The first of many chin chin

Last night I went for my 1st apertivo, a phenomenon reportedly started in Turin, and saw more “young” people, i.e. people my age, than I have for previous 6 days combined! Now here’s how apertivo works: you buy your drink (my beer – albeit monstrous – was only 7 euro!), and then help yourself to as much food from the buffet as you like.

The variety in cuisine was impressive – generous blocks of cheese, meatballs, carpaccio, and various salad-y dishes – though those, and also the pasta dish came with an ample, possibly excessive, supply of creamy artery-clogging sauces. So you see the rub of the apertivo – the food, while free, might not be the height of cuisine we’ve been acclimating ourselves to at the other taste-bud-wooing establishments of Turin.

But you know what else is great about traveling – the people! And our quartetto (Syd, Lily, Trevor and I) had the fortune to meet up with Alberto and his friend Diego, who provided us many hours of entertainment & education with regard to how to order food to go, what are some good Italian movies to see, and whether Italians typically walk around with Verdi on their iPods (answer on that, so far, is no! My worldview is shattered!).

In addition to a fun, molto giggle-ando evening, I was once again reminded, and comforted even, by how small the world is (in the 6-degrees-of-separation sense). That is, Syd & Lily know Alberto because he is Filippo’s brother, who is a contact Trevor has at Telecom Italia, who lived in Berkeley for a while, and is a co-worker with Roberta who still lives in Berkeley, and who happened to call Diego (who we had only just met) while we were having apertivo.

I mean, just imagine you are sitting at a table of 6 people, and one person’s phone rings and that person casually says, oh! my friend Roberta is calling me from Berkeley! And Trevor says, hey, I know Roberta from Berkeley too!

I’d be lying if I said we all sported looks of surprise -- these kinds of things have happened to me (and I believe, most of you) so many times, any look of surprise is instantly followed by thoughts of, Si, certo! Of course an Italian we met 5,000 miles from here knows the one we met half an hour ago, and is calling right now -- of course!

And before I conclude, an informative note: when here absent pictures, try Lily's blog (there's a link to it on the right side of the webpage) -- we have kind of a tag team coverage going here....sometimes Beth isn't completely on top of keeping her camera battery charged, maybe on account of having been distracted by the dolcissimo aromas wafting in her balcony window...