So I'm starting to think I'm so far behind on this thing that I might as well just fast forward to the present and fill the last month in as I go. Hope that works, because I want to talk about what happened last night.
At the stroke of midnight - or 00:00 on my clock for Euro time - I wake up to the sound of this pop pop popping noise outside of my window (I guess I shouldn't really call it a window b/c they're two glass doors that I can open with a little porch on the outside). I'm still half asleep, but I walk over to the doors and look outside and there's a full fireworks show going on just over the mountains near our house.
This wasn't a small neighborhood show, either. Full blown fireworks, like the 4th in Chicago. I had to pinch myself for a second to make sure I wasn't dreaming, but then I just stood there and watched them go off from my balcony. It was so surreal, I felt like I was having my own private show. Everyone else was dead asleep and the wind was still, which made it extremely quiet in the fields and up into the hills a few miles off - except for the fireworks. Every time one would go off the entire landscape would light up and you could see the red roofs and rolling hills for miles and miles. So beautiful.
I told Sarah about it today and she said she thought there might be a festa that just ended a few towns over. Apparently their big bang of an ending usually happens on Monday nights. Weird, right? I'm not sure what kids were still up at midnight, but this is Italy. The rules are totally different here! It was definitely a night I won't ever forget.
Tuesday, May 12, 2009
Tuesday, May 5, 2009
Nice, France
During Easter weekend we decided to explore the Italian/French Riviera and visit Nice, Monaco and Genoa, Italy. I’ve heard so many times from various people how beautiful this area of the world is, and now I can most definitely say I know exactly what they’re talking about.
The plan was to drive to Nice on Saturday and spend an entire day and night there. It was about a six hour drive from Vicenza, and once we reached the water near Genoa (look on a map for where I’m talking about) we hit the most amazing mountains that ran right into the water. I didn’t get a lot of pictures because I was just staring with my mouth open for most of the drive, but here’s one that’s decent:
Before we reached Nice, we stopped by the Fragonard Parfumeur, a perfumery named after the famous painter Jean-Honoré Fragonard and established in 1782.
They have the factory we visited in Ese (above is the entrance), a store and museum in Grasse and another store in Paris. We were able to get a tour of the factory and see how the perfume is made. The first thing we did on the tour was test our sense of smell. Here is the board of 8 different scents we had to identify:
I had a serious headache by the time I finished sniffing all of the little bottles, but it was a fun exercise :). Here is our lovely tour guide talking about the laboratory behind us and how certain people had the job of the “smeller,” where they would literally sit there and smell stuff all day long to see what would make a good perfume:
Fragonard also makes scented soaps, and we caught some of the employees carving the soaps into little ducks:
Either she hates her job or she just hates American tourists (she’s French so my guess is #2).
Here’s a woman filling up some of the scented lotions they sell:
And then we bought some expensive, smelly goodies and walked out to the parking lot, which looked like this:
After the perfumery we spent a good two hours driving through the mountains to reach Nice, and once we did we slowly descended down one of the mountains and onto the coast.
Since we were near the water we were hoping to have some nice, warm weather, but we weren’t so lucky. The temperature wasn‘t exactly beach-worthy, so we just walked along the beachfront, called the promenade des Anglais, and took a few pictures:
That's Russ and his daughter Caitlin, frolicking on the beach :).
We stopped at one of the outdoor cafes for lunch. Here's Melissa (right) and Maritza at the table with Le Chateau (the hill in the center) in the background. There was a fortress that was once at the top of the hill and it also holds the largest cemetery in France:
Nice is at the center of the Cote d’Azur (I’m guessing azure, or blue, coast) and is very much a Mediterranean city. They have a huge flower market we walked through next:
I’m not sure why everyone kept calling it a flower market, because not only did they have flowers but fruits, vegetables and a ton of seafood:
Maritza sweet-talked the waiter into letting us take this picture because he was about to run it off to one of the outdoor tables.
As we walked out of the flower market we came into one of the main squares in the city. Here’s one of the upscale department stores, Galeries Lafayette, on avenue Jean-Medecin. Ultra-pricey:
And look at this thing:
That’s their mode of transportation around the city, it looks like a spaceship or something. We all kind of stared at it in awe for a second, because it literally parts the square where people normally walk and shoots down into another street. I can't believe it doesn't just run people over at every turn.
