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Tonight we are meeting Ritsu’s colleague N. and his wife H. for dinner … we are going back to “Al Castello” to try their non pizza offerings … and the weather is great, maybe they already opened their rooftop terrace.
And Julius dressed up and demanded to wear my bowler hat (how weird .. I actually own a bowler hat! And no, I did not get that at some flee market … I bought that thing new back in my wild NYC days) |
| At least ours can. They can reduce your capacity so that you can still use low Watt items, like lights, computers, the TV. But once you try to turn on the oven, the blow dryer, the toaster or the laundry machine … it goes foomp! and you sit in the dark. |  |
It took me a while and the help of an electrician to figure out that nothing was broken, but what happened instead was that our electricity provider was missing a minor detail in our address, so that we did not receive any bills until last week. When I paid it was already 1 day past due date and thus the friendly people at Enel started punishing us.
What I don’t understand is that they know exactly where to deliver the power and which switch box to target for punishment … but they can’t deliver the invoice to the right address.
Well, I have now sent copies of the payment confirmation by fax (so 1993!) and now let’s see how long it takes to get back to having toast in the morning and we can start working on that laundry pile …
Does any of our Italian readers know if there is actually a free selection of electricity providers in Italy? I think I saw some ads in that direction. And does that only work for the whole house or can apartment people also switch e-providers?
update: it will now take them until midnight saturday to get us back to full juice. And they charge us with about 60€ extra for their ‘reduce and revamp’ service … which we can dispute once we get the next invoice …
What if that one also goes to the wrong address ???
Since mama was out for a business dinner thing, I had the chance to go all wako over this ‘stick dried pasta into stuff’ theme .. this time I was working on the ‘how about some veggie’ angle (and Julius was helping a bit .. even in the ‘take pictures’ department’)
So .. 8 slices of each: zucchini, carrot and sausage plus mixed pasta. J-boy ate all of it …
We started out with great plans of exploring a new mall, shopping and watching a fun animated movie in 3D … but then it turned out to be some whacky Italian holiday (Liberazione) and everything but the constant of the universe (McDonald’s) was closed.
So, after picking Mama up from the airport on Sunday and gave her time to deal with her jetlag, we tried again … and this time the movie theater was open .. our first cinema experience in Italy .. and it was quite amazing how similar the setup was to US multiplexes …
But big bummer .. though the website said it would be screened in 3D .. it was not … I tried to ask and all I got was ‘this movie theater does not even have the capability to screen anything in 3D .. though their website makes bold announcements what is coming up in 3D (Warner Village Le Fornaci)
But it was still fun .. Julius had no problem with the Italian dub (well , he had seen the movie many times before in English .. but never that big and never that LOUD) .. we might try again next weekend .. there is yet another theater claiming they show the movie in 3D ….
Sidenote on Mcdonald around the world .. so far .. in Turkey and Germany .. when they have a new line of toys (like now for Monsters vs. Aliens) you have a nice display with numbers and you can tell them which toy you want (and Julius by now has very clear ideas about that)
In Italy .. you get a mean look when you ask what they have .. and if you are lucky they show you the 2 out of 7 they have this week .. (since he already has the robot and the spaceship .. I cancelled the happy meal and it was cheeseburger only) .. ah . the logistics of parenting in different languages …
Our little copy cat is now working on becoming a money forger …
Fun to compare this to the pictures from 2.5 years ago.
I had very different plans for the day … but did not realize it was that funky ‘we kicked the Germans out’ holiday, thus the 2 malls we checked out were pretty much closed.
But then I got a phone call from the glasses places @ Lingotto, that my new glasses are ready (took them a week .. I miss Lenscrafters) and off we went .. and that was also a great chance to revisit Lingotto’s indoor playground.
Mama is gone .. and papa tends to keep working in his office late … so Julius demands to fall asleep in ‘papa’s bed’. He does not mind that papa’s rooms is still a chaos, filled with boxes from the ‘recent’ move … he is just happy to hear papa typing and clicking …
Sure enough once I am ready fto go to sleep I move him to the big bed with me.
What shall we call those? This was Julius’ dinner today.
I wish I could take credit for this fantastic food idea (ok, obviously not the healthiest on the planet, but he asked for a raw carrot as a side dish) but the idea seems to originate from some Russian blog (via BoingBoing).
The options seem endless and Julius loved it … and it is fairly simple to do: You cut up a sausage (chicken in this case) and poke it with dry pasta any way you want. Then boil the concoction according to the pasta cooking time. Surprisingly, the pasta that is inside the sausage is also cooked through.
The trickiest part I found was poking the pasta in a parallel fashion … in some cases they all met on the other side in the middle.
Try it out and share pictures … maybe this will be the latest food craze … this is also perfect for kids who have trouble rolling up spaghetti on their forks.
In this first trial I used 3 different kinds of pasta, red with pepperoni, white regular ones and brownish whole wheat pasta. I decided to break them in half because otherwise they would not fit in the pot.
Seems that things are getting better everyday !!!
He is not afraid of water .. nor soap …
Marvel at our fashion crime bathroom tile work .
Julius recently rekindled his love for carrots … especially when I let him peel them:
He is pretty good at it, does about 80% and then I finish some bits and pieces.
Since Ritsu will be in NY and I will have a very busy week, we searched around and found Chidi, who has some experience with kids and Julius seems to like him … we see how it goes .. it is like J having a big big brother .. should be fun.
