Sunday, March 31, 2013

Happy Easter!

It's almost spring!
 Today was Easter!!! Even in Italy we got gifts. We left out our Ikea eggs to receive gifts from the easter bunny. The things that I received included a deer, some egg chocolates, a fish chocolate,and a strange Kinder Egg (it's a small egg with a toy prize inside).

My easter goodies
Usually, Kinder Eggs are hollow chocolate shells about two and a half inches tall with a plastic toy to build inside. This one though, you had to first pull in half, like so (bellow).

Kinder Egg in half
The left side with the question marks has a spoon. At the time, I couldn't understand why, but opening it, I found yellow and green plastic pieces. I then followed the instructions given inside and built a three-wheeled rubber band car. When you push the green plastic tab on the end it zooms off. I have to say, min was much cooler than Sean's (an egg-holder) or Griffin's (a Monsters Inc keychain).

My prize
But even weirder was the chocolate. Instead of hard chocolate there was a Nutella-like substance (For all I know, it actually could be Nutella. I think that both Nutella and Kinder Egg are owned by the same company.) On top were two chocolate balls.

inside the chocolate half

the inside had two layers of Nutella-esque stuff
Wow. That was a lot about a Kinder Egg.... Moving on.

For breakfast we had a traditional Italian sweetbread. It was shaped like a cross, and I'm told it tasted like a good version of fruitcake (never had a fruitcake before). Inside, the bread was soft and had dried fruit inside. On top were sugar chunks.... Yum.

cut up sweetbread for breakfast....
We (Dad, Julie, Griffin, Sean, and I) decided to spend the day in Parco del Valentino (see my previous post, Parco del Valentino). To explore the park, we rented a four-person bicycle which Griffin sat in the middle of Sean and Dad in the front. 

All of us (and my hand) in the bike
After returning the bike, we decided to go inside the medieval castle (also see my previous post, Parco del Valentino). We bought the tickets that just happened to be one euro today and were told that we must go with a guided tour at four. It wasn't four yet, so we left the castle gates to wait. Waiting, we watched balloons of copied characters be sold and made up funny names for them. Like the knockoff Lightening McQueen was Thunder McKing, Marlin and Namo(Marlin and Nemo), Hello Catty(Hello Kitty), Princess Poach (Princess Peach), Tooty Bird (Tweety Bird), and more.

Knockoff character balloons in the park
We then, after I explored the fountain with Julie (this is in a previous post as well), we went for our tour. In the castle, there was only non-flash photography and I'm not allowed to put it on the internet. My pictures really weren't that good anyway. The castle very typical medieval- dark, cold, and holding tapestries with absolutely no perspective. I did manage to get a picture of nice flowers in the "kitchen garden"(see bellow).

Pretty
The town had a couple of gift shops containing some very random things. The town was meant to be a representation of the middle ages in Europe, but in the gift shop there were katanas(Japanese swords). Hmm...

Katanas
Lastly, I would like to share my collection of egg pictures. Here in Turin, it is tradition to get large, hollow chocolate eggs on Easter, all of which are packaged very beautifully. The ones bellow are about half of the ones I saw. The large pictures are my favorites.


















Happy Easter everyone!
Ciao!
-Hailey

The National Automobile Museum

An early Steam Powered Carriage
The row of many Fiats and Renaults (and an Olds)
Yesterday we once again woke up to discover that Hailey and Mom were still not feeling well, so we (Dad, Julie, Griffin, and I) went somewhere they would not have liked, The National Automobile Museum. I think the fact thats it's the national museum made it pretty
the car that went to Paris
An early F1 car
cool. We went in and started on the third floor, as you are supposed to go from the top down. We started up in the area with early concepts of cars, one created by Leonardo Da Vinci. We worked through the early 1900s. In the section that had 1900-1909ish we saw lots of Fiats, Renaults, Citroens, and an Oldsmobile. We also saw a blue bullet shaped thing that hit about 65 mph in the early 1900s with just two electric motors. after that we saw a car that in 1908 and 1909 went form a mid-Aisian city to Paris! That was amazing in 1908. There is a picture of this car below the row of cars. After that we saw some 20s and some 30s cars, among them two Rolls-Royces. After that we saw a section about them movement toward more aerodynamical cars in the mid-late 30s. Then we saw a map of Turin on the floor, with a Fiat 500 in the corner with the Mole on top. We found our flat on the map. We saw a video about the war and the cars it produced, also, it told us about how the car became a symbol of hope. It produced the Beetle and Jeep. After that we learned about the postwar car boom in America, and how Europe struggled from the devastation. But they eventually recovered. We learned about the assembly line and saw an example of a fiat one. Also, we went through two rooms full of engines and wheels. We then saw a Fiat 500 completely covered in toy Fiat 500s, it was pretty cool. Then we got to the car art section. We saw fridges, stoves, toilets, sinks, clocks, beds, fireplaces, dishwashers, clotheswashers, food, couches, and some others. Essentially an entire household made from cars. Pretty awesome. Then we saw the sixties, two really cool Italian sports cars, and learned a lot about the Citroen DS 19, supposedly one of the most radical and influential cars of it's time, I did not realize just how significant it was until then. After that we saw an area filled with funny road signs (watch out for kiwi crossing) and then came to a Lancia Delta Integralé Rally car, beside a Fiat Punto touring car, they were both for some unknown reason behind bars. I have no idea why. After that we came to the Formula One section, we saw first pics of many famous drivers, then their cars, suits helmets, etc. It was awesome. We saw a dragster, and a Le Mans style Alfa Romeo, then the row of F1 cars, starting in the 50s and going to 2005. This was my favorite area of the whole museum. We then went to an area where in little glass boxes embedded in the wall, which showed there choices of cars fo the most or best of a certain thing (fastest, best designed, most versatile, best Bond car, etc.). It was really cool. After that we went to an area in honor of a particular designer, I can't remember his name. After that we saw an area that showed different designers and what they use for inspiration, what they think is the greatest invention ever, their biggest success, and the car they wished they had designed (8 of 10 said Citroen DS 19). Then we saw the gift shop (many tempting Ferrari things, stupidly expensive of course). When we left the museum we went to Eataly for lunch and had a tasty ham and perschutto pizza. We brought home some stuff from their grocery and headed out. We went through the shopping mall next store, which is inside the building that has a fiat test track on the roof. We came out of the shopping mall and went back into the subway to head home (by now it was 3:30ish). We got some gelato on our way home from the metro station and had a good evening. I'll post again soon.

