So I guess I will start this post with the leaving of Switzerland and coming to Italy. Leaving Thomas was pretty sad for us. It measures even with leaving Katherine and her family in Ireland. We tried to pay him back for all that he did for us with as much money as we could possibly afford to give him, and he looked at it and said “this is way too much” and gave us 40 Swiss francs back. I tried to explain that we were leaving Switzerland and that we didn’t need CHF because we couldn’t spend it elsewhere (which was my plan because I knew he would have to take it if it was in Swiss currency) but he knew we were going to be spending the day in Zurich and so he gave us the money to spend on ourselves for the day. On the way to the train station Thomas took us to McDonald’s, which he calls Micky Dicky’s (and now he has Jared calling it that) for an American breakfast. Turns out they don’t serve breakfast at McDonald’s in Switzerland because when they tried no one came! So we had burgers and fries at 9 am, which was funny. Thomas treated us, as usual. McDonald’s costs about $12-$15 per person in Switzerland. Can you imagine?
When we left Thomas at the train station we left with a promise to keep in touch. If he ever comes to the Midwest he knows he will have a place to stay. He left us a review on airbnb.com that was so kind. It was kind of like leaving family when we left. After our goodbyes, Jared and I locked our suitcases away in a suitcase locker (the Swiss are so efficient) and then wandered around Zurich for a couple of hours before our train departed. We had some money to spend, so we did buy a couple of souvenirs for our family (Meredith!) and then I bought myself a few things as well 0:-), and Jared was so selfless and bought himself nothing. It was so fun to have money that we HAD to spend. We have been so stressed financially the last two months that it was the nicest gift ever for Thomas to give us money that we had to spend in Zurich.
The train ride from Zurich to Milano was 4 hours long and it was a beautiful ride. We went through the Alps, which we were really dying to see, and they were certainly beautiful. I can’t really describe them with words, so I am not even going to try. We arrived in Milano with 15 euros plus change and no ATM in sight. We looked for one with no luck. We had to catch a taxi, so not having much cash was a bad thing (when isn’t it?). The Italians are really aggressive when it comes to getting a taxi so even though we were there first we had to wait for about 10 taxis to go by until I realized that I had to be aggressive and fight for the taxi. Our taxi pulled up and a man who had just walked out of the train station tried to run in front of me and grab it, but I wasn’t having that, so I just cut him off and opened the passenger side of the taxi car. We won. I asked the taxi driver how much it would cost to get to our address and he said somewhere between 20 and 25 euros. Jared looked at me like “what are we going to do” and I said “let’s just get in”. I had just been reading about how the rich rarely have to rely on God because we have everything we need. I said a prayer in that moment that the taxi drive would miraculously cost less than 20 euros. We arrived at our apartment with a 13 euro total. Wow.
Milano was a short stay. We were there three nights, 4 days. 2 of the days were travel days. The other two we spent a lot of time working. On Saturday we went out and explored the city some. We saw a beautiful cathedral and had some really awkward language barrier moments, specifically at a restaurant. I also pet a man’s dog without asking (because I thought he wouldn’t understand English) and he turned to me and said in plain English “never pet a dog in Italy without asking”. Then he talked to us for 30 minutes or so about all of the languages he knew, how much his apartment was worth, how we pronounce Illinois wrong, etc. He tried talking to me in French and I said “sorry, I don’t speak French” and he said “And you went to France? Psh”. He was really full of himself and it took every ounce of self-control for me to not just walk off. All the while as he was talking to us multiple people came by and pet his dog without asking and he didn’t scold them. He ended the conversation asking us if the Italians were the most hospitable because he believed they were and we answered with “the Irish are” which he didn’t like too much. Anyway, that was one of our first experiences with an Italian. It was culturally interesting. The rest of the Italians we have met have been perfectly wonderful, except for one man on the train ride from Milano to Cecina who got really annoyed when I didn’t speak Italian. It makes me feel terrible to not be able to communicate with these people. I am going to try to learn the basics while we are here for 6 weeks!
