A day at the Giro d'Italia

I've always watched the Giro d'Italia and Tour de France on television and thought about cool it would be to go and watch a stage. I actually did see some Giro riders outside Turin when I was here on Study Abroad in 1993, but we'd just happened upon them, and it's not like I was paying much attention.
I probably would have gone to watch this year anyway, but Deirdre, Bret and Nate's visit sealed the deal. Bret's a triathlete and big cycling fan, and we started planning a stage viewing as soon as we knew they were coming.
We settled on Thursday, which was Stage 18, and ultimately settled on the end of the stage, San Pellegrino Terme, as our viewing area.
My friend John, whom I worked with in Denver, provided some early logistical tips. He's now in Toronto but has lived in Italy on and off the past several years (his wife, Stefania, is Italian), and he's a cyclist, too.
As I said to another cycling enthusiast friend on Facebook this weekend, it's amazing how simple it is to go and watch a stage. The biggest issue is transportation -- this was true for San Pellegrino Terme in particular because of its lack of train service -- but hello, we have a car. Finding parking was one of my big concerns, but it turned out that the San Pellegrino plant (where the water is bottled) opened its parking lot for spectators. Best of all, it was free.
The one glitch in the day was when we didn't end up at the finish line because we'd picked the wrong side of the street to walk on. By the time we realized there wasn't a way though to the end -- at least not a way to get through with strollers -- the barriers had been locked down, so we just parked ourselves at an open spot. It was about 1,100 meters from the finish, so we missed the final sprint. But we had a great view without having to wrestle a larger crowd, which I think was a fair tradeoff.
And, despite its small size and relative lack of tourism-related information readily available, San Pellegrino Terme is a lovely little town.
It was a bit cloudy when we arrived, which ended up being nice because we could avoid the bright sun for a while.

I thought these trees in the playground we visited before the riders came by were cool. Schools, offices and many stores had closed early because of the race, so the whole town was out walking and playing.

A three-man breakaway led the day. The rider in the green helmet (barely visible in this photo) won the stage.

After the leaders went by, a group near us lost interest and walked away, so we were able to move for a better view of the main peloton rounding this corner.

My photos of the peloton ended up pretty blurry (I was holding Owen and the camera by this point), but I did get this slightly better focused shot of the team cars bringing up the rear.

It looked like the whole town had gotten into the spirit of decorating for the race. There were pink banners, balloons, ribbons and other decorations everywhere. (Pink is the color of the Giro, similar to how yellow is for the Tour de France, because the pages of the race's sponsor, La Gazetta dello Sport, are pink.)

As we walked around after the race, we saw a group of kayakers in the Brembo River, which runs through town. This one had decorated his kayak with a stray pink balloon.
Laura was at school Thursday and is kind of irked she missed out on the fun, so I expect we'll have to do something similar next year. Now we just have to persuade Deirdre, Bret and Nate to make another trip ...

Paris to the Moon by Adam Gopnik

This isn't a recent book -- it covers the years 1995 to 2000 -- but I happened upon it in the consulate's "library" one day and realized I'd never read it. And ...
It wasn't really as good as I'd hoped. It's a series of essays about the time Adam Gopnik and his wife and son spend living in Paris, and it rubbed me wrong in an "I'm cooler than you because I lived in Paris and you haven't" sort of way.
Well, Adam Gopnik is cooler than me because he writes for The New Yorker, too, but that doesn't mean I want to read a lot about that.
I can't say I completely disliked the book, though, because I think some of the essays are really good -- particularly the one about swimming at the Ritz -- and if I lived in Paris or was planning on moving there, I think I'd appreciate its perspective.
So if you're dreaming of Paris, or of giving up one great life for another that's just as great in a different kind of way, this book may indeed be for you.

I'd always wanted one of these

I finally had one two years ago, although back then he looked more like this:
Happy birthday to my Owen. Right now he's enjoying an early nap on my lap, the result of having woken up much too early. It's a hard life, you know.

Apparently I look either young or old. So which is it?

