August 9, 2013

Friday, August 9, 2013

                I had a horrible sleep last night!  Thankfully, it turned out to be a great day to make up for the bad sleep…I love it when that happens!

                I was at the pool by 9 am and did a great 3km swim.  The pool here is really quite superior to any others I have swum in on a regular basis!  It is great – and I am totally spoiled here and have an entire 50m lane all to myself!

                On the way home I discovered this street market about a block away from the house.  I wandered through it – they had everything from clothes and electronics to fruit and bread.  I mustered up my courage and tiny bit of Italian and bought a vine of tomatoes – they were a grand total of 17 cents!  Then I bought some bread (18 cents) and a hunk of cheese (1.37).  It was excellent.  I had bought peaches yesterday, so I went home and enjoyed a nice little picnic on my bed!

                After my lunch and nap, I went back to the pool and swam my 100m freestyle race.  I totally surprised myself and finished in 1:19, which is seriously a good 15 seconds faster than I normally swim it in!  It was really weird!  AND I didn’t finish last in my age group – I finished 7 out of 9!  Yeah!!  Later this afternoon I swam 50m breast and finished in 47 seconds – also a great time for me…although still not fast enough to place – I finished 5 out of 6 in my age group!  I am still really impressed with my times, however!  Yeah!

                I bought some gelato at my new favourite gelato place…they have the coolest flavours.  Tonight I got a meringue flavour as well as some chocolate and something flavour that I hadn’t had yet.  It was great!

                 More pasta and tomatoes tonight for dinner…and the rest of my red wine!

Later

-Allison

August 8, 2013

Thursday, August 8, 2013

                Today it was grey and dark when I woke up.  I decided I was going to walk all the way to the centre of the city from where I am staying as that would be the best way to see everything…except I made it to the end of the street when it started to rain!  It wasn’t bad at that point, so I kept going.  I probably made it about 5 tram stops when I gave in – it was pouring!!!

                I took the tram to the centre and looked around a couple of the older churches and outside of the castle.  I ended up buying an umbrella!  It was an absolute downpour for a good few hours…so I decided it was going to be necessary if I actually wanted to see anything!  I walked along the pedestrian streets were all the shops are, but I didn’t really feel like shopping at all!!  It is nice going home with everything actually fitting in the carry-on!  There are still 2 days left, however, so you never know!

                I made it back to the house by around 1pm and had some great fruit for lunch.  Around 3pm it got sunny and nice out again, so I walked in the opposite direction than I did this morning and found this fantastic park that runs on both sides of the river right behind the house.  It was great!  I walked along the river paths for a good hour or so…all the while trying to not get lost in the process!!

                Dinner was tortellini and tomatoes again!  One (cheap) package of pasta goes a long way!!

                More swimming tomorrow, so things should sound more exciting!

-Allison

August 7, 2013

Wednesday, August 7, 2013

                I had a great sleep-in this morning before checking the heat list for today’s swim.  We have free practice in the mornings until 2pm.  The race itself only starts at 2pm…

                I meandered over to the tram stop buying food for lunch at the local supermarket en route.  The pool is beautiful.  It is a modern, well-lit, tonnes of windows, 50m pool.  It was great.  It took me a while for my arms to remember how to swim as it has been a few weeks, but I did a good 2.5km “practice” this morning.

                My heat was scheduled to swim at 3pm, so I decided I would head home to read and eat instead of staying at the pool.  My book is sooooo good, so that was a quite nice break.

                I swam in heat 7…knowing fully well that all of the girls I was actually competing against in my age group were swimming in heats 5 through 1…therefore meaning I would not be placing at all!  I had a pretty close heat, which is nice for the self-confidence and had a great 200m swim (3:01, which is really good for me!)…but I did definitely come in 6 out of 6 in my age group!  Go figure.  It still felt really good to swim, though.  I haven’t been in just a “swimming race” since 2^nd year university!  It’s been a while, but I didn’t even lose my googles when I dove in from the starting block! Yeah!