Upon arriving in Cecina our landlady, Rosella, met us at the train station with her husband Nadio and a translator friend of theirs who did all of the communicating. Her name is Sondra. They were all completely lovely. The took us to our bungalow outside of Cecina down a long gravel road. The property is adorable. It is completely enclosed in stone walls with pathways of stepping stones throughout (covered in slimy snails that we kept stepping on which made me feel so sad). There is a large swimming pool, two bicycles for us to use, a ping pong table, a brick oven and outdoor pizza kitchen (!!!), a barbeque, and multiple terraces with vines and tables stationed all over the acre. The bungalow consists of three rooms: bedroom, bathroom, kitchen. It is tiny and cozy. It seemed perfectly adorable. The three left us at 1 AM (our train got in at midnight) and we laid down to go to sleep. This is where it gets juicy. Literally, from all the bugs that we squashed.
Jared was fast asleep when I noticed that crawling on the night light beside the bed were 3 or four flying bugs. I flicked them off the light and then looked over and there were 7 or so. Then I looked to my right and there were two bugs crawling on Jared’s leg. I smacked them dead, which woke Jared up (grumpy). I started to freak out as I looked around the room and noticed that there were probably 15 visible bugs just in the bedroom. Jared was annoyed and said “Ashton, they are just bugs. You sleep with bugs all the time”, which is true, but I had this overwhelming fear in the pit of my stomach and I just couldn’t sleep. I decided to take a shower to make the bug-crawling-all-over-me feeling go away. I went into the bathroom and on the floor were a couple of ants. I was a big girl and wadded them up in toilet paper and flushed them down the toilet. I heard a bug flying around the light so I looked up at the ceiling and there were bugs crawling all over the light and in the corners of the room. I ran out of the bathroom screaming and Jared sat up and said “What is going on??” in a very annoyed tone. The fear mixed with his annoyance made me burst into tears and exclaim that I wanted to go home (like a child). The only light in the room was the night light so he couldn’t see what I had seen in the corners of the bathroom or on the wall of the room. I curled up in a tiny ball on our bed and Jared held me while I cried. I think I was having a full blown panic attack because I couldn’t breathe. I had just started to settle down when Jared jumped up and swiped a bug off of his face (which was when he started taking it seriously). We flipped on the lights, revealing the room for the first time since we had laid down. In all of the corners and along the windows were bugs: hundreds of them, and they could fly. I sat up in the bed and looked around. There were bugs on the covers, crawling on my clothes, on the floor, and in my suitcase. I then really started freaking out. Jared made me stare at the pillow and stop looking around because when I did I would start getting chills and having a hard time breathing. I know it sounds so silly, but I felt like we had no escape. I finally pulled myself together and called our Sondra who called Rosella and Nadio at 3:30 AM. They got out of bed, came over, and were shocked. They brought bug killer and they started spraying it everywhere and on everything killing off these crazy flying ants. I felt so helpless because I couldn’t help at all because of my fear. 20 minutes later when they were dead and everything in the room was covered with little black speckles they explained in Italian that we were going somewhere else to spend the night. We weren’t really sure what we going on, but we got in the car. We drove for 20 minutes down a really windy road at really fast speeds (Nadio drives like a race car driver) and arrived in a tiny village. Italians. It was about 5 AM when we arrived (still no sleep) and Nadio and Rosella left and we could finally crash. They lit us a fire in the fireplace and Jared and I snuggled up and went to sleep bug-free.
The cottage that we stayed in last night was absolutely perfect. Too bad there is an even worse internet signal there and we can’t stay there! We woke up in the morning and looked out the window at the view that the night hid from us. Rolling green Tuscan hills and tall skinny trees lined the horizon. Not a house or a road in sight. To the right of the house was a little village. Jared and I went out to the village to find some breakfast and as we were walking through the cobblestone streets and looking around at all of the stone cottages with tiny doors and vines winding around them and I felt like I was in a movie called “Crazy Bugs Chase Young Couple into the Enchanted Tuscan Village”. It was so dreamy and romantic despite the crazy bug part. The cottage is literally exactly what you would see in a chick flick based in Italy. I really wish I had remembered to grab my camera, but I was much too eager to get away from the crazy ants. I didn’t even remember my toothbrush. I actually didn’t remember a change of clothes… so I wore my pajamas to breakfast today. Whatever… they’ll never see me again, and a girl’s gotta eat!
