* note: if you haven't read
the first part of the travel saga, this post might not make much sense*
As I said, we reached the Lago. We crawled along the shore with our trailer on what I have come to believe was a typical Italian mountain-type road: windy (with lots of bends, not stormy), filled with honking Italians trying to go faster, and mysterious, as you can never be sure of the number of lanes it has (there is, however, oncoming traffic -
speeding oncoming traffic). It was quite the adventure. To our left, the water glistened in the afternoon sunshine, and to our right, the mountains rose. Tiny streets lead up to houses, ranging from shifty shacks to vainglorious villas (yes. I looked in the dictionary for an adjective starting with v. So what?!).
When we arrived at the campground around 2:15, we learned what a siesta is. The offices were closed from 12:30 - 3:00 pm, and so was the campground a-little-bit-of-everything store. Unperturbed, we walked around and picked a spot. By 4pm, when the rainstorm hit, we had put together our home away from home and were cooking pasta (we were in Italy, after all).
We spent the next two weeks taking little (and not so little) trips. We walked along the harbor promenade of
Cannobio, ate Gelato and pizza and drank Chianti. We looked at horrific souvenirs and lots of shoe stores. We went to a market that turned Cannobio into a bustling metropolis. The lack of parking spots reminded me of my trip to LA (I wanted to drive downtown - I've matured since...). The market was loud and colorful. We passed stands with shoes, purses, clothing, shoes, shoes, purses, clothing, wooden kitchen accessories, shoes, purses, purses, clothing, horrific plastic toys, purses, shoes, and clothing. We bought shoes for ourselves and a really cool skirt for my sister, then sat at the beach watching the
kite-surfers (probably not the technical term). They had a snowboard-like thing to stand on and wore vests that were attached to an elongated parachute-type deal. Since the wind doesn't usually turn, they had to try to move perpendicular to the wind, so they wouldn't end up in Switzerland having to walk or swim back. It was fun to watch them do their little jumps and stuff - there was one in particular, who'd come zooming towards the beach, then did a hey-look-at-me jumping maneuver to turn around to zig-zag back. He fell off his little board spectacularly - har, har.
One day, we took a trip to
Milan, which was quite chaotic (Milan, not the trip). If ever you go to Milan, take a train. That was the most crazy driving ever - and I was in the back seat - weird turns, one-way streets at random, circles with an undefined number of lanes, suicidal pedestrians, idiotic vespa-drivers, buses with an I'm-bigger-I-have-the-right-of-way mentality. What an adventure! I'm proud to say that my dad navigated the chaos effectively, and we got back to our camping haven without a scratch on us or the car.
DH and I took our own mini trip for three days, but that shall be the subject of a future post - something to look forward to reading. It involves tiny automobiles, very narrow streets, rain and its bows, and an absolutely insane bird. Stay tuned for that.
On the last day of our vacation, we visited my uncle & aunt in Swtzerland. They just got married last year, up until when my uncle had lived in Boston, MA. They moved to Switzerland (though they're both German) because of my uncle's job. They have a beautiful house overlooking
Lago di Lugano. It's far enough away to have a panoramic view and to be really quiet. We had a beautiful day out there, eating what they'd BBQed, sitting on the patio, looking at the view, watching the donkeys in the neigboring farm's field, and talking to family we don't get to see much. It was a good end to a great vacation, and after two weeks in the trailer, it was good to get home and sleep in a real bed, in a room where you could stand up straight (even on the bed).
At home, my mom and I went shopping again. We were doing our best to support the German economy, and I think we did a good deed. Anyways, it was fun. We had dinner with my grandma, who, by the way, is traveling around the
Nordkap on a cruise ship right now. She must have caught a polar bug last year, when she traveled around
Tierra del Fuego on a cruise ship for her 80th birthday. SHE'S EIGHTY!!!