After the main square we reached the Vieux Nice, which is what they call the medieval part of the city:
This was about the time I fell in love with Nice. All along these narrow walkways were vendors and artists and people just hanging out. Very bohemian, very happy and very chill. People would just come up and start conversation. Maritza and I met a very attractive gypsy who gave us a rundown of the city of Chicago once he found out where we were from.
By the way, I know that sounds weird…attractive gypsy, but I swear to you there were so many beautiful men in this city. Not even just the men, the women were gorgeous, too.
So, back to the Vieux Nice…we shopped around for a while and wandered the streets. I was definitely in that “I’m so loving being a traveler right now, immersing myself in another culture, loving the atmosphere…."
And then right about the time this picture was taken Melissa got her camera stolen. I’m talking seriously ripped out of her hands with the guy running down the street. The three of us had our cameras out taking what turned out to be a very pretty picture, but one of the three of us will never see hers! We were all so stunned that it happened the way it did, we just watched him run down the street. Needless to say, it kind of put a damper on the “loving the culture” part of Nice and brought us all back to reality.
It turns out Nice is notorious for petty crime. Daniela, my Italian teacher, visited with her husband and literally had everything stolen out of her car during the hour they spent at lunch. And it was parked directly in front of their hotel, which had a 24 hr. doorman!
Ok, so this entry is getting crazy long, so I’m just going to put up the rest of the pictures. This one’s for Mom, because it’s a statue of the Three Fates! I had just finished reading the book and then Maritza told me that’s what this statue represents:
And I couldn’t walk by a Westie without taking a picture :) :
This is in one of the parks (love the wisteria):
And then another shopping area. They had some of the coolest clothing stores, and a ton of long, flowy dresses. I was in heaven:
Then we went to a Cuban place for dinner (I know, Cuban in France, but whatever). They had salsa dancing, and I had a blue drink with little flavored marshmallows in it…it was yummy:
And here is the next morning in front of the Eglise Orthodoxe Russe (Russian Orthodox Church). Nice was the place to be for Russian aristocrats back in the 19th century, so Tsar Nicholas II commissioned a church in 1912. It was beautiful:
Then we got back on the road and made our way to Monaco!
The plan was to drive to Nice on Saturday and spend an entire day and night there. It was about a six hour drive from Vicenza, and once we reached the water near Genoa (look on a map for where I’m talking about) we hit the most amazing mountains that ran right into the water. I didn’t get a lot of pictures because I was just staring with my mouth open for most of the drive, but here’s one that’s decent:
Before we reached Nice, we stopped by the Fragonard Parfumeur, a perfumery named after the famous painter Jean-Honoré Fragonard and established in 1782.
They have the factory we visited in Ese (above is the entrance), a store and museum in Grasse and another store in Paris. We were able to get a tour of the factory and see how the perfume is made. The first thing we did on the tour was test our sense of smell. Here is the board of 8 different scents we had to identify:
I had a serious headache by the time I finished sniffing all of the little bottles, but it was a fun exercise :). Here is our lovely tour guide talking about the laboratory behind us and how certain people had the job of the “smeller,” where they would literally sit there and smell stuff all day long to see what would make a good perfume:
Fragonard also makes scented soaps, and we caught some of the employees carving the soaps into little ducks:
Either she hates her job or she just hates American tourists (she’s French so my guess is #2).
Here’s a woman filling up some of the scented lotions they sell:
And then we bought some expensive, smelly goodies and walked out to the parking lot, which looked like this:
After the perfumery we spent a good two hours driving through the mountains to reach Nice, and once we did we slowly descended down one of the mountains and onto the coast.
Since we were near the water we were hoping to have some nice, warm weather, but we weren’t so lucky. The temperature wasn‘t exactly beach-worthy, so we just walked along the beachfront, called the promenade des Anglais, and took a few pictures:
That's Russ and his daughter Caitlin, frolicking on the beach :).
We stopped at one of the outdoor cafes for lunch. Here's Melissa (right) and Maritza at the table with Le Chateau (the hill in the center) in the background. There was a fortress that was once at the top of the hill and it also holds the largest cemetery in France:
Nice is at the center of the Cote d’Azur (I’m guessing azure, or blue, coast) and is very much a Mediterranean city. They have a huge flower market we walked through next:
I’m not sure why everyone kept calling it a flower market, because not only did they have flowers but fruits, vegetables and a ton of seafood:
Maritza sweet-talked the waiter into letting us take this picture because he was about to run it off to one of the outdoor tables.