                I got off a stop early on the tram so I could get some gelato!  It was the best price and the best selection of flavours I have had yet in Italy!  It was great!!  I walked home and stopped at the grocery store again – to get pasta, tomatoes, and red wine for dinner!  I even bought a can of rosemary and olive oil pringles!  They are to die for! 

                It is actually a decent temperature today.  I was able to eat dinner and finish my awesome book out on the patio I can access from my room.  It is great! 

                There is no swimming for me tomorrow.  I have a day off before 2 races on Friday and 2 on Saturday.  I may rent a bike if I can figure out how, or perhaps walk around down town. Turin is such a big city it is not as obvious of what “needs” to be seen and visited!

Later,

-Allison

August 6, 2013

Tuesday, August 6, 2013

                I did have another great sleep last night.  Now that Laure is around the nights aren’t as late as they used to be in the S. house – and my love of early nights quite likes this fact! 

                M. S. drove my car, with me as a passenger, to get gas because I really didn’t want to drive it more than I had to!  It’s those little stops that I have the hardest time with still!

                We played Scrabble…In French.  And I am just as horrible at it in French as I am in English!  It was fun, however!  Sophie is so much “older” than she used to be! J

                I left around 1pm, right after lunch.  It was so sad.  I hate leaving – especially not knowing when I’ll get to see everyone again!  I am so glad that I went to visit, however!  It was totally worth learning standard for.  Lol.

                The drive home was quite successful.  My one “story” of the drive was that I pulled into a rest stop in Switzerland somewhere (thus breaking my no stopping rule) because I really had to go to the washroom…unfortunately you had to pay to pee (which I know, but in my urgency, I forgot!).  I had no Swiss Francs in order to pee, so had to get over that…but when I went to go back up my car out of my parking stall I couldn’t shift into reverse!  I felt like an idiot.  But I hadn’t backed up in this car yet!  After swearing – a lot – I finally decided the only option was to suck it up and ask the gas station attendant for help!  He couldn’t leave behind the counter, so a customer helped me – and I have to pull up the thing on the shifter in order to shift into reverse!  Well, what do you know?!  Gotta love the learning…

                I made it back to the car rental location at the airport with no surprises and slowly made my way back to the house…bus…tram…walk…it was a late night, but it was an excellent day!  And I think I appreciated the amazing mountain views a little more this time than I did on the way there!!

-Allison

August 5, 2013

Monday, August 5, 2013

                I had such a great sleep last night!  It is such a relief to not sleep at 40 degrees!!  I also got up at 2am to look at the stars from my awesome window!  They were spectacular.

                I actually woke up before Laure did!  Although she is pretty demanding during the day, she sure sleeps well at night!  And that is a good thing because Sophie likes to sleep!  I pulled out a lawn chair and read in the sun outside on the lawn until the rest of the house was up and ready for breakfast.  It was so relaxing!

                We had a pretty chill day.  Sophie, Laure, and I walked up the hill, through town a bit.  We had a great lunch (quiche, salad, and cheese).  I even had an hour nap in the afternoon before dinner!  Not highly eventful, but it was an excellent day!

                It was so nice to spend a day here!  I am so glad I came!

                Another great sleep ahead of me I am thinking!

Night,

-AJ

 

August 4, 2013

Sunday, August 4, 2013

                I packed up all of my stuff again this morning and made my way on the #4 tram to the train station, where I (thankfully) didn’t have any problems finding the shuttle bus to take me to the airport where I would pick up my car.  It was a longer bus ride than I anticipated, but I dutifully read my book and tried not to stress!

                There were no problems picking up the car or even finding it in the lot!  AND I even got it started and out of the lot without stalling!  That was pretty exciting!  Of course, there was no one behind me to put pressure on me, so that helped!  Then, I needed to go through 2 stop signs, where I stalled both times!  I pulled over to get the GPS all organized, which took some coaxing, but thankfully I got it to work because I do not think I would have made it here without the GPS!!

