Houses with the roof - Case con il tetto

So Tronk has a new obsession. It started in early January just after Santa's arrival (Tronk's former obsession). This time, there isn't a cartoon character involved, nor a car. I don't know what has triggered this new obsession but Tronk seems to be in love with houses and roofs. One day he discovered that there was a house with a roof. He was convinced that all the other houses didn't have one. I had to point at several houses in our neighborhood to explain to him that all houses come with roofs, except in Ireland of course, but he did get the concept.

Few days later, we were in the car for a trip and Tronk was pointing at every single house with the roof he could see going past. "Mamma, una casa con il tetto! C'e' una casa con il tetto! Oh, un'altra casa con il tetto! Qui c'e' una casa con il tetto e qui c'e' un'altra casa con il tetto! Che bello!" (Mom, a house with the roof! Here there is a house with the roof! Oh, another house with the roof! Here there is a house with the roof and here there is another house with the roof! How beautiful!). Comments of this kind went on and on for at least fifteen minutes. That was only the beginning, unfortunately. Not only I have had to conduct a thorough analysis of the roofs in our neighborhood each time we took a walk outside our house. More recently, Tronk has come to the conclusion that "mamma ha il tetto!" (mom has the roof), while daddy hasn't. He is not quite sure whether nonno and nonna have one but he is working on this one to find the answer.

I had days when I really didn't want to hear talking about roofs. It is easy to say "ignore him". As soon as Tronk was pointing at a brand new roof with his little hand and was asking if I liked the roof with his irresistibly sweet voice, I was back in the same exact dynamic I described six months ago; I couldn't help showing him excitement,  no matter how frustrated I was. "Oh si', che bella!" (Oh yes, how beautiful!), even if the house he had just pointed out was covered with peeling, dirty white paint. 

But today I came across these roofs of Turin, my home town, bathed in the kind of snow that I saw few times in my life. These sunshine lit white roofs bring up memories of high-school mates throwing snow balls at each other, scared of getting their coats dirty, while waiting for the 64 bus in Corso Vittorio Emanuele, cups of hot chocolate with friends and the infinite pleasure of waking up at 10 am the day after and realize, with surprise, that I didn't have to go to school.

I wonder where the chimney sweep has gone

Could be Via Accademia Albertina, the street where I used to live in a loft

Ci sono due campanili, hai ragione! (There are two bell towers, that's right!)

Thanks to these photos, my whole perspective on houses and roofs changed. I was ready to share my excitement with Tronk but instead, as soon as he saw the pictures, he went: "Che bello il campanile che fa din don dan! Fra Martino Campanaro..." (how beautiful is the bell tower that goes din don dan!  Frère Jacques, Frère Jacques...). No matter the effort I made in getting him to appreciate the beauty of my favorite roofs, Tronk got excited with the bell towers and continued to talk about them. Luckily, there are not many bell towers that look like that in Arlington, Massachusetts.