For Sunday fun we went to Lingotto / Eataly and found enjoyed this very nice crab salad. Julius is always heading for the seafood section first, as he loves to see the fish tanks full of lobsters and other spiny critters. I am not sure how much he is aware that we are eating those. I kept telling him when he ate the crab salad ‘we are eating Mr. Crab (of SpongeBob fame) .. he did not mind at all.
While the portion was with 15€ a bit on the expensive side (for lunch), but it was very generous and very fresh … had not have such a nice big scoop of crabmeat in a long time.
His passion these days is arts & crafts, starting early in the morning, he rather cuts out something and uses glue or tape than eating breakfast. He creates all kinds of intricate ornaments or animals with decorations and all of them become presents for his GF Ogarit.
These days I don’t get around taking pictures much, so, I post what I can get 
This weekend was very hot (in May!) and we did BBQ again, this time without the dramatic flames, hence no photos.
What a nice idea of kiddo’s school .. having a communal plush school animal that everyone gets to bring home for a few days.
I keep wondering why it took so long that Julius got him (then again, his friend Ogarit only had Gigiotto last week) and when he arrived, we were pretty puzzled, did not come with instructions (as I later heard they left me a voicemail, and I told them for the 3rd time I do not check voicemail), but from then on Gigiotto was included in everything, eating, sleeping and picture taking especially.
At the end I had to come up with some lines to write into a book accompanying him, and we added some nice pics for the lack of Italian (others had written long stories and I suggested Ritsu writes something in Japanese, just for the fun exotic factor)
Julius’ future school had a party (to which we had not been officially invited, but as father of a kid of the Japanese school I had been asked to participate in setting up tents the day before .. and got a 2€ voucher, which is as good as an invite)
It was kinda fun to see all the different food stalls, people we know from Japanese school, friends who helped at the Benelux stand, I ran into my current boss … but funny enough, we enjoyed the food at the German stand the best. I guess small grilled sausages are just great for outside serving.
We enjoyed the overall international feeling and felt good that Julius will soon be in this environment on a daily basis.
(I hope his uncle Kai enjoys seeing Julius actually appreciating the nice, oversized Schalke shirt. He picked it out this morning all by himself)
Last weekend we bought a cheapo BBQ grill for 5€ … but it turns out to be quite handy … we have no clue as to if we are actually allowed to do bbq on our balcony, we are waiting until someone complains … so we started with the entry model.
Grilling IS tricky and one has to deal with ‘this is burnt’, ‘can you put this on a bit longer’ comments, while not having time to actually eat and doing extended arm photography. I forgot that I had nice sauerkraut to go with all the pork.
And while the pit was still hot, I also grilled tomorrow’s jerk chicken to get the smokey flavor and then it can just be reheated.
I somehow miss our old Weber grill we had in New York, but these are crazy expensive here (starting at 89€) .. and for the few times we actually use it, it is probably not worth it.
Following the recommendation of our pediatrician I had booked an appointment with Dr. Emmet Brown Bruno Oldani, and he is indeed fantastic with kids.
It started with a quick exam by some very nice assistant lady who turned everything into a game and Ritsu was just amazed at how well Julius followed all instructions in Italian [first time since 2005 that she came along to a doctor visit in Italy] and then we met with the doctor, who first looked at a book with Julius, then threw out some toys (Cars and Gormiti … I bet he has some Winx for the girl patients in his desk. Both are the current crazes and already promote gender separation).
By then Julius was willing to do everything the nice man asked and he did his job very well.
One thing that I found pretty amazing was that the doctor had attached a little camera to the thingie he checks eyes with. Not sure if he turned it on intentionally, but we could see the details on J’s eyes on the TV.
The results? He has fantastic vision, no problems at all wether near or far … I asked why sometimes his eyes are quite crusty in the morning and the doctor gave 2 explanations: a) kids that age have tighter tear ducts b) he has my long eyelashes, but Ritsu’s eye-shape, which can cause some extra irritation on the edges. But nothing to worry about.
This allergy season is just crazy … i have never seen this mass and clustering of pollen. At times it looks like it is snowing … sideways.
Following last night’s invitation to a rooftop balcony lunch, we discovered a new corner of Turin and Julius, being the only kid, had lots of fun with the ladies:
It had rained a lot just before we came, so the balcony was still a bit wet, but the atmosphere was very nice and the food was good.
We had garlic shrimp, beef filet and chicken skewers, plus salads, cheeses, breads and steamed veggies. Too bad I did not get to try all of it.
I am not a big fan of gas grills … but this one was so neat and simple that I would really like to find out where I can get one of those. Please drop me a line if you know make / model / where to buy.
Today was the first time Julius stayed at Japanese class all by himself, the full time, without one of us hovering around (thus only one semi crappy photo).
From what he heard later he behaved quite well and especially enjoyed the arts & crafts part. I am very glad to hear that he did not make up for the lack of communication skill with typical boy-loud behavior.
This was also the first time that we actually WALKED to school, and it really is not too far … I just fear the rainy days we may get once he goes to the same school building full-time (from September .. but we shall find out.
On the way back we had lunch again at Al Castello and by now the people there recognize us.
Spock: “Capitano Kirk-uh, che cosa facciamo?”
Kirk: “Signor Spock-uh, curvatura quattro presto, PRESTO”
McCoy: “Sono un dottore, non un fisico!”
So, I had several options to watch the new Star Trek movie:
a) Wait half a year for the DVD
b) Wait a few days for a crappy pirate version
c) Travel to Rome or Milan where I suspect they show it in English
d) Go to the movie theater here and endure the Italian dub, hoping for the best.
