Torino Revisited

7/28 - Back to Torino

The train from Saluzzo had only two cars, so small was this little outpost. It was drizzling a little as we arrived in Torino, and after purchasing a bus ticket, I hopped on the No. 52, which was headed for the hostel.

When I asked the bus driver about the stop I was looking for, he didn't quite understand me, but my question was answered by a kid sitting at the front of the bus. Thanking him, I took my seat, and thought again about Claudio's joke. Did this kid fit the "sex, cars, and motorcycles" sterotype? Dressed with the tight black jeans and sneakers with fluorescent green laces of a punk, he was also heavily absorbed by a book, and had the face and energy of a good person. No, I thought, this kid does not fit the stereotype. I bet he's a really good kid, and very studious.

I switched my attention to my journal, but when the stop came, he helped me again by letting me know that it was coming up. I lugged my backpack off the bus, and I saw that he was waiting for me to get off. He pointed me in the direction of the hostel, explained how to get there, and, as an aside, asked my nationality.

When I told him I was American, his face lit up, and he responded in nearly flawless English that his mother was an American from Chicago. He and I got to talking, a little in Italian and a little in English, and after 5 minutes of conversation, he pointed across the street and said, "hey, there's my mom!" The 18-year-old boy, whose name was Gianluca, introduced me to his mother Diana and her boyfriend Marco, and had me recount the purpose of my trip to them as well.

They liked the idea of the trip, we got to talking, and before I knew it, I was headed up the stairs to their home for dinner and to spend the night!

After a low key but delicious meal of prosciutto and melon and pasta on their balcony, which had lovely views of the city, we talked until sunset. We then went into the kitchen for the obligatory after-dinner coffee, and I managed to convince the then-tired Gianluca to go on a small evening walk with me.

From then on, Gianluca would speak primarily in English, and I would speak primarily in Italian, and we would interrupt our conversation frequently with discussions about various fine grammatical points. I, for example, explained to him the difference between good and well, as well as the use of I instead of me in "you are better at this than I." He explained that in order to say "I believe them" you should say credo loro instead of gli credo.

He showed me various parts of the city, talked about the history of Torino, and we went for a beer at an Irish pub. Finally, at 2 in the morning, in the midst of a full-blown discussion about whether or not it is acceptable for a nation to invade another nation when that nation is habitually slaughtering its own people, I told him that it was time for me to go to bed, and I hit the sack hard.

The next day, Gianluca graciously spent the entire day showing me around Torino. We saw the famous Cinema museum at the Molo (which is more or less the symbol of Torino), had lunch with his girlfriend, went back to Grom (the Gelateria), went to the Egyptian museum (the second biggest after Cairo), and then he walked me back to his house.

Since his girlfriend was going on vacation in a few days, I said goodbye to him then. I stayed a bit longer in the house speaking with Diana and Marco. Marco painstakingly went over the map of Piedmont with me, and we traced out the path that I should take to Genova. He then graciously offered me the map, and we went to the computer to check out the selection of accommodations at the towns I had selected along my path.

Once he had given me a couple minutes to check my email, I said goodbye, posed for a few pictures, thanked both Diana and Marco, and made my way to the hostel, but not before they had loaded me up with tuna, fruit, and crackers.

I simply cannot believe my good fortune in meeting such wonderful people. In fact, Diana, Marco and I had spoken about it at length during the previous evening's dinner. Diana and Marco both agreed that my "journey" was more characteristic of their generation (that of the 1960s) than my own. The fact that I have found so many good people, they said, was because I was looking for them, something that is not done very often in our day and age. The hypothesis that "if you look for the good in people, you are bound to find it" is indeed a relic from a different time, and I must admit that in my case it has been borne out by experience (so far, at least). The only thing that I could think of to connect this anachronism to my generation is that this trip does not have the loftier goal of world peace so much as it is my own (selfish) desire for the accumulation of individual experiences.

That said, I will now cut this post short. Today is the 30th of July, and while I was supposed to head out toward Alba this morning, I needed to make sure that I got everything squared away in the blog and photo world. Since it will be late afternoon by the time I figure everything out, I will stay one more night in Torino, and try to leave very early tomorrow morning. One more gelato from Grom wouldn't kill me, either.