Il Mio Weekend a Torino… [Part 2]

Waking up early the next morning wasn’t exactly easy, but we did it because we were excited to start our exploration of the rest of the city. After showering and getting dressed, we headed downstairs to our free hotel breakfast. It was exactly as I expected it to be and just the same as every other hotel breakfast that I have had in Italy in my time here. There was juice, a little bit of cereal, coffee (of course), cornetti, rolls, and ham and cheese. We both ate as many little ham and cheese sandwiches as could and then set off. We decided to take the tram into the central part of the city since it had taken us such a long time to walk it the morning before, and since we still had the bus tickets from the night before, we figured, “Why not?” We sat on the tram for about ten to fifteen minutes and then got off when we were close to the train station. We wanted to head there since we sort of knew in which directions to head once we got there. Getting off the tram, we followed this little old man with a book to the train station. He heard us speaking English on the tram and was overly eager to help us out in his broken English. All the Italians that we met in Torino were overly nice and cheery; quite a change from the usual snobby and rude population of Urbino. He led us towards the train station then bid us farewell and good luck, and we thanked him for his help. We made our way to the tourist info point and picked up a map of the city. I really wanted to see the Mole and the Egyptian Museum, and since they wee both in the same direction we started to head in towards them. As we were walking in that direction it brought us to Piazza San Carlo, a giant piazza that Torino is known for and beautiful even if there was scaffolding all around it. The Egyptian Museum was pretty amazing. From what I remember, it has the 2^nd largest collection of Egyptian artifacts after Cairo. We saw a few mummies, even mummified children; some feelings you just can’t describe properly and that was one of those moments. We saw some of Nefertiti’s stuff and a million other things. I couldn’t grasp just how old these artifacts were, and the fact that they were in such great shape. The one room we went into was absolutely breathtaking and had giant statues of the gods everywhere. I was in awe. After exploring the museum, and restraining from spending every cent we had in the gift shop (the things in there were amazing and I’ve always been in love with Egyptian history; I ended up getting an Egyptian bull which I thought was appropriate since I was in Torino), we left and started walking towards the Mole. Hunger overcame us, and we went into a little restaurant that was barely visible due to scaffolding. I was side tracked by the Juventus Store, where I ended up getting a much needed bookbag since my other bag was starting to rip and quit on me. We walked through a mini market of food, soaps, oils, wines, and everything I wanted but could not buy because of the price and because I wouldn’t have been able to take it back with me. We’d stop to take pictures every once in awhile, and soon enough the Mole was viewable from a park. It wasn’t too much longer after that that we were right next to it. What a gorgeous building! We waited in line to get into the museum, and only after about 20 minutes of waiting did the lady tell us that this was the wrong line. We went right in after that, and were amazed but the Cinema museum inside. Having taken Italian Society and Film and Italian Cinema, I was even more interested in the things that were inside considering I had learned about them. They had everything related to film that you could thing of; it even went all the back to shadow puppets! There were rooms galore of different ways and places to watch films, such as a “bathroom” theater, and a few giant theaters showing old Italian movies that you could just lay down and watch! What a museum! I got some really bad vertigo though when we finished walking to the top of the stairs and I looked down; that gave me a mini panic-attack and half. By the time we left the museum, it was dark out. When the sun sets in Torino, the Christmas lights come out! It’s such a beautiful city! We didn’t want to stop walking around the city because it was just so pretty. We slowly made our way back to our hotel, and realized that it was actually really early when we arrived; it was only about eight thirty. At this point though, we were absolutely exhausted from the day before and all the travelling and walking we had done combined with everything we had just done. We chilled in our beds, watched some TV shows online, and read from our new books (I bought the first two Harry Potter books in Italia). We ended up passing out not much later. We woke up early again, ate our free breakfast, jammed ourselves onto the tram that was more packed than the ones I was on in Istanbul, and made our way to the train station. When we checked the times to return home, the cheapest ticket was not until 6:30pm. We shrugged our shoulders, got the tickets, and walked around the city again. We discovered some new pretty little areas, and one with a gorgeous fountain / mini park. We kept walking around, and ended up not knowing exactly where we were because we lost track of the roads, but figured eventually we’d end up back near the train station. Somehow, I don’t know how, that’s just what happened. We ended up at the train station but walking in from a completely different direction than we had started. What were the chances? The way back was just as long and cold as the way to Torino, and we didn’t end up passing out on our beds until around 9 am the next morning.