Christmas in Germany and Italy

After arriving back in Sagunto from País Vasco, it was one night in my dorm bed before heading out again into the wild blue yonder of Europe. This time though I had the luxury of knowing that someone waited for me at the other end of the flight and it wouldn’t be another four or five days of sketchy hostels and bocadillos for every meal. Friday morning I left for Italy to spend a week, including Christmas day, with my Uncle Jim and Aunt Dawna and cousin Jacob. Being that Ryanair is evil, it no longer flies into Venice from Valencia. This would have made my trip a lot easier and cheaper but whatever.

The journey to Jim and Dawna’s in Avion, Italy was not a fun one. For starters, it was raining in Valencia, and I mean raining. Since Ryanair is the cheap airline that it is, they didn’t move the loading gate up to the plane and instead we still had to walk out on the tarmac to the plane like always. The problem was that with so much rain, there was about one to one and half inches of water in puddles, streams, lakes, and rivers across the tarmac on the way to the plane. Add rain pouring on your head and it wasn’t pretty. Thankfully, I had my snow jacket with a good hood so only my jeans got really wet. But there were people boarding the plane that were completely soaked from head to food as the Ryanair personnel did nothing other than hand out paper towels with stressed smiles.

Because of the rain, we were late starting and finishing to board and ended up leaving an hour behind schedule. Not only did I have the stress of worrying about arriving in Italy in time to catch my train (which I didn’t) but I also had to deal with this two-year old that was screaming his head off next to me. Nothing his mom or dad could say or do made him shut up. He screamed the entire time we were boarding and preparing to depart. The only thing that actually put him to sleep was the takeoff. Once we were level in the air, I wondered what was different about the plane’s atmosphere and realized that it was the silence, the blessed silence. I looked down at the boy and he was conked out. Apparently the excitement of flying had kept him awake and cranky during his normal nap time. Another worrisome aspect to the takeoff was the huge thunderclap that resounded while we were waiting for takeoff. Such things combined with wet, possibly slippery runways and cheap airlines do NOT inspire confidence in flying.

Not withstanding, the rest of the flight was uneventful and I made it to Bergamo, Italy, a town outside of Milan. Outside the airport, I bought a bus ticket to the Bergamo train station, and had my most crowded public bus ride to date. So many people crammed their way into the bus at the first two stops that at one stop, the bus driver actually closed the exit doors before a man had time to make his way to the exit and the passengers had to call to the driver to not leave and to open the doors again. All the time while squished in this human sardine can, I kept wondering how I would know when the bus arrived at the train station. Thankfully, pretty much everyone left the bus at the station and I was able to recognize it as such. I bought my ticket without problems, but was still stressing once on the train because it wasn’t the original train that I had told Aunt Dawna I would be arriving on and plus, I wasn’t seated in the coach that was printed on my ticket, and what if my coach got switched off at some station and I ended up in some other part of Italy? To further complicate matters, no conductor ever stopped to look at my ticket so I couldn’t ask confirmation for whether I was on the right train. Since I had a stop-over where I switched trains, I thankfully had a chance to phone Dawna and inform her of my change of plans. Also, I made sure to match coach numbers on the second leg of the journey so I was a little less preoccupied for that part. And let me tell you, I’m not sure how many other feelings outrank the one you feel when you arrive in an unknown location to see someone waiting for you that you know and love. I was pretty darn happy to see Uncle Jim standing on the train platform.

He took me to their home and fed me supper/late-night snack and then took me on a tour of the house before letting me crash in a super-comfortable queen bed. Ah, the luxuries of actual homes as opposed to hostels and hotels. The next morning was spent packing and preparing everything to leave to head north. Uncle Jim, Jake, and I would be going to Garmisch, Germany for three days of skiing while Aunt Dawna stayed home with a cold and a very old and sick Bo (their golden lab retriever for the uninformed).

We left around 1pm and headed north through the Italian Alps, the Austrian Alps and into southern Germany. It was so gorgeous driving through that I kept forgetting to ask Uncle Jim to stop so I could take pictures. I just sat there staring out the window as we drove along chatting about every subject under the sun. The roads were nice too, a large portion of the time spent on the Autobahn. On the way, we drove through Innsbruck, Austria and also passed by a big huge dam that burst at one point, drowning a bunch of people in the valley below.

