Torino

Relishing my apparently Italian laziness, I will skip my original plan to put these into a coherent narrative, and just list a bunch of things I got to enjoy in my 2 days in Turin, Italy (that's right, suckas, I get to go to Italy for work and the only catch is that I have to stay at the hotel the entire time and not see anything. but at least Italian is spoken on TV in my room).
· Conductor helping me jump onto a moving train following a frustrating though finally successful search for a ticket validation doohicky (it was nice of him)
· Train ride from turin to milan with the mountains flanking one side for most of the journey. How pretty.
· The sonic high-five of two trains passing at full speed
· The Suite 26, an "enormous room" for los italianos and las italianas of all ages, with pounding techno and great 3-person group dynamics (boy and girl making out, girl’s less attractive girlfriend unsuccesfully trying to turn hurt and insecurity into outward boredom)
· The sweet old lady at the food counter in the train station, who was nice enough to think my “accent” was french. I pulled off the order, my first successful italian feat, but was utterly stumped by the conversation that was poised to follow. All I could offer was “Ruso? Espanol?” I keep reverting to spanish as a defense mechanism.
· The pretentious exclusivito club that I stood outside of for a good 20 minutes, completely enthralled by the scene outside, as well as by a secret desire to be deemed special enough to let in without an ugly girl-in-tow covered in makeup or knowing someone at the club (the line was filled with increasingly agitated single guys looking to cajole the diminutive doormen).
· The club I did get into, filled with smoke, and lots of unhappy people dancing. One cute girl in the entire place. Where did all the beautiful women go?
· Beautiful during the day at least. At night they all go to places hidden from uninformed tourists like me.
· Oh and the block of irish pubs. Another sausage festival, but at least one of the pubs had a bunch of stocky italian guys wearing kilts and rugby shirts.
· An awesome walk around turin. The river Po. The Piazzas. The big old building with projected writing scrolling up it. The blueish backlighting all around town, especially in the big piazza. Galileo the fire twirler on via po playing with the celestial spheres in all their electrically-infused glory. The stereotypical italian babushka, hunched over and moving at a brisk block-an-hour pace. The via roma with its made up blue constellations, and thousands of designer garbage shops.
· Drunk dialing my mom, lena, and vanessa from the company cell phone.
· Oversleeping every morning by over 2 hours.
· All that work I keep thinking I will miraculously get done one of these days (1.5 days left). [I basically got it done, though "last minute " would be the euphemism of the century].
· On to milano.