Not what you expected? 
Just some goofy pics of last night’s dinner
Instead of going to our usual Asian place, we decided to try a new restaurant fairly nearby (only 400m .. but up hill) and we were very positively surprised.
We first heard it was a pizza place .. but when we entered … we found a pretty fancy round room, nice seating, great service and very very nice music (found out later .. it was a “Roma Alta Moda” compilation CD) … our waiter approached us in English, but switched back to Italian when I started to order in Italian.
We had 2 pizze (they have lots of other nice stuff on the menu .. we saw a neighbor table getting a really nice fish) and we even tried the dessert … very nice . I can see this become another regular place .. we can easily walk there .. and they have outside seating once it gets warmer ..
AL CASTELLO
Piazza baden baden, 1
10024 – Moncalieri (TO)
011.641203
I am back in the work force!
This has been in the making for about a month now … an interesting application process for a 3 month consulting gig for the UN … yes, I am working in the same building as Ritsu does, but we are in different teams (so, no nepotism).
| While the job was advertised as telecommuting, since I am around, I will spend many long hours at the office and I am quite excited about this project (web development) … we already started looking around for some kind of ‘nanny’ to make sure someone is here when Julius comes back from school.
There have been some small projects in the last 5 years, but this is probably the most serious, high pressure, time sensitive thing for me to work on and I am very happy that I was chosen (they had a couple of other people lined up) .. they had sent me some home work in the last few weeks (e.g. when I was on vacation) .. but now the contract is signed and I already had 2 very interesting and productive days … |
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I am still marveling about the selection of coffee a typical coffee vending machine in Italy has …
Just a quick note that we had a smooth flight back and enjoyed our first night back in our own beds.
This post will self destruct after I had time to post the last 2 entries of our Turkey trip.
On our way back to Turin, at the Izmir Airport, Julius fell in love with this very cute Turkish-German girl, who he quickly called his ‘girlfriend’ (but he never even asked for her name)
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They met each other at check in, Julius had his eyes on her, shared candy with her … and was very delighted to see her again after (the second) security check at our gate … which could only mean one thing … we are on the same flight!
He was upset that he could not sit next to her all the time, but in between it looked like a Lufthansa kindergarten .. they were occupying the aisle, sitting here and there …
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The most dramatic moment was when after the ‘welcome to the EU’ checkpoint the kids had to say goodbye for real .. J was frantically waving through the glass while Merve (?) and her mom had to catch a flight to Hamburg .. and we got very lucky and caught our plane just before they started with the last boarding calls ..
Overall the trip was very easy going .. and that makes us wonder if we shouldn’t have more “Turkey” on the menu in the future.
This morning we had to leave our nice (albeit loud) hotel in Alacatı (after J and I took one last dip in the warm water thermal pool) and we drove back to Izmir to finally get some shopping / bazaar fun at the 10,000+ stall district of Kemeraltı.
We wanted to take the bus .. but it took a while .. and with 4.5 people, taking a taxi made sense.
Once we arrived we were immediately approached by all kinds of people trying to get our money .. either for food or their merchandize .. after the places we had seen so far we were a bit shocked about the pushiness … in all kinds of languages … and since it was high time for lunch we gave in at one point and followed some guy to the probably worst döner place so far .. (advice for other travelers: ignore them .. start looking at the shops while comparing prices for food .. outer rim / entrance you pay 8 YTL for iskender (and prices are not advertized), inside it goes down to 5. You can even find a handful of bread and meat for 2 YTL at times with easy for tourists signs)
We looked at jewelry stores (seems that they still live taste-wise in the 80ies) … one leather shop, that was pushy to the extend of being desperate (I told them I needed some time to think about it .. they kept following me around .. asking what my offer would be .. which I never gave them) .. Buying pants was fun .. decent quality .. cheap .. and the price includes a trip to the nearby tailor to have the length adjusted in no time. While waiting Julius found another cat to play with.
It got cloudy and we felt a light drizzle, so we checked out (very quickly) the Konak clock tower .. and then the ‘Pier’ .. a shopping mall very much like you would find in the US. And then a quick taxi ride home.
Julius started the day early by clearly stating he wants to go to the beach … so, we let mama sleep in a bit and while it was still a bit chilly, we went to have some fun in the sand.
After breakfast we returned to town to go to the market … but seems there is no market on mondays, so we just walked around, Ritsu spent quite some time in a fancy jewelry store and I went to a local barber to have my head shaved … first time ever that I had someone else shave my head .. and it was very cheap and very professional.
Once we got back to the hotel and had lunch (now the hotel is very empty) we went back to the beach and this time we took some video:
Sunny day today, so off to the beach we went. The water was still too cold, but tons of sand to play with.
Then we met with my dad, his wife Merih, her son Meric and his wife Elif for a very nice seafood lunch right by the sea to pre-celebrate Merih’s birthday.
Lunch was fantastic (Ferdi Baba, Şifne), we had several appetizers, salad and then very fresh sea bass. Julius needed a long time to warm up (he had napped in the car before) but then got very smitten with Elif…
… and became inseparable when we went on to Çeşme to look around. And again we met many stray cats, some of them very friendly:
Riddle solved:
He really loves this new funky zip-hooded sweatshirt we found for 7.50YTL (3€) at the market for him today … perfect outfit for the kiddie disco (of which I have some nice video, just need a chance to edit it).
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