As we walked out of the flower market we came into one of the main squares in the city. Here’s one of the upscale department stores, Galeries Lafayette, on avenue Jean-Medecin. Ultra-pricey:
And look at this thing:
That’s their mode of transportation around the city, it looks like a spaceship or something. We all kind of stared at it in awe for a second, because it literally parts the square where people normally walk and shoots down into another street. I can't believe it doesn't just run people over at every turn.
After the main square we reached the Vieux Nice, which is what they call the medieval part of the city:
This was about the time I fell in love with Nice. All along these narrow walkways were vendors and artists and people just hanging out. Very bohemian, very happy and very chill. People would just come up and start conversation. Maritza and I met a very attractive gypsy who gave us a rundown of the city of Chicago once he found out where we were from.
By the way, I know that sounds weird…attractive gypsy, but I swear to you there were so many beautiful men in this city. Not even just the men, the women were gorgeous, too.
So, back to the Vieux Nice…we shopped around for a while and wandered the streets. I was definitely in that “I’m so loving being a traveler right now, immersing myself in another culture, loving the atmosphere…."
And then right about the time this picture was taken Melissa got her camera stolen. I’m talking seriously ripped out of her hands with the guy running down the street. The three of us had our cameras out taking what turned out to be a very pretty picture, but one of the three of us will never see hers! We were all so stunned that it happened the way it did, we just watched him run down the street. Needless to say, it kind of put a damper on the “loving the culture” part of Nice and brought us all back to reality.
It turns out Nice is notorious for petty crime. Daniela, my Italian teacher, visited with her husband and literally had everything stolen out of her car during the hour they spent at lunch. And it was parked directly in front of their hotel, which had a 24 hr. doorman!
Ok, so this entry is getting crazy long, so I’m just going to put up the rest of the pictures. This one’s for Mom, because it’s a statue of the Three Fates! I had just finished reading the book and then Maritza told me that’s what this statue represents:
And I couldn’t walk by a Westie without taking a picture :) :
This is in one of the parks (love the wisteria):
And then another shopping area. They had some of the coolest clothing stores, and a ton of long, flowy dresses. I was in heaven:
Then we went to a Cuban place for dinner (I know, Cuban in France, but whatever). They had salsa dancing, and I had a blue drink with little flavored marshmallows in it…it was yummy:
And here is the next morning in front of the Eglise Orthodoxe Russe (Russian Orthodox Church). Nice was the place to be for Russian aristocrats back in the 19th century, so Tsar Nicholas II commissioned a church in 1912. It was beautiful:
Then we got back on the road and made our way to Monaco!
Sunday, May 3, 2009
Gardaland - Lake Garda
During the week of the kids’ spring break we decided to go to Italy’s largest theme park, Gardaland, for a day.
Gardaland is like Worlds of Fun (for the KS people) or Great America (for the IN people) mixed in with a little bit of Disneyworld. It’s about a 45 min. drive in Wingo to the coast of Lake Garda, the largest of the northern Italy lakes that borders the Veneto region (where we are).
We were excited to get the kids out for something similar to what they’d get back in the states. Lots of fun rides, bright colors, crazy characters, etc. Well we got that and then some:
Everything in this area of the park was all about the under-10 crowd and extreme sensory overload. VP’s eyes were huge and set on the gigantic tree in front of us:
It looked like a tree house that just went on forever. Little kids were running up and down the walkways that snaked around the trunk and there was a bit of a line to get in. We figured it would be worth the wait and joined in.
Once the entrance at the base finally opened up we were corralled into an elevator. The lights go out and the ceiling lights up with this humongous wizard face. We direct the kids’ gazes up to the ceiling and are all, “Look, the wizard’s telling us a story about the tree house!” We obviously have no idea what the wizard is saying because it’s all in Italian, but we figure that had to be the gist of it.
As we’re listening to the wizard we’re slowly being lowered down, not up. I’m a little confused because I thought we would end up in the “tree house,” but the doors finally open and we walk into a dark basement-looking area. Another wizard lights up and starts talking in Italian again. This voice is a little darker and extremely loud, so Sarah and I are starting to look back and forth at each other wondering what type of “ride” this actually is.
