Italy Trip 2008

Day 1—Monday, May 12

We finally left Ehningen at about 10:30 am., with the house shut up, the car fully packed, and everyone excited for a grand adventure. The Autobahn took us south, past our normal way to church—but as soon as we had passed Tuebingen and Rottenburg, we felt like we were really on a trip. Tammy drove while Chuck read aloud from the first volume of "The Lord of the Rings"—in German. It is not hard to imagine "The Shire" while watching the rolling hills, patchwork fields, and quaint towns of Southern Germany fly past the windows. And driving through the dark and dense fringes of the Black Forest made the Black Riders and the Old Forest seem much more real.

We had smooth sailing south through Germany, and over the border into Switzerland. We had some traffic driving through the center of Zurich, but luckily, we had Lisa, our fearless GPS Navigator, with us to keep us on the right track. South of Zurich we found the Alps, and the storytelling stopped for a while—for two reasons. First of all, there were so many tunnels through the canyons and mountains it made it hard to have enough light to read. Secondly, the mountains and lakes were so beautiful everyone wanted the chance to see—and Sarah even tried her hand at taking a few scenic (and maybe not so scenic, but entertaining, nonetheless) photos.

Finally we hit the Gotthard Pass, where we crossed the Alps, through what (I have since learned) is the world’s third longest tunnel—10.5 miles long. The tunnel was pretty interesting, although after a few miles, we started to wonder if we would ever make it out again—and were grateful for the km "countdown markers" letting us know how much farther we had to go to see daylight. What really impressed us, though, was that when we finally popped out the other side, we were suddenly in Italian Switzerland—with brown rock buildings, instead of the "German" white stucco, and all the signs in a "foreign" language (like "Uscita" instead of good old "Ausfahrt"—which isn’t anything scary, by the way, that’s just German for "Exit").

Our goal for the first day was Merone, Italy, near Lake Como—not too far south of the Switzerland/Italy border. It’s a beautiful area (for those of you who are familiar with Star Wars Episode II—the lake country of Naboo, where Amidala and Anakin hang out, was filmed in northern Italy near Como). Despite the natural scenery, it didn’t take too long to notice that we weren’t in well-ordered and well-maintained Germany or Switzerland anymore. Roads suddenly were narrower, signs were smaller, illegible, or missing (or in some cases, they had obviously been part of a traffic incident or two, and were actually facing the wrong direction), and lanes seemed to be simply defined as "wherever the width of my car happens to be at this moment" (mopeds, however, simply do without lanes at all).

We reached Merone in the early evening, and found the address for the Vaira’s (Chuck’s former Mission President and his wife). After negotiating the hairpin turn into their driveway (along the side of a cliff), and then navigating a 20 point parking job into their narrow carport, we were able to get out of the car and get to know them. President and Sorella Vaira are very kind and gracious, and they greeted us in typical Italian style—with kisses on both cheeks (Emma never got used to this custom—she is not a very huggy or kissy kid, anyway, and to get a double whammy from complete strangers was almost more than she could bear).

Some of our favorite memories of our evening with the Vaira’s are: watching an Italian gameshow with Sister Vaira’s sister, Maria (she didn’t know any English, and was trying to explain—in Italian—everything that was going on); walking down their terraced gardens, seeing their chickens, and trying to swat away thousands of mosquitos; singing hymns together—some in German, some in English and some in Italian (sister Vaira was especially pleased when Sarah started singing a cute little Italian song she had learned in school—and joined right in); Sarah, Madeline, and Emma sleeping (and giggling) together on a huge, poofy, inflatable matress (Kira ended up with Chuck and I—also memorable, but not in the good sense).

Perhaps the most noteworthy events while at the Vaira’s, though, were the meals. For dinner, we were first served some delicious pasta. The kids loved it, and I think that Kira may have actually eaten more than anybody. Unfortunately, we didn’t realize until it was too late, that the pasta was just course #1. So, by the time we were all served the salad and meat, the parents (mostly Chuck, thank goodness) had to step in and do some "disposal" service. The kids seemed to have recovered, though, by the time the fruit came in. For breakfast the next morning we had fresh bread with homemade jam, and super fresh milk they had picked up from the dairy just that morning. Very yummy!