Torino

On Saturday, August 10 we went to Torino with the Molinaris  This is the other couple in the office with us.  They have been here about 6 weeks longer than us.  She is the Presidents Secretary and He works with the apartments.

We found a parking spot and then as we were walking to the Torino Duomo we saw how they move furniture into an apartment.  This is a portable lift that runs up and down on these rails. They were lifting couches and other large pieces of furniture.

Does your local Elders Quorum need this equipment?

 

Our 1st stop was the Duomo in Turino  It looks rather plain compared to some of the cathedrals here.

However, this is the home of the famed "Shroud of Turin".  This is a horrible picture of a shrine to the shroud. I understand the real shroud is hidden away down in some vault in the basement.

 We then walked around the corner and though a big courtyard and came to this piazza.  Peggy then got really excited, because just across the street from here is where she spent many many days. as a missionary.

 



Here she is, standing on the exact spot where they would street board most days while she was in Torino on her 1st mission.

We next wandered trough the streets on our way to the Egyptian Museum. It was great!

We found mummies!

And even a mummy warehouse

 I was surprised that much of the story from the Egypt movies I have seen  (10 Commandments & The Mummy) were all based on facts.

The last exhibit was amazing. Two very large rooms were filled with enormous statues.   This one is at least 20 feet tall.  There had to be at least 20 of these large statues in each room.  How did this guy pack all of this stuff in his suit case when he came back to Italy?

After Egypt we wandered around trying to find a place for lunch.  Here is a palace!

And a pink car parked right in the middle of the palace.

 

We then saw some mimes.  I first thought this was a statue until they waved at me.

 

 AND THEN WE SAW AN INVISABLE MAN!!!  Yes this guy was sitting there reading a book.  he would turn pages and even wave at us occasionally

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Here is a galleria - indoor shopping area next to the palace.

We finally found a focciareria and each got a piece.  I had one with eggplant, tomatoes and artichokes and it was fabulous.  We sat down at some tables on the walkway and began to eat.  A waiter came by and said that we could only eat there if we were going to buy something from their café and gelateria.  Gelato?  Of course we had to have some gelato for dessert.  I got us two medium coconut ones.  They were very large and absolutely the best frozen dessert I have ever had.  It was fabulous!

We then decided to walk about 6 blocks to the Mole Antonellina - the tallest structure in Torino.  Peggy found a new fan on the way at a street market. We had to wait in line about 30 minutes to ride the elevator up to the observation deck.

Here is a picture looking strait up through the glass elevator at the ceiling that had to be 500 feet up.  There was no elevator shaft.  Just the cables pulling us up through mid air up to the top.  WOW!

I got to the top and had the willies.  The view was wonderful in all directions.

 

Torino looking east.  Take note of the cathedral at the top of this hill.

 

Torino looking west toward the Alps

Torino looking south west.

Torino looking South east.  You can see the Po river that runs through town.

We then had a long slow walk through a park and back towards the car.  We were pooped from the walking .  We saw the Roman wall that dated before Christ.

Here are the cobbles stones under the roman wall arch.  you can see the grooves worn in them from the carts that rolled through here thousands of years ago.  Some of the cobbles had been replaced.

We then found a street market selling vegetables, fruit, meat, bread, and just about everything else.  Prices were much cheaper than in the super mercato.  Peggy had brought one of her bags along and we bought some cheese, fresh pasta, bread, flat peaches, asparagus, water.  It was a wonderful shopping experience.

 

We then met back at the car and punched in the Superga into the TomTom.  This was the tiny cathedral you saw from the tower.  We were navigated through town and up the hill side to this wonderful cathedral on the top of the mountain.

 

Superga

 

 

A view of the inside of the dome

Next to where we parked was this strange wooden sculpture.  I would expect to see something like this in cowboy country.  I think it is meant to be a playground structure.  Check out this cow - it even has an udder!

 

 The view from the top towards Torino was fabulous.  The picture does not do the view justice because there was the smallest amount of haze in the air which the photo seems to magnify.  You can even see the Mole Antonellina.