Finally we’re led into a larger room with stadium seating on each side. It kind of resembles a barn, with a sparkly bed and wizard-looking stuff on a small stage in the middle. We all sit down, and Sarah and I are trying to encourage the kids that this will be fun…”Look we’re going to have a show!” “It looks like Mickey’s wizard hat!”…and so on.
Suddenly restraining bars whip around in front of us and the lights go out. The wizard’s voice comes on, this time louder than ever, and it’s that Mwaahhahahahahah type of laughter. The room starts swaying back and forth like one of those pirate ship rides. Only it keeps going higher…and higher until we are literally facing the ground on the highest tilt. To make matters worse, the ceiling is spinning to make it look like we’re flipping all the way around. There are lights flashing, loud cracks of thunder…it was like an evil fun house. All five of us are trying to keep our food down, and the two boys are screaming.
After what seems to be ten years, the ride finally stops and Sarah and I are tag teaming the boys trying to calm them down. GP (the 9 yr old) looks at us and goes, “We are never going on this ride EVER AGAIN!!” as these big crocodile tears run down his cheeks. All of us stumble out of the ride and immediately leave the kids section of the park…seriously?! That’s the type of “kid rides” they have in Italy?!
For those of you who know this (I’m thinking of Tracy, Allison and Melissa right now) I love roller coasters. There was a huge blue one I saw from the air while we were on this panoramic ride:
It’s called the Blue Tornado, and I begged Keaton to ride it with me. It took ten minutes and a promise of gelato afterwards, but I finally convinced her. As we get up to the ride we see this:
Keaton almost takes the exit, but she ends up staying on. We get on the ride and drop the first hill and I’m screaming my head off. Keaton’s loving it - turns out she’s more of a thrill-junkie than she thought :).
Here are some more pictures I took from on top of the panoramic ride. It was gorgeous that day:
And this is for Dad. They had some serious landscaping:
The kids found the American section of the park. It was all Wild West-themed, obviously. Here’s the country church:
Near the end of the day we decide to try this big pirate ship the boys had their eyes on. From the outside it looks as if you get to tour a life-size pirate ship, because we see kids running up and down the top deck. Judging by our experience at the beginning of the day, we should have known better, but we decide to jump in line once again.
As we follow the line of people we start walking down a huge flight of stairs. This should have been our first clue. We are led onto these tour boats, similar to the ones you ride on “It’s a Small World” in Disneyworld. We put the boys in the middle of the boat just in case we get ambushed again.
The first part of the ride is just like Pirates of the Caribbean in Disneyworld. Lots of animated pirates, a little town with pirates playing cards, etc…then the ride gradually becomes more and more adult. We round the corner at one point and we are in the middle of two pirate ships in battle. Shots are being fired and the water is literally spraying over us like its been hit with bullets. We’re all ducking and dodging fire and screaming as the dummy pirates slide across ropes above our heads.
The final turn brings us to three pirates hanging by their necks as a result of getting caught by the townspeople. A cat is clawing its way up the leg of one of the dead pirates. I look back at Sarah, who has her hands over VP’s eyes, and she mouths, “We are DONE with Gardaland.”
The kids are exhausted at this point from all of the excitement/terror, so we load them up in the car and head home. All in all an entertaining day, just not exactly what we thought it would be. I guess the moral of this story is: know enough Italian to read the warning signs at a theme park before bringing the kids.
Gardaland is like Worlds of Fun (for the KS people) or Great America (for the IN people) mixed in with a little bit of Disneyworld. It’s about a 45 min. drive in Wingo to the coast of Lake Garda, the largest of the northern Italy lakes that borders the Veneto region (where we are).
We were excited to get the kids out for something similar to what they’d get back in the states. Lots of fun rides, bright colors, crazy characters, etc. Well we got that and then some:
Everything in this area of the park was all about the under-10 crowd and extreme sensory overload. VP’s eyes were huge and set on the gigantic tree in front of us:
It looked like a tree house that just went on forever. Little kids were running up and down the walkways that snaked around the trunk and there was a bit of a line to get in. We figured it would be worth the wait and joined in.
Once the entrance at the base finally opened up we were corralled into an elevator. The lights go out and the ceiling lights up with this humongous wizard face. We direct the kids’ gazes up to the ceiling and are all, “Look, the wizard’s telling us a story about the tree house!” We obviously have no idea what the wizard is saying because it’s all in Italian, but we figure that had to be the gist of it.
