Sunday, May 18, 2008

Back from Turin

Well, as quickly as we were gone; we're back. About 44 hours dealing with travel compared with 20 hours of KMS meetings at UNICRI plus another 12 hours of formal socializing. We got out for a couple hours late on Friday afternoon in a light drizzle for a bit of shopping: perfume, chocolates, and a glass paperweight.

Dinner was at a nearby restaurant called Kipling for reasons that are still unclear to me, but the food and wine were excellent. The starter was beautiful tray of three seafood appetizers: salmon with mango chutney, a whitefish (BaccalĂ ) with capers, and black pepper-encrusted tuna with a balsamic reduction sauce. For the first plate, I had gnocchi in a very fresh and light tomato-basil sauce. The second plate consisted of seabass filets wrapped around asparagus with a butter sauce and the slightest drizzle of balsamic. Combined with a fine Barolo, it made an excellent repast.

But Saturday morning, after a restless night with poor sleep, we were up at 4:00. We were off to the airport around 5:30 after a bit of a struggle getting a taxi. The flight to Paris left at 7:00 and only took an hour or so. After a three-hour layover in CDG, we were off again, this time to Atlanta.

At first blush it could have been horrible--I was seated next to a small infant--but she was amazingly well behaved and quiet the entire trip, even on descent when ear-troubles bother most children. The furry one quickly made friends and the long flight across the Atlantic was a pleasant one.













After a dash through passport control, customs, and ATL, we caught our flight home with about ten minutes to spare. Even though only 3-1/2 hours long, we were in a window seat and that always makes for a claustrophobic flight despite the view. We much prefer aisle seats.

Next thing we knew, we were home in Albuquerque, about 24 hours after we had awakened and it was only 6:30 PM Saturday. Like Dickens' ghosts of Christmas, we had done it all in one day.

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