Crowds, the Shroud and things that make Italy Proud!

The days are flying past now! Today Julie, Sean, Griffin and I braved the crowds to spend the day over in Milano (1 hour away on the fast train, a little under 2 hours on the regular train). I'm glad we boarded the train early as it filled up completely with people and their weekend luggage appearing to be heading home for Easter. We arrived at Milano Centrale and made the quick transfer to the M3 Metro line towards San Donato, exiting at Duomo. Although it was absolutely bucketing rain when we arrived, the imposing sight of the Duomo as you emerge from the Metro station remains a simply amazing sight.

First sight out of the Metro at Duomo.
Just as I recalled from my last visit here in 2006, the interior of the Duomo was simply stunning. I could tell that Julie was moved by the site and the scale. It's hard to imagine in this day and age the funds, work, and faith that built such a place over the course of 400 years!

Griffin and Sean with "Putti" in front of a chapel inside the Duomo.

Inlaid marble floors.
Griffin demonstrating the scale of the columns...think Redwood sized!
We strolled through the Galleria Vittoria Emmanuel II amongst the throngs of people--remembering that this is the world's oldest and perhaps most posh shopping center (built around 1867 and now containing the likes of Prada, Gucci and others), so yes, even with crowds it's amazing--and a quick peak at the Scala (yes THE Scala Opera house) and the obligatory heel spin on the famous bull's um...bullocks, we made our way around the back side of the Duomo for a little lunch (while Torino's own Juventus topped Inter-Milan on the TV at the restaurant).

Galleria Emmanuel Vittorio II--the world's oldest shopping center!


After lunch, we made Sean's day with a visit to the Ferrari store--he was in absolute heaven. The crowning jewel was an opportunity to sit in one a car once driven by Ferrari's pride and joy (German) driver Michael Schumacher's F1 car for a photo op!

Pure happiness behind the wheel.






















On the way out was a treat for me...that I did not take up this time! I noticed that a Ferrari Daytona had pulled up alongside a Lamborghini that was already parked outside the store. As I admired the cars, a woman walked up and asked if I wanted to drive one! They had a set price to drive around Milan in one of these two Italian icons (with a "co-pilot"). She had what amounted to a menu of fees based on length/time, etc. Maybe next time...
Which one would you pick?
Leaving Milano I took one last (panoramic) shot of the Piazza del Duomo:

Piazza del Duomo with Duomo in the center, entrance to Galleria Vittorio Emmanuel II on the left.
Finally, after an interesting train ride home (including a band of teens up to no good...perhaps a story for another time), we stopped by our favorite gelato shop so that Julie could keep up her promise on gelato every day for the week she's here.
This time I had a concoction that was Gelato over mint-chocolate chip Gelato! (Affagati da Passegio)
And finally...going to catch up on the news coverage of the Shroud of Turin coverage! It was broadcast today (along with the launch of a new Shroud App) as a sign of faith and hope on this Easter weekend.

Very tired now...

Buona Notte!

Saturday, March 30, 2013

Level Failed

 Ugh. Being sick stinks. Right now I'm teetering on the edge of sick and okay. So today while Sean, Dad, and Julie go to Milan, I have to stay here with mom who seems even more sick than I am. But I must be grateful. I am lucky to be here in Italy even though the last few days puking and playing angry birds feels like a level failed.

Friday, March 29, 2013

Sick

I hate to say this, but you can get sick even in a place as pretty as this. Ugh. Hailey and I have been miserable and pretty much bed-bound for the last two days. We're determined to be up and about tomorrow.
So here are a few random pix from last week :)