As we’re listening to the wizard we’re slowly being lowered down, not up. I’m a little confused because I thought we would end up in the “tree house,” but the doors finally open and we walk into a dark basement-looking area. Another wizard lights up and starts talking in Italian again. This voice is a little darker and extremely loud, so Sarah and I are starting to look back and forth at each other wondering what type of “ride” this actually is.
Finally we’re led into a larger room with stadium seating on each side. It kind of resembles a barn, with a sparkly bed and wizard-looking stuff on a small stage in the middle. We all sit down, and Sarah and I are trying to encourage the kids that this will be fun…”Look we’re going to have a show!” “It looks like Mickey’s wizard hat!”…and so on.
Suddenly restraining bars whip around in front of us and the lights go out. The wizard’s voice comes on, this time louder than ever, and it’s that Mwaahhahahahahah type of laughter. The room starts swaying back and forth like one of those pirate ship rides. Only it keeps going higher…and higher until we are literally facing the ground on the highest tilt. To make matters worse, the ceiling is spinning to make it look like we’re flipping all the way around. There are lights flashing, loud cracks of thunder…it was like an evil fun house. All five of us are trying to keep our food down, and the two boys are screaming.
After what seems to be ten years, the ride finally stops and Sarah and I are tag teaming the boys trying to calm them down. GP (the 9 yr old) looks at us and goes, “We are never going on this ride EVER AGAIN!!” as these big crocodile tears run down his cheeks. All of us stumble out of the ride and immediately leave the kids section of the park…seriously?! That’s the type of “kid rides” they have in Italy?!
For those of you who know this (I’m thinking of Tracy, Allison and Melissa right now) I love roller coasters. There was a huge blue one I saw from the air while we were on this panoramic ride:
It’s called the Blue Tornado, and I begged Keaton to ride it with me. It took ten minutes and a promise of gelato afterwards, but I finally convinced her. As we get up to the ride we see this:
Keaton almost takes the exit, but she ends up staying on. We get on the ride and drop the first hill and I’m screaming my head off. Keaton’s loving it - turns out she’s more of a thrill-junkie than she thought :).
Here are some more pictures I took from on top of the panoramic ride. It was gorgeous that day:
And this is for Dad. They had some serious landscaping:
The kids found the American section of the park. It was all Wild West-themed, obviously. Here’s the country church:
Near the end of the day we decide to try this big pirate ship the boys had their eyes on. From the outside it looks as if you get to tour a life-size pirate ship, because we see kids running up and down the top deck. Judging by our experience at the beginning of the day, we should have known better, but we decide to jump in line once again.
As we follow the line of people we start walking down a huge flight of stairs. This should have been our first clue. We are led onto these tour boats, similar to the ones you ride on “It’s a Small World” in Disneyworld. We put the boys in the middle of the boat just in case we get ambushed again.
The first part of the ride is just like Pirates of the Caribbean in Disneyworld. Lots of animated pirates, a little town with pirates playing cards, etc…then the ride gradually becomes more and more adult. We round the corner at one point and we are in the middle of two pirate ships in battle. Shots are being fired and the water is literally spraying over us like its been hit with bullets. We’re all ducking and dodging fire and screaming as the dummy pirates slide across ropes above our heads.
The final turn brings us to three pirates hanging by their necks as a result of getting caught by the townspeople. A cat is clawing its way up the leg of one of the dead pirates. I look back at Sarah, who has her hands over VP’s eyes, and she mouths, “We are DONE with Gardaland.”
The kids are exhausted at this point from all of the excitement/terror, so we load them up in the car and head home. All in all an entertaining day, just not exactly what we thought it would be. I guess the moral of this story is: know enough Italian to read the warning signs at a theme park before bringing the kids.
Sunday, April 26, 2009
Wingo
So at this point my parents and Ryan have left, and it’s sinking in that I’m actually staying here for longer than a vacation. And I have to learn how to drive a stick. Not only are the roads here about 5 feet wide, but I have to drive through several long traffic lights on my regular route through town, inching my way along in first gear. Here’s my new ride:
Its name is Wingo (given by the kids), an Alfa Romeo, and it hates me. But if I didn’t learn how to drive this thing, I would have to drive their huge Suburban. I would literally be taking up about ¾ of the road with that one.
