Finally, I finish off my Torino journal and can get back to doing other stuff on my blog! For previous entries in my Torino Journal, see Day One, Day Two, Day Three, or Day Four and Five.

We got up on the morning of our 6th full day in Europe early enough to head in to the conference area for the last day of the conference. The talks were pretty interesting, including a couple of cool ones from the computer billiard people. After the conference we decided to head off to some touristy stuff. We chose the mole (pronounced mole-lay) which is a cinema museum and incidentally the tallest building in the city. Apparently, the building was started by a religious group. However, they ran out of funding so the city bought it from them and now its in its current state - a cinema museum.

Before checking out the museum which we could see for free due to our conference passes, we bought tickets for the elevator. This really was something else. The elevator had no dedicated shaft. Instead, its cables hung visible from everywhere in the building. The elevator had glass sides which meant we could see almost the entire museum as we ascended to the roof.

The view from the top was incredible. The signature red roofs spread out in every direction and nestled and climbed the surrounding mountains. It was an awesome sight. We wandered around taking photos of the area before we descended again and checked out the museum.

The museum was pretty neat, though because I'm not a huge movie go-er, a lot of references were lost on me. Still, the setup was pretty neat. Outside of the elevator I already described, there was a small amount to see before you made it to the main room, but after that the remainder of the museum used the entire inside of the building. A ramp built along the wall wrapped around the building a few times with pictures and movie displays set up all along it. After checking out the ramp, you can then descend to the floor where several little themed movie watching areas around the wall. The main floor held several comfy lounging chairs with speakers in them for watching movies projected on two large screens. Coool!

We wandered around for awhile and then left deciding we needed to head back to the oval to check out the end of the pool competition. Turns out things got a little intense. The first place winner (Mike from the UofA!) was well out in front, but the 2nd and 3rd place programs actually tied in the standings!

After the tournament we were late for our reservation at the conservatorio ... but we headed there anyway hoping we hadn't ruffle too many feathers. The food was just as good as last time, but it was missing the atmosphere of the first night. It was pretty late and the staff we had befriended were not on hand to banter with as we had the first night we ate there. Too bad we didn't get there on time, though I'm not too sure if they were all working there that night or not.

Anyways, this time we took a cab to our hotel room and again sat down to play some cards before bed. It was pretty fun, but we were up until a pretty late hour. We slept in pretty late the next day before finally rising and facing our last full day in Torino.

What was neat about this day was my friend Madeleine had been spending the last few weeks touring Europe on her own. She happened to be in Lyon when we got to Torino, and conveniently enough, she was close enough to catch a train over to see me! So she hopped on a train and we met her at one of the train stations in Torino.

From the train station, the group of us (being Phil, Broderick, Madeleine and I) traveled to Madeleine's hostel to drop off her luggage. From there we went to the egyptian museum which is apparently the largest one outside of Egypt itself. It was pretty neat with many interesting things to look at and take photos of. The interesting part of this story is ... we kinda accidentally walked in a side door and didn't pay for tickets. Honestly, this wasn't on purpose ... but also us conference goers would have received free admission anyways with our security passes. So the museum wasn't really missing out on anything it would have got in the first place.

We wandered around for awhile ... in particular, we were trying to find a replica of the Rosetta stone that we had seen mentioned in one of our tour guide books. We finally found it - near the front of the exhibit which we had conveniently missed when we came in the side door. *oops!*.

After exploring the museum we wandered back outside to find some Italian gelato. After all, it was one of the remaining Italian foods I had yet to try! We enjoyed our treat immensely.

Next, we wandered back across the river Po to a church on a high hill in the city we had seen. Unfortunately, it was closed ... but we did get a tremendous view of the city (not quite as amazing as from the mole, but still rather nice).

I was quite tired at that point, so once we descended from there I really felt like taking a break. We stopped at another little church which also was closed and then sat down for a rest. Our conference dinner was fast approaching though so our rest was shortlived before we hiked back downtown to the fancy restaurant the conference people had reserved for us. The organizers let Madeleine stay for dinner for a fee, which was pretty nice of them (I wasn't really sure whether I should ask or not, but it was nice to see Madeleine a little longer).

The dinner was ... a little odd. After having so much simple but good Italian food, the food almost was ... too complex? We ate, and I guess it tasted alright. However, I was a little underwhelmed for a dinner that reportedly cost a great deal more than I would be comfortable paying. Oh well. The speeches took a whole lot longer than necessary, but such is the way these things go.

We returned to the hotel late ... and since our plane departed in the morning at 6:00, we really needed to be there at a ridiculous hour in order to check in. We got there via taxi since no other form of transportation would take us there at that hour. We got on our plane and were already on our way back home.

My strategy for the flight home was to attempt to stay awake the whole time since we were getting back to Edmonton around 8:30. I drifted off a few times, but not for very long and overall, my strategy seemed to work. We had another tough 5 hour layover in Frankfurt, which was more than a little challenging to make it through without falling asleep. Not a lot of items to mention happened on the trip home ... it was a pretty nondescript flight back which was nice I suppose.

I finally returned home after the very long travel time and was glad to be back in some ways. Certainly, it was good to be back in Diane's arms! I kind of miss Italy, particularly the food ... but its also very nice to be home. I think I can't wait for my next overseas trip!

Heraldk