We arrived in Garmisch after dark and checked into the lodge before going to find something to eat. Garmisch is home to a US military base and the lodge we were staying in was actually an R&R station for US troops. Those coming back from various active duty sites, such as Iraq, have a chance to stay here and rest a bit before shipping stateside. Not only active duty members use it though; anybody in the military can come during their leaves and stay there with their family if they want. And it was nice lodge, let me tell you. One of the really cool things about it that Uncle Jim told me is that they charge different rates according to your military rank. It's cheaper for a private to stay there than for a lieutenant colonel. It was a little weird, to tell the truth, to be surrounded with so many Americans. It was you were in the US until you left the grounds and were in the rest of the town, which was distinctly German.

For supper the first night, we went to a typical German restaurant where the food and atmosphere was amazing. I definitely heard my German roots calling me. I had a pasta soup with a bread dumpling to eat and all of us had apple strudel for dessert. There are not words to describe this apple strudel. It probably had enough calories for an entire week but it was GOOD. Piping hot from the oven and served with ice cream that tasted like it was homemade from milk obtained just that morning from the cow and with whipped cream from the same cow. Absolutely heavenly. For entertainment, there were these two young boys would were dressed in the typical German knickers with suspenders and alpine hats that did a knee-slapping dance thing to guitar and accordian accompaniment. The other entertainment, or at least for us Americans, was trying to figure out what was happening in the back room. For every couple mintues, another group of two or three Germans would enter the restaurant and walk to the back room, all dressed in typical alpine wear. There were probably about 50 or 75 German men of all ages from 17 till 60s or 70s. We were trying to figure out what could possibly draw out 17-year-old Germans on a Saturday night and convince them to mean with old men and dress up in folk costume. Finally we came to the conclusion that it was the next meeting for German domination, but since we hadn't seen any short dark men with mustaches, we considered ourselves fairly safe. Until we saw the amount of beer that the waiters carried back into the meeting room. On the way back to the car to return to the hotel, we walked through the quaint streets and window shopped. I saw a yarn store but unfortunately it was closed and we never had time the rest of the trip to return.

Sunday through Tuesday were spent skiing the slopes during the day and relaxing and watching movies in the hotel room at night. Let me tell you, three days of snowboarding on European-length slopes that are not conducive to snowboarders will kill your thighs and calves. As the slopes were designed for skiers, there were many cat tracks that frequently went UPhill and many paddlebars and t-bars, which are not fun for snowboarders. Nonetheless, I thoroughly enjoyed myself. Especially Monday. That was the day we spent skiing the highest mountain in Germany, the Zugspitz. After lunch, Uncle Jim and I took the gondola up to the peak to take some pictures and so that I could say that I had been to the top of the highest mountain in Germany. Yay! However, I will confess something. I wasn't actually AT the top. I was 50 or so feet lower and only saw the top. But in my defense, it was the highest I could go (the rest of the way was currently blocked off, you can go to the tippy-top during the summer) and it was farther than any of the rest of my family back home has been. So there, hah!

Christmas Eve, we spent watching movies and contemplating what Santa would do if I got on his lap and told him (if it happened to be a young servicemember who was playing Santa) that what I wanted for Christmas was him. Tuesday, Christmas Day, we only skied for the morning from 8 till noon before packing up and getting back in the car to drive back home for Christmas dinner and presents. This was the day though that I went down a run next to gates for a run where the world cup was once held many years ago. That hill was freakingly steep. I seriously thought I was going to die. But I made it down, amazingly enough.

On the way home, we stopped at an Italian WWII graveyard, where apparently they would bury soldiers two deep to save on space.

Arriving home around 7pm, we ate a scrumptious Christmas dinner prepared by Dawna and then opened Christmas presents. Although it wasn't the same as being home, I was still really happy to be with family for Christmas day and still be able to have a tree and presents from home and Reese's Christmas trees. :)

The day after Christmas was spent in touring Venice. We took the train in and then just wandered through the streets, purposely getting lost on the way to St. Mark's square. The cathedral there is crazily ornate with huge mosaics on the ceiling that were made using 24k gold.

Supper was my first authentic taste of Italian pizza and it was amazing. I loved just walking around on the cobble stones, never knowing when buildings would give way to yet another picturesque canal. And Uncle Jim even convinced me that yes, I needed my picture taken with a gondolier.

However, we didn't take a gondola ride considering that rides run around 100€ a trip. One of the really interesting bridges that we saw was the "Sighing Bridge."

This bridge connected the city jail with the city court. It is an inclosed bridge to prevent escapes and afforded a last glimpse of freedom for guilty prisoners as they were led from the courts back into the prison. Many would sigh at the thought of all that they were losing, hence the name.

After Venice, it was off to Florence on Thursday to meet up Becky and experience more of Italy.