Sarah gave me a trial run when we went over to the Bryant’s for dinner one night, and I think I killed the car about five times before I even got out of the driveway. I never knew a car could be that jerky, and I grew up with Mom driving sticks throughout my entire childhood. But that night was the last chance I had to get it right before I took the 5 yr old to school in the morning.
VP’s school is up against a mountain, and the only entrances to the parking lot are literally big enough to fit one car. So here I come jerking my way along and see a car ahead of me. I freak out and kill the car. VP has started making a “dush dush dush” noise every time this happens, and it just adds to the fun :). Then the parking lot is all gravel. Since I haven’t learned how to slowly let off the clutch before I jam on the gas I peel out of the parking lot, kicking up gravel behind me like I just started a drag race. It was like a scene out of The Fast and the Furious, except not that cool (I guess I’m not sure if you’d call that cool, but whatever).
Then that afternoon when I pick him up I take the “twisty turny” way home and end up at this stop light where there’s construction going on. And AGAIN the road only fits about a car and a half and it’s in between two large buildings. Another little known fact about driving in Italy - at the majority of stoplights around here you have to stop abnormally far away from the light. I didn’t know this, so I snaked my way between the construction and edged right up to the intersection. The guys working construction looked at me like I was crazy, and then the look turned to terror when I started the car back up again in first gear. Damnit.
You’d think I would have had enough by then, but I continue to embarrass myself all week. I drive up to post and go through security. This is where a soldier has to walk up to your car to check your ID card, and then you have to maneuver through the gates. Every single time I go through I nearly run someone over. I usually see one or two of them make that "ooh" face that happens after someone's been punched really hard or falls down. It just sounds painful.
Carl actually met me at the front gate the first time to get my ID worked out, and then had mercy on me and drove the car through post. Once we get to his office he stops the car, pulls the emergency brake and we go inside. Then as I come out and get in I start up the car and try to put it into first gear…it just gurgles and stops. I try again, it does the same thing. I’m literally almost in tears thinking, “Did I break the car?!” “Did it run out of gas and this is the way it tells me?!” A soldier walks over to me after a few minutes of me cursing out loud and asks if I need help. I finally give up and let him get in and try to start the car. He looks down, lowers the emergency brake and looks up at me and says, “I think that’s your problem, miss.”
With the amount of driving I’ve had to do over the last month, between taking the kids around and traveling, I’ve slowly learned how to not give myself never-ending whiplash. I think Wingo is actually responding better to me, too. It’s like he gives me back certain privileges every time I do something good. I slowly move into first gear, he gives me my left stereo speaker back. I shift at the right time, he doesn’t choke my seatbelt on the highway. We’re slowly working out our issues and I’m not having to take several Tylenol a day! I still don’t think I’ll ever understand why anyone would want to put that much work into driving...
Its name is Wingo (given by the kids), an Alfa Romeo, and it hates me. But if I didn’t learn how to drive this thing, I would have to drive their huge Suburban. I would literally be taking up about ¾ of the road with that one.
Sarah gave me a trial run when we went over to the Bryant’s for dinner one night, and I think I killed the car about five times before I even got out of the driveway. I never knew a car could be that jerky, and I grew up with Mom driving sticks throughout my entire childhood. But that night was the last chance I had to get it right before I took the 5 yr old to school in the morning.
VP’s school is up against a mountain, and the only entrances to the parking lot are literally big enough to fit one car. So here I come jerking my way along and see a car ahead of me. I freak out and kill the car. VP has started making a “dush dush dush” noise every time this happens, and it just adds to the fun :). Then the parking lot is all gravel. Since I haven’t learned how to slowly let off the clutch before I jam on the gas I peel out of the parking lot, kicking up gravel behind me like I just started a drag race. It was like a scene out of The Fast and the Furious, except not that cool (I guess I’m not sure if you’d call that cool, but whatever).
Then that afternoon when I pick him up I take the “twisty turny” way home and end up at this stop light where there’s construction going on. And AGAIN the road only fits about a car and a half and it’s in between two large buildings. Another little known fact about driving in Italy - at the majority of stoplights around here you have to stop abnormally far away from the light. I didn’t know this, so I snaked my way between the construction and edged right up to the intersection. The guys working construction looked at me like I was crazy, and then the look turned to terror when I started the car back up again in first gear. Damnit.
You’d think I would have had enough by then, but I continue to embarrass myself all week. I drive up to post and go through security. This is where a soldier has to walk up to your car to check your ID card, and then you have to maneuver through the gates. Every single time I go through I nearly run someone over. I usually see one or two of them make that "ooh" face that happens after someone's been punched really hard or falls down. It just sounds painful.