The flight home was worse than others have been, but not the worst. We were redeeming miles, so naturally, the airline screwed us over: We had to fly from Frankfurt to Paris, from Paris to Detroit, and from Detroit back to California. Three flights cannot be good. Ever. In Frankfurt, our flight was delayed only 30 minutes. That, as it turned out, was nothing. Paris is an awful, horrible, chaotic airport. We landed and had to go to our gate on a bus. I don't like that. No, not at all. Ick! We were in terminal A, and were flying out of terminal E. There were no signs anywhere, so we asked a person, who excused himself to go ask someone! Great. Then we were lead on our way - it felt like we were leaving the airport, but it turned out to be right in the end. Phew. After walking through some terminal or other for a long time (it was a hike, I tell you), we reached our gate. Or so we thought. There was another bus that took us from there to terminal E. It was just so inconvenient. And loud. And smelly. And hot. But wait, that's not the end of it! After having DH picked out randomly to search through his suspicious-looking carry-on and also watching a totally pissed-off French man going through the same thing (he was muttering what I'm sure were French curses of the worst kind under his breath the ENTIRE time - LOL (except I was quietly doing that)), we finally got on the plane, into our seats, took our shoes off and took a breath. Finally, we thought. We were supposed to leave the airport at 2pm. By the time every stinking paseenger was in his seat and the doors were closed, it was 2:25pm. Then the pilot said that tower had given us a push-off time of 2:56pm. The flight time, conveniently, would be less than expected, so we'd make up for the lost time. Good, we thought, and we waited. Behind us, romance was unfolding between a Frenchman going to the States for a while and an American woman who had spent some time in France. Visually, they should have been together and have the world's next top model children. They were flirting like crazy. I thought it was cute, until I overheard them bashing Germans and Californians. That was harsh. Oh, I wasn't happy. But I got over it. After all, I didn't think that Arnie was a top choice for governor and now we're finding out just how not top he is. Also, Germans can totally ignore German-bashing on airplanes. Those two were probably just jealous of our excellent organisational skills (and I mean the order we keep in all things, not the dubious organisations that exist for people to join).
Wow. I got way off track there. So. We taxied to the runway, then waited some more. Then, we taxied back to the gate. Then we stood there. 3 pm passed, and so did 3:30. Then, the pilot said that there was some luggage on the plane that didn't belong there and they had to identify and remove it. Flight attendants gave out warm water with unidentified, tiny objects swimming in it (similar to what you get when an ice cube melts in your glass). We were bored. We were pissed. Two kids across the aisle from us were fighting. The male flight attendant we had was ABSOLUTELY INSANE. I suspect amphetamines.
We finally left Paris at 4 pm. I watched:
1.Guess Who (a lot better than I'd expected)
2. Miss Congeniality 2
3. Fever Pitch (liked it a lot, though I wonder why a Nick Hornby book is now set in the US)
I also read "The Secret Life of Bees" which I adored despite the fact that it's really popular. It deserves to be popular.
We just so made the connecting flight in Detroit, then passed out for four hours until we landed. Supershuttle took us home, where I ate pizza and then fell asleep at 11pm. I was toast. Jetlag had me up at 5:30 the next morning. We went to the beach.
It's good to be home.
PS:
Let me tell you now about the attacks on London. We did not watch TV, listen to the radio, surfed the web, or read any nespapers while on vacation. We did not know anything. We sort of forgot what kind of a world we live in. One afternoon (it was, I think, the 8th or 9th of July), we were strolling along the shops in Cannobio and came upon a store with newspapers in all kinds of languages. The ones that sell, the tabloid-dressed-up-as-serious-journalism, were out on displays on the street and thus the first ones we saw. Front and back pages were filled with huge pictures of dying and/or dead people, bloodied faces, crying onlookers etc. Big, bold letters were putting their demagogic spin on the events - "Al Quaida strikes again" - "This means war" - "Terrorists do something or other". Seeing that was quite a shock - that is, after the initial "Ashton Kutcher must be filming Punk'd around here" reaction. By the time we'd purchased a serious paper and found out what had really happened, we were relieved to hear that it hadn't been as serious as it had looked at first. Which of course doesn't mean this wasn't serious. I still cannot quite believe it - we are just all not as safe as we'd thought (and, quite honestly, probably still think ourselves). Wow.