So now we are back at the ant house. They were planning on having us stay here, but Jared and I found more ants crawling in despite the bug spray and extra caulking around the windows. We pointed it out and they decided to move us again. I have no idea where we are going, but Rosella is going to be here in 10 minutes to pick us up. I shaked the dead bugs out of my clothes and packed them up again. We are beginning to wonder if we will ever catch a break. At least God never changes. He is always good. Jared is begging me to play one game of ping-pong before we have to leave the bungalow, so I am going to end my post here. Caio!
When we left Thomas at the train station we left with a promise to keep in touch. If he ever comes to the Midwest he knows he will have a place to stay. He left us a review on airbnb.com that was so kind. It was kind of like leaving family when we left. After our goodbyes, Jared and I locked our suitcases away in a suitcase locker (the Swiss are so efficient) and then wandered around Zurich for a couple of hours before our train departed. We had some money to spend, so we did buy a couple of souvenirs for our family (Meredith!) and then I bought myself a few things as well 0:-), and Jared was so selfless and bought himself nothing. It was so fun to have money that we HAD to spend. We have been so stressed financially the last two months that it was the nicest gift ever for Thomas to give us money that we had to spend in Zurich.
The train ride from Zurich to Milano was 4 hours long and it was a beautiful ride. We went through the Alps, which we were really dying to see, and they were certainly beautiful. I can’t really describe them with words, so I am not even going to try. We arrived in Milano with 15 euros plus change and no ATM in sight. We looked for one with no luck. We had to catch a taxi, so not having much cash was a bad thing (when isn’t it?). The Italians are really aggressive when it comes to getting a taxi so even though we were there first we had to wait for about 10 taxis to go by until I realized that I had to be aggressive and fight for the taxi. Our taxi pulled up and a man who had just walked out of the train station tried to run in front of me and grab it, but I wasn’t having that, so I just cut him off and opened the passenger side of the taxi car. We won. I asked the taxi driver how much it would cost to get to our address and he said somewhere between 20 and 25 euros. Jared looked at me like “what are we going to do” and I said “let’s just get in”. I had just been reading about how the rich rarely have to rely on God because we have everything we need. I said a prayer in that moment that the taxi drive would miraculously cost less than 20 euros. We arrived at our apartment with a 13 euro total. Wow.
Milano was a short stay. We were there three nights, 4 days. 2 of the days were travel days. The other two we spent a lot of time working. On Saturday we went out and explored the city some. We saw a beautiful cathedral and had some really awkward language barrier moments, specifically at a restaurant. I also pet a man’s dog without asking (because I thought he wouldn’t understand English) and he turned to me and said in plain English “never pet a dog in Italy without asking”. Then he talked to us for 30 minutes or so about all of the languages he knew, how much his apartment was worth, how we pronounce Illinois wrong, etc. He tried talking to me in French and I said “sorry, I don’t speak French” and he said “And you went to France? Psh”. He was really full of himself and it took every ounce of self-control for me to not just walk off. All the while as he was talking to us multiple people came by and pet his dog without asking and he didn’t scold them. He ended the conversation asking us if the Italians were the most hospitable because he believed they were and we answered with “the Irish are” which he didn’t like too much. Anyway, that was one of our first experiences with an Italian. It was culturally interesting. The rest of the Italians we have met have been perfectly wonderful, except for one man on the train ride from Milano to Cecina who got really annoyed when I didn’t speak Italian. It makes me feel terrible to not be able to communicate with these people. I am going to try to learn the basics while we are here for 6 weeks!
Upon arriving in Cecina our landlady, Rosella, met us at the train station with her husband Nadio and a translator friend of theirs who did all of the communicating. Her name is Sondra. They were all completely lovely. The took us to our bungalow outside of Cecina down a long gravel road. The property is adorable. It is completely enclosed in stone walls with pathways of stepping stones throughout (covered in slimy snails that we kept stepping on which made me feel so sad). There is a large swimming pool, two bicycles for us to use, a ping pong table, a brick oven and outdoor pizza kitchen (!!!), a barbeque, and multiple terraces with vines and tables stationed all over the acre. The bungalow consists of three rooms: bedroom, bathroom, kitchen. It is tiny and cozy. It seemed perfectly adorable. The three left us at 1 AM (our train got in at midnight) and we laid down to go to sleep. This is where it gets juicy. Literally, from all the bugs that we squashed.
