Autobahnanza

Some additions

Before the trip ends, we wanted to share a few snippets that maybe didn’t make it into other blogs, but that we wanted to remember, and you may or may not find interesting.

1) Driving. On our first day driving, Chris got to drive through Germany and push the car in terms of speed. People drive really fast here. I wanted my chance when I got behind the wheel, so when the traffic opened up, I pushed the speedometer up to 160 km/hr. Do the math if you’re interested. I thought this was thrilling until, at the very moment I was congratulating myself, a car blitzed by me in the left lane. I guess I won’t ever be a true Italian driver.

2) Bars. Chris described bars in Italy as “Greenberry’s with a liquor shelf.” For non-Charlottesvillians, Greenberry’s is our local answer to Starbucks. All of them serve alcohol, gelato, coffee, and pastries. You never order anything at the bar, you always get a table – unless it is Milan at 5:00, in which case they put out tons of free food on the bar, and it is proper to linger by the bar.

3) That brings me to Starbucks – haven’t seen a one since leaving Munich. It seems the Italian coffee culture is too strong on its own. Coffee (espresso) is cheap in Italy – about the same price as water most places, but no one drinks it with milk (cappuccino or latte) after noon.

4) English speakers. Thankfully, many people spoke English. Of particular note was an encounter with a friendly Italian at Peck (see Chris’s blog about Milan). They had a wine cellar that was breathtaking. I wanted to take pictures of the room, but I was too embarrassed to do so. Choosing a bottle amongst so many Italian wines would have been a blind stab. We asked a guy who was working there for some help, which he kindly gave us. Then he proceeded to tell us about a trip to the states that he took where he traveled the western states staying solely in Motel 6s. He said he booked them all online and made a Motel 6 tour. I’m not sure that is the way I would choose to see the states, but Motel 6 should be thankful for their internet presence.

5) Getting gas. Besides being very expensive, getting gas was always a cultural experience. Do you pay before or after? Do they take credit cards or not? Chris usually managed to figure it out without too much trauma. On one particular occasion, near the Italian/Swiss border, the gas station attendant kept walking around our car, checking out the tires and generally giving it a good look-over. We were a little confused at first, but then he went and got the other person working there to come look at the car. Then we were really confused. They both circled the car for a few minutes, bending over to examine every little detail. Finally, they tried to talk to us, and we discovered they spoke not one word of Elnglish. From what we could make out, our car is not available in Italy until August, and ours must have been the first they had seen. I think they liked it.

posted by natalie @ 9:03 AM