food shopping center called ‘Eataly‘.
The place is pretty impressive, big, appears to have a big selection, beautiful architecture and counters where you get your fresh fish, meat or cheese blend with sit-at counters where you can order food made from just the same ingredients.
I like the concept of the place in general and I heard that there are plans to open more Eatalies around the world .. and a place like that would just fly in New York, Tokyo or Singapore …
But here are my gripes .. do I really need yet another place I can get Italian food in Torino? Frankly: no. I did a spot check on items I have been looking for in other places in Torino and had trouble finding (i.e. sour cream, salmon roe) and they did not have them either. Yes, they have very fancy yoghurts, I bet their fresh meat & cheese selection is fantastic and they have more kinds of pasta then I have hairs on my head … but besides the novelty factor, I do not see a reason why I should hop on the tram to go there.
The other thing .. as nice as the lunch we had there (with Ritsu’s boss, who we had just sent a text message .. and 2 minutes later he ran into us) was … at 26EU for 2 people, while sitting at a counter .. not really cheap.
For opening day I would have expected more trays with freebies and little nibbles to try … but I only saw one place where passersby were eating olives like crazy, as if it was the only free food around (and it probably was) .. and then I saw a guy with a very nice tray of stuffed peppers … but that was only a stunt for the local TV crew.
I am very curious how this place will develop. I suspect it will become a tourist hot spot. And people living close by will enjoy it … but if I have to use public transportation, I rather go to the big market at Porto Pallazzo …
Julius was unfortunately a bit more on the unbearable side, since he already approached nap time and maybe the new surrounding was a bit much .. he sure loved to watch the glas tanks that they keep the crabs and lobsters in … but other than that he wanted to be carried around (which I try to explain to him again and again that if he is tired, he can lounge in the stroller, but that he is getting to heavy to be carried around) .. but he did enjoy the fresh bread and bits of our cheese and meat platters.
[update 2/2/07] I happened to show Eataly today to Sarah … and I wanted to take some more pictures for this post … but this time they had a BIG sign making it very clear that you will be hung, quartered and drowned if you dare to take pictures or videos … people are getting so weird about this these days.
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He can look so serious when he has to go to bed
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.. parking lot?
This is his xmas present and he loves playing with it …
This toy really made xmas special .. not only for him .. but for me .. as it turned out that the box contained like 500 parts and 700 stickers / decals … to be applied by a ‘responsible grown up’ (as the instructions say) .. following an instruction manual written by some graph school and english college drop outs somewhere in asia …
Now try to put that together while a 2 year old wants to examine all the parts and reorganize their location … I am so happy we got it together .. but can you imagine that even the white middle line marks on the roads are all stickers ???
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.. doesn’t it look like he plans on stealing it all? Well .. he loves to explore the kitchen when I am in there (cooking, dishes .. you know) .. and whatever he can touch needs to be examined …
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Today Julius discovered another pack of legos that his German grandma had sent for xmas … To keep things to be not overwhelming and the avalanche of lego bricks managable, we had been hiding it … but he found it .. just before dinner time .. and that was cause for major drama (first you eat, then you play) …. but once we got over that, he was very happy …
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.. a picture with papa
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Just a little more from yesterday’s “I eat crackers until I fall asleep” session
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Not as hillarious as the first time around, but still pretty funny.
I got a phone call from the kindergarten that Julius had 38.8C / 101.8F temperature so I took a taxi to go pick him up … He was already pretty sleepy but stayed awake at home and fought any suggestion of laying down in bed … until it hit him at the table, munching away on crackers …
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.. and it is not January and it was not 22C / 72F here today … yeah .. I know, some of you think that Italy has eternal sunshine .. but it is supposed to be snowing and freezing around here at this time … kinda freaky ,..
Which straw makes the juice taste better? Yellow? Purple?
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All this traveling also meant being away from our usual food (and in Japan we vowed not to have pasta or pizza). But it appears that Julius was very happy to get his spaghetti con vongole again .. he even made an effort of picking out the single clams.
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Remember this one?
It was a nice coincident when in the wee morning hours that my still slightly jet lagged toddler decides to wake up, we found one of his favourite movies on German TV .. and as usual, he could not restrain himself when his favourite song came up and he did his little dance again.
Today we also headed back to Torino. We took the airport bus to the Munich airport and Julius fell asleep and kept sleeping his usual 90 minutes. The airport screeners this time made me take out the sleeping kid in order to get the stroller through the xray machine … but lil J kept sleeping anyways. And once he was awake I found out (again) that he is getting too big for changing tables in public fascilities.
Since we left early, we had quite some time to kill at the airport, which Julius did mainly by driving his toycars all over the heating elements along the window or just watching the airport traffic. Once on board (full flight this time) he behaved fairly well, besides the usual fight about keeping the seatbelt on and the tray table up when we start or land.
We took a taxi home and Julius was very happy to be with all his toys again and of course later, to have his mama back. He already traveled quite some this year, so no wonder that later he just fell asleep on the couch in this slightly akward position.
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Today was all about my mom’s birthday. The phones just did not stop ringing and celebrated all day. She has this phone that you can turn on the speaker, so when my brother Kai called, we handed the phone over to Julius at one point.
We only went out for a short walk, since my mom just returned from hip surgery. In the evening some friends of my mom dropped by and Julius was surprisingly even more social than usual .. he was totally about hugging and kissing people he has not ever met before .. but he was falling asleep in my arms again, but we partied on until 1AM
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This is just plain weird .. or maybe that is my punishment for blog lazyness … but since this database server outtage last sunday … suddenly the last 2 posts are missing .. and some comments that have been posted (Sharon, yours and Fae, who asked kindly to use one of the images here) … My guess is that they had to run a backup on that server and some data got lost .. I hope it is really just those 2 posts !!! I really need to backup more regulary …
anyways .. regular blogging will resume shortly .. i just want to make sure that not more stuff goes missing .. so .. this is also some kind of test post ..
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