Carl actually met me at the front gate the first time to get my ID worked out, and then had mercy on me and drove the car through post. Once we get to his office he stops the car, pulls the emergency brake and we go inside. Then as I come out and get in I start up the car and try to put it into first gear…it just gurgles and stops. I try again, it does the same thing. I’m literally almost in tears thinking, “Did I break the car?!” “Did it run out of gas and this is the way it tells me?!” A soldier walks over to me after a few minutes of me cursing out loud and asks if I need help. I finally give up and let him get in and try to start the car. He looks down, lowers the emergency brake and looks up at me and says, “I think that’s your problem, miss.”
With the amount of driving I’ve had to do over the last month, between taking the kids around and traveling, I’ve slowly learned how to not give myself never-ending whiplash. I think Wingo is actually responding better to me, too. It’s like he gives me back certain privileges every time I do something good. I slowly move into first gear, he gives me my left stereo speaker back. I shift at the right time, he doesn’t choke my seatbelt on the highway. We’re slowly working out our issues and I’m not having to take several Tylenol a day! I still don’t think I’ll ever understand why anyone would want to put that much work into driving...
Thursday, April 23, 2009
Innsbruck, Austria - "The Hills are Alive...."
Mom’s been waiting her whole life to dance through the hills like Julie Andrews, and she finally got her chance :)
On the last day my parents and Ryan were in town we decided to leave Italy and head to Innsbruck, Austria. It’s actually only about three hours north of Vicenza, so a decent day’s trip. The drive is absolutely beautiful; it winds through the Alps all the way up. I’m not sure what Alps they are, I get in a crazy discussion about this every time I see some - Italian Alps, Tyrolean Alps, Swiss Alps….I have no idea. I just know they’re mountains and they’re pretty.
Innsbruck was the site of the 1964 and 1976 Winter Olympics, and you can tell why by looking at any of the pictures we took:
The town is surrounded by enormous mountains and it’s not unusual to see someone walking around who looks like they just got off the slopes. It was so cold when we got there, as you can tell by the looks on our faces.
I also realized why - for those of you who know her - Mel Parks loved Germany so much. People around here look like they came straight out of a J. Crew catalog, fresh off a hiking trip. It's like a bunch of Mels walking around.
Our first stop was the medieval Old City, or Altstadt. This is, obviously, the old part of town and has a ton of Gothic and Renaissance buildings and little shops:
Our first stop was the medieval Old City, or Altstadt. This is, obviously, the old part of town and has a ton of Gothic and Renaissance buildings and little shops:
We stopped by this fantastic store:
And Mom and I did some shopping! I stuck with a bracelet and avoided the crystal animals in the front window.
Besides the Olympics, Innsbruck is known for its ruler in the 12th century, Maximilian I. When he came into power he made Innsbruck the seat of the Holy Roman Empire and constructed most of the main buildings still standing in Altstadt today. We walked through the small streets and did a little bit of shopping, and finally ended up at the end where the Goldenes Dachl (Golden Roof) is:
It’s at the top of that thing behind us, we didn’t actually get it in the picture. Just think of a gold roof and that’s pretty much what it was. Maximilian built it for his second wife and it was used as a royal box for watching events in the square where we’re sitting. It’s one of the main attractions in Innsbruck...probably why so many people go skiing :). Right about the time we came to it we started to get hungry. So we picked one of the outdoor cafes and tried not to shiver too much. I think that’s why we got the beer:
And here’s what Carl and I ordered (the special on the left):
I decided to be adventurous, and my first Weiner schnitzel wasn’t that bad! After lunch we walked a bit more and stopped at some of the shops. Mom and I played dress up with Ryan:
And then we walked toward the water and finally along the canal:
I’m normally a beach and water kind of person, but these mountains were really cool. It almost made me want to go skiing :).
On our way out of town we drove up in the mountains to visit this place:
Honestly we were all so tired from a week of sightseeing at full speed that we didn’t even stop to check what the name of the place was. Here are some pictures though! It was one of the windiest places I’ve ever been, and I came from Chicago:
Then it was time for the drive home. We stopped at McDonalds for a quick coffee and took the Ausfarht (Exit) back to Italy. How ridiculous does that word sound…
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