Friday, 20 October (Day Thirty-three)
This morning when I looked out of the window I was shocked to see how foggy it was. I hoped this meant we were in for a warm day.
Since Esmeralda was visiting for the weekend, top of my mind was shopping for food. My plan was to consider going from the station to a café (perhaps Cianci Piola), spend Saturday looking around the markets and a bit in the centre, then out for dinner and a bit of evening walking, then Sunday to invite Liat for lunch and go to the Mole. I’d see how it all works out.
Krish wanted to go back to Lingotto and Eataly so off we went. The metro gets you there pretty quickly and once off the train you’re at the side of the Lingotto shopping mall, where the hotel is. We found a funicular to go up to the shopping mall but didn’t stay very long. We were looking for the Hotel since we’d heard that the lobby was very interesting.
In fact, it was a lovely hotel lobby. Right in the centre at the back was a Lancia on display – gorgeous car. The lobby is filled with white upholstered furniture. Also in the lobby were two flight attendants and a pilot, perhaps Air Italia. The flight attendants were both tall, slim and had their long blond hair in a bun. Almost twins! They glided around the lobby while the pilot read some notes and we wandered down a glass walled and ceilinged corridor – on either side was a very lush garden of bamboo, palm, and other trees. A lovely green area. I went out for a minute to breathe in the scent of it.
From here we went to Eataly to see the food. We weren’t convinced it would be affordable or decent but it was actually very nice. The prices were fairly high but the quality was high too. We checked out the cheeses, the fish and meat, vegetables, pasta and were very tempted by the eating areas but decided against eating here. We wanted to move on to the 24 hour grocery store to replenish our food supplies.
It took two buses about twenty minutes each to get where we needed to be. It’s a large 24 hour Carrefour in a residential area not too far from the Olympic village. We still find the prices of food high and the selection foreign or small but there’s most of what we want here, except hummus. Try as I might and surprising myself by knowing how to ask for hummus in Italian (crema de ceci) it’s a mystery to the store staff. We happen upon some, though, and risk a small tub. It’s going towards Sunday’s lunch, along with raw vegetables – something I’ve been really missing. Hummus is pretty awful in Italy so I’m going to have to ‘doctor’ it with olive oil, garlic and lemon.
Once home I had a little time to spare before going to see Esmeralda arrive at Porta Nuova. She arrives on time and we get back to the flat where I’ve made matzo ball soup for our dinner earlier in the day.
All is well.