Passion lives here

Passion lives here
Why is good to go travel with your sister.

24 January in Italy

Italy. With Alps and other mountains. Today Italy is entertaining us. Quite coolly. But the sun was hot. The wind was bleak. Clocks everywhere in the streets. Merili (our brother-in-law’s sister ;)) was a flight attendant today, it let me fly calmly J When we arrived by bus in Milan, we could experience Italian flirting for the first time. The bus drivers came at once to talk with my blond and beautiful sister. The railway station is huge, although The Londoners has many levels. In Milan there is still some kind of overview of that station. But here we didn’t find the checkroom at once either. We tried to ask from the information desk, but there was a live queue, witch consisted of about twenty people and when we got to the reference desk, then – that info uncle spoke only in Italian with us. Altogether they all speak mostly Italian. In Milan sometimes German as well. But for me it was pure pleasure to test my Italian.
In the city we got lost of course, because you can never trust the maps. Some streets are missing and some go on although they should end. Usually I never ever get lost and even my sister who is Gemini trusts me blindly. J Today we were in a seriously huge city. It’s lucky that I dared to correct my mistake in time. Otherwise we would have missed even the last train to Turin. Besides being very big, this city it also a huge industrial town. We feel that particularly well when we come back and we spend half an hour in a totally big traffic jam and the view is ugly, to put it nicely. We sit in a ferroconcrete corridor and at the same time we try to make it to the airport in time. As we hadn’t planned traffic jams we are dying with anxiety! J
But now we have still just arrived and we don’t know all that yet. I see such incredible prices in the shops windows for the first time in my life. I have no wish to buy anything from Milan, especially since Marco promised us that in Turin there are the same goods. J But I doubt this a little bit but anyway I don’t have any wish to by any Prada or YSL right now. So we only buy some things for my sister J We also promise that tomorrow we will go to Turin market and we’ll by sunglasses because the sun is killing us. How could we forget it! But I don’t see glamour of the fashion city anywhere. I only remember the dirty and cold railway station and also a purse snatcher with a glib face at the same place. And also empty and bleak osterias. But all this is a huge relief for us, misanthropes J
We found out at the reference desk that three trains go to Turin, but earlier there was information about just one, and we didn’t knew witch was ours. When we went to the train we had a new reason for panic because nobody was announcing the names of the stations. I sent an SMS to my friend Marco to ask if he knew how many stops we had to go J I can’t imagine what he thought but fortunately he knew the name of the station before ours. When we had left that station, I shouted to my sister to stand up and go near the train door. I was afraid to miss our station J this was Susa, not the last one. Then other travelers caught on my sense of alarm too. And so we were already many people near the door, ten minutes before the station, so no one could fit there any more. But they kept coming and coming…I was very excited. And when I saw that there was also Roberto waiting for us, not just Marco, I screamed over the train a very big CIAO! Everybody was thrilled. I was a little embarrassed. And then we were there. There, in the Olympic City and theoretically in the South. They just barely managed to build the town on time if I can say so. It means that two weeks before the games everything was still in an upheaval and there was no such feeling that very soon some very important festival will begin here. Marco joked that the Italians knew about the games six years in advance, but in the summer it is too hot and in winter it is too cold for working. So we hope that the Olympic City will be ready when the games end.
Marco has a superb apartment. Beautiful inside and outside, with gardens in front of and behind the house. It was very interesting to see palm trees covered with snow J
Our “regular” pub was an international Irish pub in a street with a very funny name. In Estonian of course: Vitt Emmanuel J and the pub is international because the barmen were from different countries: Jimmy from Canada, Anastasia from Russia and so on. And Jimmy is one very jovial guy. He has an Estonian friend; unfortunately he didn’t remember his name. We reminded him how to say hello in Estonian, it is TERE J and he told us that he drinks only at work J
In Italy you can’t smoke indoors. Everybody goes out and everywhere there are furnaces for the clients to heat the weather J
Roberto was the chef on the first evening. Pasta with tuna, because Liina doesn’t eat meat. We haven’t met for a long time and it was the first time in Italy for Liina, and so the first evening lasted into the small hours. And someone was quite drunk. I won’t say any names J (but it wasn’t me).