Ok, so, since I was very impatient on this one, I opted for d) … and I had a really good time.
Not only that the movie is everything that I wanted a Star Trek movie ever to be (Great looking Space Action Adventure with some humor and sexual undertones thrown in … I mean, that scene from the old Star Trek show where we see Cpt. Kirk getting into his boots in yeoman Rand’s quarters … priceless) .. I was non-stop entertained, I was able to follow 75% of the dialogue (‘curvatura’ being ‘warp’ as in ‘warp speed’), the fact that movie theaters do seat assignments worked great and I did not hear a single cellphone during the show.
By now, those who are interested in the topic have read all those raving reviews (Just check rottentomatoes.com) and I don’t have much to add. Only that I agree that JJ Abrahms and crew totally hit the ball out of the park. The crew is great, the story line smart (and enables this ‘reboot’) and the visuals are stunning (maybe the lens-flare effect was a bit overused and the one monster hunt had the same twist used in ‘The Phantom Menace’). For the first time in any Star Trek, the Enterprise’s view screen appeared to be a large window into 3D space … and not a flat 2D display.
To get a feeling of what I had to deal with: enjoy the trailer in Italian:
Now I am very curious to see an English audio version to see how much I missed.
If you are tired of all the glowing reviews, check out my old ibook-mailing-list-pal Charles Martin’s spoiler-filled review. While still praising the movie for its entertainment value, he has quite a bunch of hilarious and very true nitpicks. Well worth a read.
And I am just afraid about the next chapter of this … they just raised the benchmark so high … they had a great origin story to cover … they could go with the simple, iconic title ‘Star Trek’ (what’s next … star trek 2 .. no … star trek: dumb title … meh … I’d love to see them go dark knight and call it ‘To boldly go’ or something … with no Star Trek in the title.)
We will see … until then, go see this movie while you can catch it on the big screen. It is SO worth it!
Additional advice for parents: I am pretty lenient as to what I let Julius watch and what not … and of course he can watch the old TOS, but this movie is really not ‘your dad’s [in this case ME] Star Trek’. This is a very intense movie going experience with some scary and some violent images and situations. Check the parental advisory to make your own decision if it is ok for your kid. I am glad that I did NOT take Julius as I had initially planned. And he will not get to watch that one for many many years.
The Onion has a hilarious take on the whole old Trek vs. new Trek:
update 5/14: After some time of reflection .. I still think that I have not been that giddy about a movie since the Lord of the Rings series … I am listening to the soundtrack, i a tracking down samples or different languages versions (did they use all teenagers on the German dub?) and I really want one of them uniform shirts, which probably will be out in time for halloween .. in crappy quality … I still want the real thing .. I saw some UK site making them..
Sammy feels more and more at home when he comes by. He even stayed one night with me in bed.
Today he came up all by himself (usually I have to carry him up the stairs, which he is not too fond of) and enjoyed a nap on our new pillows.
Julius just loves Sammy, but he also keeps asking about the white baby cat with the blue / green eyes.
 |
When we came back home today from work, Julius and Chidi were still playing ball outside and I got this one spy pic from our balcony before he noticed that we are back.
It seems that J has a lot of fun with his ‘big brother’ and it is great that now, that the weather is better, they go outside to play. A playground is not far, but the street that leads to it is scary. And for dinner we had a surprise guest:
|
Finally the sun has returned to Torino and Julius is enjoying our balcony (yeah!)
And he does not mind much that we don’t have any furniture there yet (we keep looking around but don’t find anything we really like)
This also happens to be the very first time that all 3 of us went to watch a movie together (if you don’t count IMAX screenings).
And I forgot the camera, so only some crappy shots from the cellphone.
After having been deceived last weekend (Movie theater website claiming the movie was in 3D and then it was not) we tried a different one and they handed us glasses and we were happy.
| This movie, besides being pretty awesome (it feels a bit like a sequel to ‘The Incredibles’ and the main character, Susan, looks very familiar (Mirage in ‘Incredibles’), rocks even harder in 3D … even with Italian audio (I severely missed Steven Colbert’s, Kiefer Sutherland’s and Hugh Laurie’s voices) and we are already planning the next trips … like for Coraline or Ice Age 3. (They only showed previews for 3D movies and no other commercials, nice!)
I am still wondering about Star Trek .. because that one I really want to be able to understand 100% of the dialogue. If you have not dragged your kid(s) into Monsters vs. Aliens yet, I highly recommend to do so while you can get it in 3D |
 |
a restaurant … K-I-S-S-I-N-G
Again we had dinner with N. & H., this time they brought their kids R. & K.. R. is Julius’ age and after the usual warm up phase they got along very well and had a big goodbye smooch.
We returned to Al Castello to try their non-pizza fare and we invited N. & H. (s0me people are paranoid having their names on the interwebs … I respect that) who visited from Tirana.
Food was again great: For starters 3 different raw meats with rock salt and Sechuan pepper, prawns wrapped in tuna and some lobster pasta.
The mains were roast of pork, sea-bass, rabbit and steamed mussels. Overall I would say: the appetizers are better than the mains here (which also reflects in the price). We also had an English menu which did not mention the Pizza and Focaccia selection. We asked and they said they’d be only available for lunch. BUT we saw many people ordering and receiving them … the focaccia with Lardo looked very interesting!
Julius ate a bit of everything and then had fun playing with the camera, he is getting really good at it.
He also was all over H. and N. … he started shy and then got very smoochie.
Recent Comments