 

 

This was a wonderful day.  It was about 1.5 hour drive from our apartment.  We left home at 7:30 and did not get back until about 7pm.  We look forward to many more Saturdays like this.

 

I was so happy to once again be in Torino.  It is a beautiful and welcoming city.  To see the places I served in is marvelous.  So too are the Italian people.  Everywhere we go, if we speak or try to speak Italian they are so friendly.  When we were buying the fresh pasta, the storekeeper was packaging our pasta and there was about two cups left in the bin and he smiled at us and poured it all in our bag for "gratis" (free).  It is the same wherever we go.  The couple we replaced never had a kind word to say about Italians and service here but they never tried to learn Italian and were very abrupt and demanding and they got the service they earned - nothing.  We have had lovely experiences with the Italians and they have all been helpful and charming.   Just today in church, a  couple from the filipines asked us to home teach them (he works for the Filipino consulate) and a lovely sister who is married to an Italian but she is Scottish invited us over for dinner.  Everyone at church kisses and hugs a lot.  Italians are very demonstrative and caring.  We are gearing up for a new batch of 28 young missionaries in two weeks.  We are having the dinner here in our apartment on our lovely patio.  It will be fun.  I am cooking a lot - we have lots of training sessions, zone conferences, mission council meetings, etc. I am experimenting with my Italian oven.  Everything is in centigrade and not Fahrenheit degrees.  My oven has few settings and I have to guess on temperature.  But the office elders have no problem eating my less than successful cookies.  I will get it right soon.  We have found nearly everything in local supermarkets, even oatmeal, peanut butter, soy sauce, but no tortillas.  I may have to make my own.  We are experimenting with new recipes all the time, using what we find in the mercato.  It is way fun.  Italy is a dream come true.  We are doing valuable work for our heavenly father and love these young missionaries.  They are remarkable and hardworking kids.  I wish you all could be here to see this wonderful country and meet its great people and their culture.  Ciao! 



Duomo

In the last post, I began a story about training the new missionaries.  Let me continue.  On Friday, August 2nd we had to continue our new missionary training by preparing the lunch, and driving down to Modena.  Here all of the new missionaries and their trainers from the southern part of the mission were gathered.  This also was a 2 hour drive to a location that neither of us have ever been.  We are very thankful for TomTom in our car.  He led us directly to the Modena chapel with no wrong turns!
We took card of the lunch and our two parts of the training, cleaned up and headed back to Milano.

Driving on Italian roads is a real experience.  The Autostrada usually has three lanes going in each direction.  the right hand lane is completely consumed with trucks and the also are in the middle lane about half of the time.  The right hand lanes is typically going about 80 km/hr, the middle land is traveling 100 - 120 km/hr, and the left hand lane is anywhere from 120 - 200 km/hr.  I was seeing these speed limit signs that indicated each lane had a different speed limit, but I now have learned that these blue speed signs are the minimum speed, while the red speed signs are the maximum speed signs.  The Italian drivers are very aggressive.  It is OK to pull into the left lane to pass, but you better get right back into the middle lane immediately because they will be right on your tail going 60 km/hr faster than you.

Another different thing with their toll roads is a safety pull out.  About every 2 - 4 miles you will see a safety pull out where cars can pull over with a flat tire or other car problems.  There is next to no room to slow down to pull into one and no room to speed up pulling out of one.  It is also a law that if you pull into one and get out of the car you must have an orange safety vest on.

Here is a very interesting new bridge that we passed under on our way to Modena

 

Here is a very modern train station that we passed.  Bright white with undulating patterns. 

 

 

We got back to the office Friday about 5.  checked our email, took care of a few items and then we drove to the next town to a nice restaurant for my Birthday dinner.  We had an antipasto, 1st plate and 2nd plate.  Very good. We split each serving and it was wonderful  We left the restaurant about 8 pm just as all of the Italians were coming in to eat.

 

On Saturday moved into the new apartment, did laundry and then took off for the Duomo.  To get there we drove about 6 miles to a metro station, parked the car and took of on the subway.  As we cam up out of the metro station - Bang!  there is was!