Two funny stories ...
Friday I went to pick Laura up at a birthday party, and the mom of the birthday girl -- whom I'd never met -- said to me, "Wow, you're really young!"
I guess I was somewhat flattered although of course it's not true. Maybe wearing jeans and Skechers instead of stilettos takes a few years off a person?
But never fear, the moment didn't last long. Today I was in a pharmacy filling a prescription for Owen (whose fever returned, requiring a visit to the doctor today), when one of the employees presented me with samples of products she said will reduce the appearance of the lines around my eyes and mouth (among other magical things, I'm sure).
I'm joking with the title of this post, though. If anyone who reads this has an opinion on whether I look either old or young, I think I'd prefer you keep that to yourself.

Look! I'm on a gondola! (An Owen photo essay)

Since I was crazy enough to take my active toddler on a gondola in Venice, I also needed a way to entertain him. Enter our old Sony camera, his favorite plaything. I was quite shocked that he got some shots not of himself.

Do you think I can get our gondolier to try to ram that other guy's?

Wow, the sun's bright today. I'm gonna call this "Under the Venetian Sun."

Look, Mom! Candy canes!

Holding the camera at an angle makes for a very artistic photo.

Is this the Venetian equivalent of an El Camino?

Yes, my sister was there, too.

My signature shot.

There you have it, my ride on a gondola. I don't think my mom will be quite so adventurous again.

Another country, another emergency room

Owen developed a high fever some time late Saturday night or early Sunday morning, and with the addition of some odd, blister-looking welts on his legs and abdomen Sunday afternoon, a visit to the doctor was in order. Of course, it being Sunday afternoon and all, that meant the emergency room at the public pediatric hospital.
Despite a very poorly placed emergency room -- a friend who has had two babies at this hospital and still makes regular visits there agrees with me on this -- it was a fairly uneventful trip. The staff was nice, some of them spoke some English, and it was decided there wasn't anything horrific wrong with the 13.6 kilogram toddler. (That's around 30 pounds for anyone who's wondering.)
Today he seems pretty much back to normal, which is good since I haven't been able to reach the pediatrician to see whether she wants to see him in the office.
Let's hope we've met our emergency room quota for this particular Foreign Service tour ...

Adventures in northern Italy: Venice

My best friend, Deirdre; her husband, Bret; and their son, Nathan, are here for a few days, so we made a day trip to Venice on Saturday.
I'd been to Venice once, in 1993, and thought I remembered it pretty well. And I did except for the stairs. I guess being young, single and mobile meant I didn't notice them all, and let's just say that I'll think long and hard about ever visiting Venice with kids in strollers ever again.
But we were there, and there were things to be seen. So we traipsed through St. Mark's and took a gondola ride and did some wandering. Those of us over the age of 11 were able to hold it together all day, but I can't really say the same for Laura, Nate or Owen. Oh, well, life goes on.
Here's a little of what we saw:

The Doge's Palace, which we didn't go in.

Cool overhead arches on a side street.

Zillions of Venetian lions.

Exterior of St. Mark's.

Campanile (not climbed by Laura or any of the rest of us).

Rialto Bridge.

You get the idea. A few hours, lots of sights, lots of walking and lugging strollers up and down stairs. Yay us!

I finally got a photo

of that interesting -- and by interesting I mean disturbing -- art installation outside the Palazzo Reale. Yeah, this is the one:Yeah, dead horses rising out of a mountain of salt are all kinds of interesting, aren't they? I guess there was some damage to it after AC Milan won the Serie A title a couple of weeks ago (some fans attacked, for lack of a better word). I'll be interested to see what springs up on the piazza next.

All of these things are not like the others

This week we got new license plates for our car. When Kevin brought them home, he warned me that he'd learned when he'd removed the old plates that both a Phillips-head and flat-head screwdriver were required for such license-plate related jobs. No big deal, I thought. It's not hard to carry two screwdrivers down to the garage to put the new plates on.
I started with the rear plate. The holes didn't line up exactly, but all four screws were Phillips-head ones, and I got the plate on without too much of a problem. Then I moved to the front ...
I'm not going to blame Volvo for this problem, because it's obvious the screws in question aren't original to the car. But seriously, people?!? Not only was one of the screws a flat-head one, it wasn't even long enough to hold anything in place. And none of the remaining three screws, although all Phillips-head ones, matched each other. One of them did look a little like the four on the rear plate, so perhaps those five are the "real" ones that came with the car back in 2001 or 2002 or whenever it was manufactured.
Does any of this matter in the eternal scheme of things? No, of course not. But it's just another thing to add to the list of issues that drive me crazy. And as we all know, I'm plenty crazy enough already.