25 January in Turin

It was shopping day. We bought everything. Marco lives at the beginning of Turin’s main street. We just walked four kilometers and we didn’t get lost. Perfect for shopaholics. We saw cheap and expensive customer service J cold coffee and colder toilets. And in that Irish pub there was an awful toilet. I visited it only once. It was like in the Soviet Union army: only a hole in the floor. And no separate boxes for women and men. So you can imagine.
The dogs are walking everywhere they want, it was lucky that Liina didn’t step in one super huge poop. The system is: if no one saw you, you needn’t
clean it J
There are lots of handsome men, there are lots of ugly men here.
The system in the shops is: the shop assistant understands that you don’t speak Italian but still he displays his own goods. The customer service is very polite. They don’t wait until you ask something. Always it is they who start the conversation, and always with ciao. In Estonia you can sometimes stay waiting forever if you want to buy something.
Roberto made today’s dinner again. Pasta with meat and tomato sauce plus tiramisu ice cream. Because I categorically refuse to eat ice outside in the cold street.
All Italians know about our president scandal.
I miss the previous time in Italy, those last places where I was. I begin to realize that I am in Italy again.

26 January in Turin

There is a free wake-up call in the morning. Everybody is getting up their sunblinds. They do it with a friendly clatter. It is a perfect revenge on the neighbour who took a belated bath. In Italian MTV you can see old videos. It makes me feel that my whole life is going back into the old tracks. They deal only with important things. They don’t deal with things that are nonimporta.
Today it started snowing.
Marco dreams about going to live in Mexico. He wants to open a restaurant or something like that there with a friend J Already his room is decorated quite the way a Mexican room should be.
There is one bitch (it’s not sure that she is she, because Marco hasn’t been over there and met her(?) yet. Maybe she is a very neat he?) She started cleaning up totally early. So, Marco couldn’t sleep at all. Liina and myself check through all TV-channels because we couldn’t reach a compromise. I said that there must be a specific number of channels, she insists that the number is infinite. There were 36 channels J it goes to show once more that it is pointless to argue with a Taurus. They are always right. Or almost always J
The breakfast in Italy consists of two very sweet biscuits. Or some other sweets. Again and again I will never tire repeat that Italy is children’s paradise. Day after day you can eat sweets and pasta J after sweets, the breakfast contains espresso. But Marco doesn’t drink coffee, so we drank tea. He has coffee actually but he doesn’t have the coffee maker. And for the kind of coffee we drink, they don’t have any right coffee J
Marco buys only oranges that come from Sicily. He says that he always buys only fruits and vegetables that come from Southern Italy. They are ripe. With the smell and taste of the sun.
Today we went to the city by tram. Trams are as dirty and rattletrap as ours. But they have only one seat on both levels. Tickets are like postcards and coloured.
We went to the Egyptian museum. For the first time we saw some very noisy Italians. Those were little Italians. The children. We had met only nice people: nice and quiet. On the bus, on trains, in cafes….. If they say that Estonians schoolteachers’ nerves must be made of iron, then Italian schoolteachers’ nerves should be made of steel.
The traffic is still awful.
Today we are going to eat at Andrea’s family cafeteria. We are waiting for Roberto because Marco went to work and it means watching the football match.
In Andrea’s bar (if you ever come to Turin, go to the Mosca cafeteria) Roberto was the chef again. In our sense potato dumplings. It was almost the only time when we saw potatoes. But it was because I asked to see and taste only Italian things. We drank two bottles of wine and that good Italian beer- Menabrea. The cafeteria was open only for us and that’s why we finished the evening with tasty grappa. It made us dance with Andrea and Roberto for Liina and Marco. At last Andrea was so drunk that he taught us how to make Italian coffee. Liina and I threatened to open a better cafeteria nearby J
It was a very funny and great evening. Unfortunately Juventus lost 2:3.
In Italy it first began to snow in a very long time, so we threw snowballs with Andrea and with Andrea’s neighbours who came home at that time. In Italy the neighbours understand jokes J
Toto Cutugno is cool!
Thanks to grappa my throat is better. What a terrible vodka- with chamomile taste!