Jared was fast asleep when I noticed that crawling on the night light beside the bed were 3 or four flying bugs. I flicked them off the light and then looked over and there were 7 or so. Then I looked to my right and there were two bugs crawling on Jared’s leg. I smacked them dead, which woke Jared up (grumpy). I started to freak out as I looked around the room and noticed that there were probably 15 visible bugs just in the bedroom. Jared was annoyed and said “Ashton, they are just bugs. You sleep with bugs all the time”, which is true, but I had this overwhelming fear in the pit of my stomach and I just couldn’t sleep. I decided to take a shower to make the bug-crawling-all-over-me feeling go away. I went into the bathroom and on the floor were a couple of ants. I was a big girl and wadded them up in toilet paper and flushed them down the toilet. I heard a bug flying around the light so I looked up at the ceiling and there were bugs crawling all over the light and in the corners of the room. I ran out of the bathroom screaming and Jared sat up and said “What is going on??” in a very annoyed tone. The fear mixed with his annoyance made me burst into tears and exclaim that I wanted to go home (like a child). The only light in the room was the night light so he couldn’t see what I had seen in the corners of the bathroom or on the wall of the room. I curled up in a tiny ball on our bed and Jared held me while I cried. I think I was having a full blown panic attack because I couldn’t breathe. I had just started to settle down when Jared jumped up and swiped a bug off of his face (which was when he started taking it seriously). We flipped on the lights, revealing the room for the first time since we had laid down. In all of the corners and along the windows were bugs: hundreds of them, and they could fly. I sat up in the bed and looked around. There were bugs on the covers, crawling on my clothes, on the floor, and in my suitcase. I then really started freaking out. Jared made me stare at the pillow and stop looking around because when I did I would start getting chills and having a hard time breathing. I know it sounds so silly, but I felt like we had no escape. I finally pulled myself together and called our Sondra who called Rosella and Nadio at 3:30 AM. They got out of bed, came over, and were shocked. They brought bug killer and they started spraying it everywhere and on everything killing off these crazy flying ants. I felt so helpless because I couldn’t help at all because of my fear. 20 minutes later when they were dead and everything in the room was covered with little black speckles they explained in Italian that we were going somewhere else to spend the night. We weren’t really sure what we going on, but we got in the car. We drove for 20 minutes down a really windy road at really fast speeds (Nadio drives like a race car driver) and arrived in a tiny village. Italians. It was about 5 AM when we arrived (still no sleep) and Nadio and Rosella left and we could finally crash. They lit us a fire in the fireplace and Jared and I snuggled up and went to sleep bug-free.
The cottage that we stayed in last night was absolutely perfect. Too bad there is an even worse internet signal there and we can’t stay there! We woke up in the morning and looked out the window at the view that the night hid from us. Rolling green Tuscan hills and tall skinny trees lined the horizon. Not a house or a road in sight. To the right of the house was a little village. Jared and I went out to the village to find some breakfast and as we were walking through the cobblestone streets and looking around at all of the stone cottages with tiny doors and vines winding around them and I felt like I was in a movie called “Crazy Bugs Chase Young Couple into the Enchanted Tuscan Village”. It was so dreamy and romantic despite the crazy bug part. The cottage is literally exactly what you would see in a chick flick based in Italy. I really wish I had remembered to grab my camera, but I was much too eager to get away from the crazy ants. I didn’t even remember my toothbrush. I actually didn’t remember a change of clothes… so I wore my pajamas to breakfast today. Whatever… they’ll never see me again, and a girl’s gotta eat!
So now we are back at the ant house. They were planning on having us stay here, but Jared and I found more ants crawling in despite the bug spray and extra caulking around the windows. We pointed it out and they decided to move us again. I have no idea where we are going, but Rosella is going to be here in 10 minutes to pick us up. I shaked the dead bugs out of my clothes and packed them up again. We are beginning to wonder if we will ever catch a break. At least God never changes. He is always good. Jared is begging me to play one game of ping-pong before we have to leave the bungalow, so I am going to end my post here. Caio!
No comments:
Post a Comment