Part 2 of "I'm in Turin, no, I'm in Saudi.........."

Ok, so for part 2 I'm already sitting in Torino Airport (named after some "famous" Italian guy, but I'm not prepared to fork out my credit card details to sign on to the airport wi-fi network to find out who he is/was). I've just had a sandwich called an "Apollo" (suitably Greek-named for an Italian sandwich) and a Danish beer which, at 7.7% alcohol volume, could get you quite nicely pissed if you had just two. Just one, and I'd be over the legal Shit Towne driving limit, but luckily some other dafty is flying the kite out of here and not me. I hope he hasn't been on the Danish stuff when we leave...

Ok, where was I in the story?... Ah yes, I'd just got back into my cubicle in the Diplomatic Hotel...

I figured, seeing as it was only just after 1pm that I might phone my colleague and let him know I was back in town, but that was just a short lapse in my reasoning once I'd unreasonably thought that he might want me to come into the office seeing as it was still "early" and I decided to only call him after 2h30pm...just in case.

I spent the afternoon chilling out in my room with the TV on and figured out how to work out the Italian version of the SkyTV decoder. Most of the channels on SkyTV have the option to watch the show in the original language it was filmed in, so it's quite good to be able to watch something I can listen to as well as watch. The only problem I had with the TV setup was that all the films AND SPORT were pay-per-view. That sucked, as there was a couple of good football matches on that I could have watched, most notably the one where Rangers (once again) beat Hearts...(sorry for you, Jenny-May). There was also a couple of the local games on, which I could have watched too, though I'd much have preferred to go and watch the game at the stadium itself. Maybe next trip I will, if I can get one of the locals to go along with me. Most of the local guys seem to have TV channels where the games are broadcast live.

I sent my colleague a text message to his mobile to let him know I'd arrived back, and we made arrangements to go out for dinner later on. And on that front, we cannot complain...we have had dinner in some fantastic restaurants, and at reasonable prices too, I might add (relatively speaking, cos I have to multiply everything by 10 to get to ZAR equivalents. Just the other night, I spent the ZAR equivalent of R450 on a salad starter, seafood paella, 250ml bottle of red wine, a coffee and a grappa...I also bought a bottle of the grappa, which I'll explain shortly).

One of my favourite restaurants we dined at was called "Orysa" (pronounced Oh-rees-a), named after it's primary dish...rice. Everything in the restaurant has rice of some form in it. You can get dishes from all over the world, so long as they are rice-based. My favourite, for which I went back a second time a few days later when I was on my own, was the paella. The bottle of grappa I bought was made from...rice. Or, at least, that's what the restaurant owner and the label on the bottle told me. I suppose it's a little like Japanese Sake, only with a kick in it. The tot I had with my coffee certainly packed a punch and the first sip caught me a little off-guard. It's quite palatable after that though. The reason I bought the bottle is that it also, perhaps as a gimmick, has a stalk of rice pods and kernels in the bottle. Priced at 20 Euros I thought it was reasonable, and the bottle's a nice shape too...

I can't remember what we ate on the night in question, but needless to say it was another good restaurant. The other thing we would do after dinner was take a walk down some of the tight little Torino streets and see the lights on the main square alongside the Palazzo Madama (Ladies Palace). Me, I'm not used to walking great distances, in fact from the remote control to the TV is about my limit and that's at light speed. But these walks were nice though...the weather, as mentioned, is quite fresh at night with the overnight temperature dropping well below freezing point. Today, at 2h30pm, the temperature outside was 8degC...fresh enough. On the walks though, passing one of the abundant watchmaker shops which inexplicably all sell barometers and thermometers, the mercury would sometimes be around the 4degC mark.

Daytime was spent in the office, a non-descript building prupose-built right next to the FIAT plant. The project we're on is in support of the team that does the IT support for FIAT and they have an astounding number of systems in place. Yet, for some strange reason, the guys who did the proposal (and subsequently won the business) didn't figure out quite how they were going to do the disaster recovery for all these servers...in total, there's about 400 of them. And the local guys don't know where to start, which is why they called us in from the Global Team. We're getting used to being the guys who get called in last to fix other people's fuckups, and at super-speed too. Strangely enough, it's always the same division that calls us in to sort out their mess...Strategic Outsourcing Division (or SODs as I call them now).

We usually started in the office at around 9am and went through until about 6pm, with a company-sponsored lunch of two sandwiches and a coke in between. In between working though we also devoured copious amounts of Italian coffee, at dirt cheap prices, from the vending machines scattered around the facility. It's the same quality of coffee you would get in a restaurant, but at machine speed. A good double shot of espresso will set you back 40cents (about ZAR4) so it really is cheap. The vending machine not only dispenses espresso, but also "espresso lungo" (an extra splash of water), macchiatto, cappucino, cioccocino (cappucino with chocolate), and a range of teas (never tried them though).