27 January in Turin

It means that half of our time is over but the other half is still left!
I already miss Italy and I long to come back. I am already very sad that I must leave. Although yesterday for the first time I missed my mother and my dog Tricky. And I miss Robin all the time. Robin is my brother’s son.
Today we slept very long. We didn’t even see Saint Tropez J it’s very interesting in Italian J Marco has such a good mood that he even sings and lays the table very early. It’s somehow even easier to be without the regular morning coffee.
Life is easier J
Italians are always living like in the present. For them the past or the future isn’t important. Marco, for example, doesn’t have any photos (it’s because he has just moved in, of course) but I couldn’t possibly live without photos. But they just call when they miss somebody. We leaf through the photo album.
Italians show their old buildings and they are very proud about the culture of Ancient Greece and Rome. But they seem to be happy here and now. Estonians always long for something better. Something that has been or something that hasn’t come yet. I think it’s probably one of the reasons why we are so attractive for each other. Opposites attract.
If Italians call someone they will tell every little thing that has happened during that day, Estonians don’t remember those things for as long as the end of day J
Liina said that Marco is very gentle. Yes, he is. No one has described him so well. He should be a boxer, then I would have recognized it myself too.
If I have time next year, I would like to come here for a longer time to practice my Italian. But music here is particularly beautiful and tender-hearted. I can understand why they don’t compete at the Eurovision Song Contest. How could the nation of the best songwriters’ compete with others? Estonians are the nation of the best singers but Italians are the nation of the best songs. J
If I’m not mistaken, today it is the Holocaust Day in Italy too. In the morning there was a very beautiful film about Jews on the TV. It wasn’t like they always are (lots of death and killing). Anyhow I cried troppo, which means too much.
And when Roberto asked Liina how much she earns, I remembered again how much harm the Soviet time has done to our people.
Today first time in her life Liina drank coffee on foot J she told me that I should write this down. It is pointless here to sit down to drink coffee. Because they drink that terribly strong and sweet and tiny coffee up in two seconds. Anyway, Liina has never ever drunk so many so little coffees before. I remember when I was here last time, I was also very surprised.
Now I enjoy everything.
Next bigger trip will be visiting Pedro in Mexico J
Here there is enough time to think about all my life. It doesn’t mean that everything will be clear for me. But as they say, after a little time comes emptiness…. and it should mean clarity. It means that nonimporta falls off. But basically everything around is very important. Important is only when we are ready to let go. I suppose that important is when there comes a time to let go of more and more things one after the other. And some can’t let go. And those souls should, in my opinion, for example in Buddhism, be guided by some karma rules.
I think I must work more to be able to travel. Or write more, or play more lotto - games J
Andrea asked us what we did today but I didn’t remember because we didn’t do anything J we slept long. Then that Jewish film. Went to the supermarket to buy food for dinner. Marco was cooking. Went for a coffee with Roberto. It was important to draw a Taurus on the street with one foot…..it is for good luck. In Estonian luck is õnne and a very beautiful girl’s name is also Õnne. Taurus is the symbol of Turin. Like in Rakvere – Tarvanpää. The capital of my county.
Fabrizo and his band Space Donkey’s concert was cool. I also saw Fabrizio's wife Laura. She is a particularly warm person. Although we don’t understand each other’s language enough, we understand each other. Without words. We hold hands and our eyes do the talking. Meeting with people like Laura in your life is a special-special experience. Also there were Stefano with his new beautiful girlfriend Alessandra. Then I saw Sergio and Enrico over ten years. It was a very nice surprise! And Enrico started to speak Italian with me. Fortunately in the same order as in my phrasebook J All the boys were with their girlfriends. It was so good to see them with nice girls. Only our three don Quijotes had to be satisfied with our modest Nordic company J but it was a plus for them of course. To go to a bar with my blond sister was always a total joke and circus. As we entered a bar and stayed somewhere there was a long queue of Italian men in two minutes. Everybody wanted to take a peek at my sister’s beauty. But they are very sweet. Really very quick peeking. They don’t touch like black men, they want to know whether you are real J And I don’t want to talk about Estonian men when they are drunk…

