Anywho, I digress …

My friend, Mhairi

A little over 7 years ago I took a trip to Turin with a friend.  It was my first visit to Italy.  The main reasons for going were to increase the number of my country points and to honor my favorite movie – The Italian Job.  I didn’t have far to go as I was in Grenoble as the director of a research lab.  Although the lab was in France, I actually lived in Menlo Park.  I did rather a lot of flying.

I was in the top frequent flier tier of 3 airlines.  I had air miles up the wazoo, which is not a great place to keep them.  But keep them I did.  Flying was not what I wanted to do when I took a holiday!

Anywho, I digress …

It was a weekend jaunt and we wanted to see, eat and drink everything.  We spent two days seeing the sites, eating, drinking and being merry 🙂

Neither of us spoke much Italian and thus we made some errors in the food department.

Octopi, octopuses and octopodes are not beans

We were pretty sure that we ordered Bean Soup, but what arrived at the table had more in common with an aquarium than any kind of soup that I wanted to eat.  It was full of tiny octopi!  I didn’t touch it, but it made for a great photo.

I was under the impression that Zabaglione was a creamy custard dessert.  It is not.  What we got was 90% alcohol and very runny.  What a rosy-cheeked afternoon!

Out walking, after we saw the reproduction Shroud of Turin and the chest containing the real one, I saw a Shar Pei for only the second time in 20 years.  Since then I have seen quite a few, even a puppy that was just the most fabulous collection of wrinkles I have ever seen 🙂

It was a great trip with a good friend.  I’ll miss you Mhairi.

Lisa.