On Saturday, my colleague flew back to the States and the snow storms they've been having in his area (just south of Lake Michigan) and left me to my own devices in Torino. In all honesty, I've been bored out of my fuckin' head for most of the time, but it's given me time to gather thoughts about a lot of things and, in my own way, meditate on a number of things going on in life which I'm not about to bore you with any more than I have already.

I managed to shoot over an hour and a half of footage on the DVDcam including some great shots of the Shroud of Turin, famous for supposedly being Jesus' burial shroud but which has been carbon-dated to somewhere in the middle ages. Still impressive to see it, though I suspect it's not the original that's in the church where it's housed in a glass frame. I believe the original shroud is in a vault somewhere in Rome. The church where the shroud is kept is totally nondescript from the outside and as my colleague told me he'd done, if you walked past the church you wouldn't be any the wiser as to what's in it. All the information brochures you get also tell you it's kept in the cathedral, a little away from where it actually is, so I don't know if they move it around to different locations or if the brochures tell lies. Anyway, I saw it, and that's what counts. I've read numerous books on the Knights Templar and it's mentioned in all of them as they suspect that the imprint is that of one of their hero leaders, Jacques de Mornay. If the carbon-dating is right, they might have a case for argument.

One nice thing about being here is that I can say to my family that they are all getting Italian Chrismas presents this year and I went to all the trouble and expense of flying over here just for them. Steph wanted "Prada ankle boots, but only if they're on sale" which was to be read as "Prada ankle boots, or don't bother coming home", but at 300 Euros I'll risk a bollocking for buying the 100 Euro pair which, in my mind, look exactly the same except for the missing expensive label. I was joking with another colleague that I'll buy a white marker and write Prada on the bottom of the boots, but I couldn't find a white marker. For Dad, I also bought a pair of Italian shoes and, as Mum said, "get him a pair of slippers cos these ones are about to walk off on their own", so I got him some new slippers too. For my brother, I bought a nice hip flask in a box set with four stainless steel thimbles in a leather pouch and a little funnel so that you don't spill your beverage of choice when trying to fill it. For my sister, I got a knitted cashmere scarf and two wonderful little ornamental ladybirds, each weighing about 100grams. She's going to have problems going home, as she's come out from Dublin to visit us in SA for Christmas and will probably have to pay excess baggage penalties. I already have Mum's present at home...it's from Dubai Duty Free and is a nice little digital camera so that she can finally get rid of her tatty old 35mm model (yes, she still has her photos developed at a shop). While I was in Saudi Dryland, I also got another little bottle of perfume for Steph which she can tote about in her handbag. I've even gone to the extent of slicing open the shoe boxes and stuffing them in the bottom of my suitcase so that Steph and Dad can have their shoes in the original Italian boxes.

Today, I went out around 10am and bought two Pannetone to enjoy over Christmas. For the uneducated, they are like big madeira cakes, traditionally stuffed full of raisins and currants and enjoyed over the holiday period. One of these that I bought though, is also filled with caramel and chocolate, so I'm looking forward to that. The other one is a traditional Pannetone which I might just give to Steph's aunt for being such a good friend to her as well as a relation. The difference in price was fuckin' astounding though...traditional Pannetone, 4 Euros...chocolate and caramel Pannetone, 30 fuckin' Euros!! It better be worth it...

I checked out of the hotel just before midday, as required, and then hung around in the lobby for two and a half hours before deciding to change my scenery and take an early taxi to the airport, where I am now typing up this posting. The taxi ride was interesting too. I was driven by some old geezer who thought he was Enzo Ferrari and he had us bumping along all sorts of old streets and for a while I thought he was going home for lunch first. I'm convinced he must have been a trucker earlier in life though, cos every time (and I mean every time) he changed gear, he double-clutched the car. Anyway, we soon got onto the highway and I realised I knew where I was, as we were retracing my steps of a couple of weeks ago. It's hard to believe that, when I get home tomorrow morning, I'll have been away for nineteen days. Time flies when you work for the Global Team.

I'll try and post this before we go down to my folks so that you lot have something to read to your families over your Christmas pudding and brandy sauce...


If I don't post anything before the 25th, I hope each and every one of you has a peaceful, joyous, Christmas in the spirit of the occasion, that you all get spoiled with some fantastic gifts, eat and drink your fill of turkey, roast potatoes and wine, and in turn, give some of the same cheer back to your friends and families. Going into the New Year, I hope your new year is filled with joy, abundance, family and relationships, friends, and all the things your heart might desire to make you happy.

As I always say in my Christmas cards, "May the best of this year be the worst of next year" to you all...keep well...