Bidet art

Now I know the answer to the "What in the world have you been doing?" question I asked Laura when it was time for her to be ready for school and she wasn't. Why in the world she left her origami handiwork on the side of the bidet is another question entirely ...

Impressionists in Milan

There's a big Impressionist exhibit at the Palazzo Reale we kept talking about going to see but hadn't. Thursday, Kevin, Owen and I finally trekked over, although of course Owen didn't do much other than get pushed in his stroller, carried and stuffed with crackers. (Laura was on a weeklong field trip to Switzerland but wouldn't have been with us anyway since it was during the school day.)
I'm a big Renoir fan, and of course he's well-represented:
The paintings are from the Sterling and Francine Clark collection, which is based in the U.S. You can read more about the exhibition and the Clark Institute here.
I've just finished reading a book (more on it later) that makes the point that Americans are far more enamored with Impressionism than the French ever have been. Perhaps that's true. Even though I don't consider Impressionism to be my favorite style of painting, I definitely can identify more Impressionist masters' works more quickly than Renaissance ones. It's not like I've gone out of my way to study them, either.
So, I liked the exhibit and recommend it if you're in Milan (or will be here before June 19). Pay particular attention to the Renoirs, won't you?

I wonder how much that cost them

I was waiting to cross Corso Vercelli -- one of Milan's big shopping streets -- yesterday when I noticed a taxi drive by. That there was a taxi wasn't at all unusual, but I noticed it because it was silver, not white like most of the ones around town. And it was a Mercedes, which also was a bit unusual for a taxi.
As it got closer, I noticed I didn't recognize the name of the taxi company (there really aren't that many, so a different one stood out). And finally, as it drove on by, I realized the car had Swiss license plates.
Seriously? Someone took a taxi from Switzerland to Milan? Even if it was from one of the closest cantons, wouldn't that be a bit pricey? I hope for their sake they negotiated a rate ahead of time and weren't going by the meter.

Happy Mother's Day!

This week on Facebook many people are using pictures of their mothers as their profile photos. I was considering tracking down a copy of a photo I'm pretty sure my mom think she destroyed, which shows her wearing a miniskirt sometime around 1970. But alas a quick search didn't yield it, so I used another photo instead.
During that search I also found this photo, which is of my mom with her mother (actually stepmother, although she was raised by her) and surving siblings in 2003.
And this is from my great-grandmother's 100th birthday party that same year:
And in 2006, someone was able to corner my mom while she was by herself during a visit to Riverbanks Zoo in Columbia, S.C. Lovely, isn't she?
So Happy Mother's Day, Mom! And FYI, I will eventually find the miniskirt photo ...

Recent Owen self-portraits

Because I know the reason all of you read this blog is for the toddler-produced cuteness and humor, here goes.
In the language classroom at the consulate:
In the entryway of our apartment:
In the car:
At the Giardini di Villa Reale:
Not a self-portrait, but he's proud of his recycling-related "help":
Another car shot, this one from the trip to Pisa:
Yeah, it's a hard life being almost 2.

That tower in Pisa you've probably heard of

We made a trek to Pisa (and the U.S. Army base in Livorno) over the weekend. I'd been to Pisa in 1993, but that was back when they were afraid the Leaning Tower was going to topple over at any minute and no one was allowed near it. Things are a bit different now. It's still leaning, of course:But it's open for climbing again. (That's Laura and Kevin waving on the far left.)
Kids younger than 8 aren't allowed to go up, so I stayed down with Owen. He didn't seem to mind because he got to do some running around the Baptistery (and chasing of doggies, which I didn't get photos of).
We also visited the Duomo:
It has some artistically significant works, including a pulpit by Giovanni Pisano and some Byzantine mosaics.
The Field of Miracles -- the official name of the Duomo complex -- is a UNESCO World Heritage Site. It's a very popular stop on most people's Italian itineraries, and I was thankful it wasn't incredibly crowded Saturday. The Leaning Tower is the main attraction, of course, but the surrounding buildings have some interesting things, too. And now that the tower is stabilized, clean and scaffolding-free, it's much better than I found it back in 1993.