Note: this post has been migrated from my former blog “Parliamo dell’Italia – una ragazza fortunata a Perugia.”
[Jimbo]
Well, I had been waiting most anxiously (or maybe not) for my trip to Italy to see my daughter Sarah. My initial trepidations, including dogs in the kennel, being gone 14 days, missing out on work projects and missing my otherwise planned prime rib dinner on Christmas were all overcome by the excitement of Italy – right? And let’s not mention the extreme anxiety caused by the threatened British Airways strike. So I dropped off the dogs at the kennel and politely asked the man not to use my pets for any medical experiments while I was gone and went home to wait for the limo (while I checked my CrackBerry over and over). Well British Airways called promptly and advised our flight was delayed two hours. Great start right? So I hurriedly searched for the contact info for the limo company that I so irresponsibly lost (mistake #1 with The Genral) and told them to hold off.
We left eventually and took off around 8:30 from Denver. I squeezed myself into the straight jacket like coach seating configuration and eventually enjoyed a two or three hour neck snapping nap with that great hangover feeling when you wake up. I then dined on some rubber beef and patiently waited to get off the damn plane while I watched The Genral try to kill the oaf in front of her who had his seat on full recline. We got to London and, lo and behold, we missed our connection to Italy. A three-hour wait in line to rebook with severe jet lag after a four day, 60 hour work week was exactly what I needed to start my vacation off right. We eventually made it to Rome where I enjoyed a couple of days of no sleep and more jet lag and where I proceeded to famously tip wait staff American style without knowing the tip was already included in my bill.
Then on to Mola di Bari, land of my paternal grandfather. To get there I had to pick up our car in Rome, a stick shift, full size, Peugeot minivan parked in a garage built for Minis and baby Fiats. Does anyone know that you have to pull up on a stick shift before you put it in reverse? And who builds stick shift minivans anyway – only the French apparently? I eventually got out of the lot without taking anyone out and got on the Autostrada. There are only two speeds on the Autostrada – illegally, extremely fast and ridiculously slow. There is no in between and either speed invites major trouble that the Italians simply don’t recognize. More about driving later.
Arrival in Mola where we hooked up with Sarah – finally. We toured the town, found a place to park our bus, and settled in to our room. Shockingly, Sarah cooked Christmas Day dinner & it was delicious, but the greatest meal we had was on Christmas Eve. Gina, owner of our B&B and an Italian energizer bunny, invited us to dinner with her family. We earned our 4 seats at the table by learning how to make pasta, by hand, with her family members. After the feast, we had a Baby Jesus festival parade right at midnight where we were given a Baby Jesus to place in the manger, after four processions around the dinner table and lots of Auguris! Upon leaving Mola, we came close to wedging the minivan between a building and a few parked cars on a street meant for scooters which caused a major Genral SFOM that required a significant recovery period for everyone.
We took a quick trip to Modugno, hometown of Rocco DeNapoli, where I almost killed everyone by driving the wrong way down an Autostrada exit ramp as a result of a minor glitch in our navigation system. Not a problem at all.
So after Modugno, to fulfill a promise to my mother, I went on a pilgrimage to my maternal grandparents place of birth in Ricigliano. Never been there before and never going back. We exited the Autostrada (already in the middle of nowhere) and climbed a mountain to this little town of glory – not. This place was in the middle of nowhere perched on a mountaintop inhabited by sheepherders. No shops, no restaurants – nothing. I searched in vain for family members, only to find an old man who spoke dialect that Sarah could barely decipher. The place looked surprisingly like West Virginia and at that point the realization set in that I am an Italian hillbilly. We peeled out and looked for the highway – on to Sorrento.
I am leaving the rest of this blog to Sarah as this is a joint effort. I leave here today to seek sleep and solace in my little ranch house in Littleton, while we abandon Nick and Sarah in Perugia. Nick is staying an extra week to keep his sister company before her classes start. I am concerned that when I left him he was drinking a beer and making origami. Mamma Mia!
It's only begun 