Part 19: Smells like Christmas Spirit in Torino

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“I have never needed a massage more in my entire life,” I wrote in my journal on my first night in Torino. Yet here I was 10,000 miles away from my masseuse on Christmas Eve in Northern Italy.
I had to settle for a brief backrub from a kind old Romanian woman.
“There is no better option. The only way out of this is through it.” These words were my mantra, as I froze to death riding from Nice to Turin.
I climbed a mountain, 10 degrees below freezing. The French and the Italians both stared at me, wondering what would posses someone to ride an overloaded Vespa over a mountain in winter.
Oh, but it was worth it.
The sights I saw were the most beautiful I had seen in my whole life. Pastel-blue creeks running through alpine villages, creating man-made lakes and hydro-electric waterfalls; Rivendell. Still other, even more isolated villages were tucked into pockets under the shadow of the mountain. I remember uttering again and again (to no one but God), “You’ve got to be kidding,” as I redefined natural beauty in every village or valley I rode through.
The villages: Sospel (F), Breil-sur-Roya (F), Fontan (F), Tende (F) and Limone Piemonte (Italy) - visit them.
One thing I can’t understand: what is with McDonald’s in Europe. Freezing and starving, I honestly wanted to stop at McDonald’s near the town of Cuneo to warm up and eat a few McNuggets. All the indicators were positive. Before I entered the town, there was a billboard. Then there were several other signs trying to help me get there. I REALLY wanted to go to McDonald’s for once. However, as much as I alertly tried to follow their signs, I COULD NOT find the McDonald’s. I felt like a fantastic failure, to really want to find a place that WANTS to be FOUND, and unable to make the connection.
When I could not find the McDonald’s, I needed to stop somewhere and go inside. Only there was no “inside.” It is a chore to warm yourself up when you are outside and it is below freezing. But I had to do it. I stopped at an automated tollbooth station. I poured and rang the water out of my clothes. Then I started moving all of my joints. My knees were the worst. I paced around like a psychopath, and did squats. I knew I had no time to waste to beat the sunset. I had to be fast. I had to OVERCOME the cold, to beat it, to be unafraid of it.
I had to become someone who was unaffected by the cold. This was a task for my acting skills. I reached back throughout my life to a reckless character whose persona I could wear like a mask, hiding my nervous system from the impractical stress I had put upon it. Out of the abyss, the name came to me: Doug Allison.
Doug Allison was the father of the neighbor kid, back in middle school. A true American, bleeding red, white and Republican blue, you can bet he had an eagle tattoo on his back. He spoke with a voice that could sand the primer off of your Camaro.
I became Doug Allison. Doug Allison was too drunk to feel the cold. Doug Allison was too American to be scared. And most of all, Doug Allison didn’t want to be late to watch his NASCAR on TV - so he flexed every raging muscle in his body, got on that Motorbike and RODE! As I traveled on into the cold, I shouted the Star-Spangled Banner, like a prayer, until tears froze on my face.
My first communication in Italian was a total failure as well. About 40km down the road, I found a gas station with a restroom and a hand dryer. I poured a liter of water out of each of my boots and kneeled down to pray before the electric throne of warmth.
The man who sweeps the bathrooms would have none of it. I tried, in my best “lingua frozena” to depict the details of my condition. He said he didn’t care, I could not camp in front of the hand dryer. I packed up and hit the road, I had no time to spare if I was to reach Torino before night fell completely.
I reached the city at sunset. A man at another gas station gave me directions to the appropriate side of town, and I set about finding a phone to call my new hosts, Sergio and Cinzia, who had invited me to share Christmas festivities with them.
Finding a phone wasn’t so easy, but at a family owned wine shop I was given what the proprietor called “A little Italian hospitality.” He let me use the phone and soon Sergio arrived to lead me home. I bought a bottle of wine from the helpful merchant, and made it a Christmas present for my gracious new hosts.
I didn’t know much about Torino when I arrived except that it had hosted the winter Olympics and that Fiat was based there. That was okay because Sergio was happy to educate me and my Canadian travel buddy Alex Charles who joined me for the holiday season.
I hadn’t seen Alex in three years, since she was an intern at my newspaper on Molokai. She’d been spending the last two years teaching English in Spain. Though neither of us spoke passable Italian yet, I spoke a little French and she spoke essentially fluent Spanish. We found that most Italians could understand what she meant if she spoke to them in Spanish.
On the first night, we had dinner with a Romanian family. I had to borrow clothes from my host family because all of mine were soaking wet. My hosts graciously allowed me to wear Sergio’s fine sweater and their son’s jacket.
We ate food I’d never seen before, and some of it was loaded with mayonnaise. The woman who made it described how she had spent six hours laboriously preparing it, so I did my best to enjoy it!
I had to just close my eyes and swallow (shut up Gary).
I couldn’t understand much, but what I do remember was getting beat on by this Romanian-Italian kid at Playstation football (Calcio). He chose Manchester United and every time he scored on me the whole family came and slapped him on the back and told him how great he was. Every time the little punk scored on me, he would jump up and shout “Goaaaaal!”
He kept talking about Snoop Dogg, and saying how he wanted us to elect Homer Simpson as president. I said we just had 8 years of Homer Simpson, and hope to go without him for a while…
On the subject of Snoop Dogg, that was all my hosts’ son Gabrielle wanted to play, loudly, as we set up for Christmas dinner the next day. When I say “we,” I mean Sergio and Cinzia, myself and Alex. Gabrielle text messaged and smoked while lying in bed in his small room until dinner time. My entire wardrobe, which had been so wet from the day before, was drying in his room. You can guess what my clothes smelled like when I packed them up to ride the next day. Hint: it wasn’t that anamatronic Snuggle Bear.
Christmas dinner was a five-part, all-day affair, with more family constantly dropping by.
Everyone was kissing. Adorable parents and grandparents, everyone speaking in Italian. It was everything I had hoped for. Sergio’s parents were delightful to sit next to. I couldn’t understand a single word they said, but they said it so gracefully. A five-year-old girl named Stefanie sat across from me and kept smiling at me. It was very cute.
Sergio and Cinzia put on a concert for us, with him playing the guitar and her singing. I knew it was going to be excellent, as the name itself was a gem. They called it, “Smells like Christmas Spirit.” They covered many classic and forgotten English songs, many of which are included for your enjoyment with this posting.
By the end of the day, we truly felt like members of the family. Alex and I laughed until we cried though, when Cinzia began talking about seals (foca). Mixing English and Italian together in one golden sentence, she exclaimed, “I love the foca!”
Our hosts felt bad that Alex and I wouldn’t get to see much of Torino because we had to depart the next day, so they gave us a nighttime tour of the city.
They showed us where the first parliament of the Italian republic, the ancient institutions and the grand church above the city. The river Po is brilliant, and there is relatively as much art in Torino as there is in Paris (for its size).
But most interesting were the stories of the underside of Torino. Sergio called it the most magical city in the world, where some believe a black mass is held somewhere every night. He showed us the zodiac signs glowing from the sidewalks, and explained that Turin was located at the intersection of two triangles - black and white magic.
Alex visited a museum in the morning before taking the train, and I headed off early on my Vespa to blaze a trail down to Genova. In a patch of gravel, 10km from Alessandra, I paused to read a road sign with 7 arrows pointing a sinistra, and 8 arrows pointing a destra - none of them were pointing to my destination.
As I hit the brakes to buy myself more time to navigate, the motorbike slipped on the gravel and I went into the ditch.
To be continued…