 

 

This is the famous Milano Duomo - 3rd largest cathedral in the world. 

 

 And when we turned to  the left there was the Galleria - Famed shopping center of the rich and famous.

The spires are just breath taking

The building is enormous.  It took over 500 years to build 

Inside there are stained glass windows everywhere.

 

The floors are very intricate marble

And the organ is stunning.

After walking inside the Dumo for almost an hour, we stepped outside and walked around the square.

 The galleria was amazing.  Especially if you like to window shop.  Most of the big name designer stores were there.  Prada, Guuchi, and others that I have never heard of.

I took this picture of one of the several the Prada stores just for Grandma Ruth.

Even the floor inside the open air galleria was amazing.

When we walked around a bit and were on the way back to the metro entrance we notices that yes, the Duomo has a giant TV Billboard on it. It just doesn't seem right.

New Apartment

On August 1 we moved into our new apartment.  It was a very busy day because we were in the middle of new missionary training.  We had a group of almost 30 new missionaries come into the mission field a week ago.  Now this week the president brought them and their trainers back for a new missionaries training.  He did this in three separate sessions.  On Tuesday the group from  Milano and parts west came to the Milano for training.  We went to this session to help with the lunch and observe the training that was provided by the Lynches (the couple we are replacing).  The Lynches last day was Wednesday.  Then on Thursday, we loaded up the lunch supplies again and drove to Verona for the 2nd group of new missionaries.  This was a 2 + hour drive on the Autostrada.  We put the lunch together, gave a 45 minute interactive slide show on mission finances, had lunch, then conducted another 45 minute session on apartments, bikes, etc.  We then loaded up the lunch supplies and drove back 2 + hours to Milano.  We then moved all of our stuff down the street to our new apartment (in the same building as the Mission office).  Went back to the old apartment and cleaned it up so assistants to the president could move back into that apartment and came back to our new Home.  It was hot, humid, but we are now in our new home. 

It is a wonderfully furnished one bedroom apartment.  Let me show you some pictures.

Here is the entry hall - actually a view from the living room

Turning a little to the right and walking into the entry hall we see the kitchen on the right and the bedroom door on the left. 

Here is our bedroom. Lots of nice built in closets (something you do not see in Europe). 

Here is the other side of the bedroom with a nice antique dresser. 

Our bath room vanity.  There is another built in closet left of this shot, a washer and dryer just out of view to the lower right, a shower to the right, and a toilet room. Also in the picture you can see the paretti.  These are exterior shades that in old days were shutters. All of the homes and apartments have these. Most are manually operated where you pull a strap and the paretti roll up from outside the window into a box above the window.  This apartment has motorized paretti where you can just hit a switch and they roll up or down.  They are nice because you can stop them as they are in this picture and they still let a limited amount of lighting through the slits between the boards.  Or you can lower them completely and the boards rest on each other and block all of the light.  

In our living room is a antique table we use for a desk.  It is also the only location in the apartment that the Wifi from the office reaches. Notice the cureo show case above the table. It loaded with old jade carvings of elephants and other oriental items. It belongs to the owner and is locked up. 

Turning to the left is our TV and fireplace. We have Sky TV - a European satellite system. We get lots of news channels and lots of discovery, national geographic and similar channels. Some times we can switch the language bottom to the original language (English). But if not it is in Italian. 

Here is our couch, which makes into a bed for visitors. We also have a couple of inflatable mattresses as well. 

Another view of the couch and a door that opens to our patio. 

The door from the apartment out onto the patio. 

Another view of the patio. It is too hot now, but when it cools down we will be having some dinners for the office staff up here. 

And lastly a view from our patio looking south. 

There is also a small balcony off of the kitchen and another off of the bedroom. The apartment is full of antiques and book cases and built in cabinets. It is just gorgeous. The kitchen is very large, with an electric oven, gas stove top, and large refrigerator.  The cupboards are full of dishes, pot, pans and loads of canned goods.  We are ready for visitors - So drop us an email and make your reservations.

We really love it here.