28 January in Turin, so little time left to the Olympic games!

The walls here are terrible un-soundproof. Someone is being brutta upstairs. Brutta means ugly.
Today it rains and we stay inside. In the evening we will have dinner at Filippo and Chiara’s. They come from near Rome. Filippo plays clarinet and he is a very good cook. He went to the market this morning. And the neighbours asked why he bought such a big fish. AS he was retelling the story to us, he pretended to be carrying a very very big one J he answered that two girls from Estonia were coming to dinner, then the neighbors understood him J
Anyhow at last everybody was making jokes over that. Because all knew that I eat everything and in any position. And it really was so. You can see it soon. Just wait until the day when we are going to eat pizza J
29 January in Turin

Yesterday evening was very fun. Even crazy in some way. A totally crazy supper. And we ate everything up. Although our stomachs were full after the first dish J the wine was good and our moods were getting better and better. As Liina doesn’t eat meat and Marco doesn’t eat the cheese, so Filippo prepared octopus and fish for us. Of course Liina doesn’t eat octopus as well J so she ate bread and tomato J I loved shrimps with pomegranate and some very tasty cold pink sauce. The main dish was spaghetti with seashells and shrimps. There was a little discussion about why Liina eats fish and doesn’t eat octopus. They think that it is the same thing. But in our very cold climate we can very rarely see octopuses… For dessert there was a very sweet cake. In Italy there is a rule that sweet is very - very sweet and salty is very - very salty. And sour is very sour J
Allora (it means something like so) so, we tried to play bottle game. But because of the language differences it ended soon J
So, it was the dinner by Chiara and Filippo. Although they both come from Central Italy, Chiara looks exactly like a Finnish girl J
Before that visit we were also at Marco’s parents’ house. There were two lively little girls. They asked why I studied Russian and German at school, not Italian. I answered that I didn’t have friends in Italy then. They were very surprised because they have about 10 different nationalities in their class. They all are friends of course J And according to my theory, those girls should speak 10 languages J
Later Marco’s older relatives asked whether our culture was more similar to Russian culture or to something else? Marco quickly told them how things are. But this they know very well that before the Soviet Union we were a very rich country….
Allora, this morning we should have gone to see the new underground but we slept late and Roberto and Andrea showed it to us in their mobile phones J
First of all there is a fashion for some Vodafone phones, with which the younger generation is constantly making films and photos, and they are living with their noses in the mobile phones to watch all that they have saved there.
After that the men were still standing on the corner of the street but it was very cold you know. I jumped inside a shop and asked for one little strawberry-biscuit and that nice shop assistant gave it to me for free because she was very happy that I am a friend of Andrea’s. In Italy there is a rule: if you say that you like something they will give it to you. Last time I got one a pot plant as a present from one gardener. Just because I smelled it. But I smelled it because it was so yellow J things are not a problem for Italians. Things are coming and going. People are important.
After that we went to Roberto’s home. And when I stayed there: my home from three years ago. I just started cry. Because of all those warm memories. It is a very good feeling. You feel that you are a living person and you can feel something powerful. Something inside moves you so deeply that you can’t control your emotions anymore. It is unbelievable that it is still possible at my age J
I was very happy.
Then we visited and watched the Olympic village and the new buildings. Then we went to the first Fiat factory. It is a very big shopping centre now. Ottogallery. We saw a very nice couple with Roberto there: a father with his charming daughter. I am so sorry that I didn’t take a photo of them. Because I would have become famous with this photo J
We ate in an Italian fast-food restaurant and after that we came home to rest because the shops are closed on Saturday anyway. I don’t understand how their business in Italy is alive. In Estonia all shops are mostly open, except at night of course.
Turin is one very big car park. And if there is no space for parking they just park beside other cars J
About nine o’clock we went to a pizza restaurant. It is a very classy restaurant and there are very classy prices too J for a clean tablecloth they collect about 4 euros J But pizzas were very salty and burnt. Especially Liina's pizza, because she ordered a sprat-pizza. And even the wine wasn’t good. The bill was 100 euros. The only good thing there was bear, because this was normal. And then it happened, everybody could laugh because I had eaten everything and even more. And Roberto said that really, Lisa eats everything even if it is not tasty J But they didn’t notice that all the other plates were empty too J
And this was the place where we saw a very handsome Italian man. He was so beautiful that we stared at him with my sister for a really long time. He was a really handsome man J
Marco knows that he is an idiot.
The night ended again in that Jimmy’s football pub, because this is Marco’s second home. Or even the first J He is a football journalist and everybody wants to talk to him about football games. But we could watch handsome men again J