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Photos

cinzia
mmmm...tasty

Sospel
One beautiful city I drove through in the freezing mountains

Tende
Even more beautiful when covered in snow

sergioparents
Our host Sergio, with his parents

Dinner
Christmas dinner

parliament
funkadelic

torino at night
love the colors

Comments

[Sergio]

Mah!
Questa pagina di diario è scritta in maniera molto giornalistica e poco veritiera. Brennan dice che alla cena della vigilia di Natale tutti i cibi erano a base di maionese. In realtà c'era solo l'insalata russa (che non conosci perché sei statunitense; forse preferisci il McNugget del McDonald's) che la signora che ti ospitava ha impiegato sei ore a preparare, perché ha tagliato tutte le verdure a mano. Quindi, per lo meno, un po' di rispetto. Altro che chiudere gli occhi e buttare giu... Inoltre ti ho visto mangiare, perché ero seduto alla tua destra e mi pare che tu abbia mangiato a quattro palmenti, facendo spesso il bis e il tris... Poi è divertente ma falso che ogni volta che il ragazzo rumeno segnava un punto alla Play station ogni membro della famiglia andava a battergli la mano sulla spalla e a complimentarsi con lui. Inoltre il ragazzo non ha nulla di punk, come si può anche constatare dal video che hai pubblicato. Gabriele (Gabriele e non Gabrielle) non ha passato tutto il giorno di Natale a letto a fumare. Se poi i tuoi abiti puzzavano un po' di fumo, che dire: ringrazia che ti abbiamo prestato i nostri e che abbiamo asciugati i tuoi, altrimenti saresti andato in giro bagnato come un pulcino. Insomma, dal quadro che hai tracciato della tua permanenza da noi risulta un panorama da divertente paese del terzo mondo... Infine credo che non sia legale pubblicare fotografie di minori senza autorizzazione. Buon viaggio e torna a trovarci quando vuoi. Ciao. Sergio

[Dolemitesprint]

Mi amico Sergio
Awww, Sergio ... noi vi amiamo e Cinzia e amato il nostro tempo con voi. Non ritengo che il mio blog di giornalismo, che viene pubblicato esclusivamente per intrattenere i miei amici a casa e le persone che incontro nel mio viaggio. Mi rendo conto ogni singola cosa che hai fatto per us.I anche apprezzare il fatto che il tuo amico trascorso sei ore preparare il cibo che abbiamo mangiato - è per questo che ho mangiato tanto. Non ho mai solito mangiare di tutto con la maionese perché mi fa male. Alex and I love you very much. Alcuni dettagli sono solo aggiunti per intrattenere.

[Brandy]

I like how you keep slipping in car facts. Jeff could care less about cars, but I'm totally wowed by some of the stuff you've seen, including the cars. :D You seem to be enjoying the beautiful scenery and hospitality. I would've thought food too, but... well, didn't you get enough mayo in HI? :P