                I followed it out of the city with no problems at all!  Then I had to go through a toll-booth.  This was pretty much my worst nightmare confirmed!  It was awful.  I hadn’t figured out how to roll down the windows, so I couldn’t get the ticket I needed to move forward a bit so I could get out of my car to get the ticket to lift up the bar that crossed over in front of me.  However, by the time this all happened I had about 10 people behind me and I had already stalled about 4 times!!  Then, I managed to pull up a bit, get out and get my ticket and get back in the car.  By this point everyone was honking their horns at me and I was on the verge of tears.  Thankfully, after about the 15^th try (and I am hardly exaggerating here) I managed to drive out of the stupid toll booth!  Uggg…

                Thankfully the rest of my drive went ahead without too many other problems at all.  I had a couple of other stalls at random intersections, but by the last toll booth I even managed to drive away without stalling at all!  It was pretty epic!

                The views were to die for!  I climbed up through the Swiss alps and through the West corner of Switzerland to get to France.  I would definitely do the drive again – and plan to stop along the way to visit all the little places I passed through today.  Lots of really quaint and picturesque villages and towns.

 

 

 

 

 

                I arrived at the house around 3pm and I left the car for M. S. to park because I didn’t want to drive it anymore!  M and Mme S. retired in a house they built back in 1990 in Sondersdorf in Alsace.  It is further South than Strasbourg, and close to the Swiss/German border.  It is pretty much my perfect house with slanted ceilings in the upstairs level with the windows on the side of the roof.  As well there is a “Heidi” stove – made out of tiles and woodburning, so you can cook with it as well as sit on it as a warm chair.  It is awesome.

                It was so great to see everyone today!  I haven’t seen the S. family in quite a few years, because I typically follow Sophie around and don’t always get the chance to see the parents as well!  Today was perfect to see them, Dani and Sophie as well as little Laure.  Today she is 8 weeks old!  She is pretty cute – except for when she cries!!

We had an awesome dinner to celebrate and it was so nice to be here!  (And btw I speak French so much better than Italian! Lol.)  -Allison

 

August 3, 2013

Saturday, August 3, 2013

                We woke up later this morning, which was a really nice change, to be honest!  Ilaria came in late from a party, but neither of us heard her.  Definitely an awesome Air BnB host…and she even left out a full spread for breakfast, which was awesome!

                Our trains were around 1pm, so we hung out a bit, organizing things and eating our awesome breakfast before meandering over to the train station.  Shawn’s train was right on time…and off he went to Rome to spend his last night before flying home.  (However, I later heard that it was not that smooth as the train broke down and it took hours to get home.  AND the flights from Montreal to Edmonton were canceled, to this was far from smooth either!)

                My train was 40 minutes late arriving, which meant I was a bit stressed getting into Turin as I had promised my Air BnB hosts that I would arrive at their place by 6:30pm.  The train station was busy because of all of the 20,000+ participants in the World Masters Games that were arriving today.  And because it was Saturday, a lot of the shops were closed…which meant I could not find a tram ticket machine anywhere.  I was quite frustrated!  Thankfully I did find one and I took the tram and asked lots of questions to make sure I finally got off at the right location.

                The couple I am staying with are great.  Their house/flat is huge.  The access to the tram is awesome.  BUT they do not speak a word of English!  So, when I arrived, it was Italian 101.  I got out my little dictionary that mom and dad lent me and I started looking up words in attempts to make a sentence.  Normally, I understand what they are telling me because of Spanish and French, but that doesn’t make it easier to reply, unfortunately! 

                After about an hour of intense Italian, I managed to convey that I needed to go register for the games at this specific location – but now there wasn’t much time to do so.  Thankfully they drove me there so I could get that done.  As well I found Carrefour, a large grocery store, which was great considering I hadn’t eaten anything since our brekkie this morning!

                Tomorrow is the big day…of driving a standard car all the way to France. 

-Allison