30 January in Turin

It is eleven a clock and we haven’t done anything yet. We went to the supermarket to buy some Italian chocolate for our mother. We also went to the street-market. We ate our first strawberries this year. Just think, in Estonia it is minus 30 degrees and we are eating strawberries here!! This is crazy. In Estonia I must wait another six month to have strawberries.
Then we went to have lunch at Roberto’s place. Papa Lionnetti cooked as usual, and it was also delicious as usual J For lunch there was naturally pasta and papa Lionetti said that we could drink as much wine as we wish because they had 89 liters leftJ
But it was our last full day in Italy and those memories are already as if seen through a haze. Liina and I were very sad.
Last dinner was at Marco’s place and we invited Andrea as well. It was a bit more festive supper. I put on my last pair of earrings. It was also some sort of fun: I changed my earrings every day J I think this is my fetish.
Anyway the dinner was yummy again.
And it was time to say good-bye to Andrea. Next morning we should wake up very early but I couldn’t get to sleep. I was sad, so I watched the Italian TV all night. So that I could listen to Italian language for as long as possible.


31 January in Italy

The drive to the airport was very nice at first. The climate changed very quickly - like day and night. It was foggy and the next minute it was sunny. When we were near Milan, we realized that we will not get to the airport on time … Fortunately the boys didn’t discuss that in English, so my sister couldn’t get nervous. She always gets nervous if something is wrong when we are going to the airport J At last everybody was very calm. Nobody would have minded if we had stayed there one more day. But nobody wanted to wake up at 4:30 again….
Fortunately we got to airport right on time and then we found out why we should be there so early: the bus took us 50 meters to the plane J

And missing Italy overwhelmed me for three days. But warm and friendly Turin was already waiting for new quests. Friends of the Olympics……
We didn’t buy the sunglasses. The sun shined only in Milan. In Turin niente J



NB!
the name: Toto Cutugno is out in Italy
collect your old clothes. You can use them during your trip and come back with a lighter bag
if you haven’t lived together with your sister for a long time, you can get to know each other again during a wonderful trip
in Italy it is very useful to travel with a blond sister. It is easier to get across the streets
but then it would be harder in the pubs
it doesn’t matter that Italy is more to the south than we are. Woollen socks are necessary anyway
Ukumari – means bear in Ketshua language (Uku is an Estonian boy’s name and Mari is a girl’s name J )